b's adoption story

We started the adoption process in June of 2008, after we struggled with infertility for a number of years.  We spent the whole summer on the mountains of paperwork.  We didn’t take a vacation that summer and spent most of our free time on the paperwork, dr visits, fingerprinting, etc.  We had three home study visits with our caseworker, the final visit in August of 2008. 

We spent the next five weeks working through our profile.  It was finally available and posted on our agency’s website by October 2008.  We were officially in the “waiting pool”. 

The rest of this is a “story” that I have been asked to share at several different speaking venues, about our open adoption and relationship with B's birthmother (she prefers birthmother over “first mother”).  There’s definitely a lot more to “our story”, but this will be a way for you to catch up on the last two years.  I wrote this when B was about six months old.  Our relationship with Ash and her family is stronger than ever.  We are so blessed to have them in our lives.  B calls Ash, ASHEE, and loves every opportunity he has to see her (which is often)!

In February 2009, we received a call that our profile was going to be shown to an expectant mother.  Ash was a young college girl in our area who had waited until late in her pregnancy to choose adoptive parents for her “little bundle” (as she called him).  She spent months praying that God would guide her in choosing adoptive parents.  She was motivated by wanting the very best for her baby, and finally felt like God had given her a picture of who the adoptive parents should be. When she viewed our profile, she knew we were the parents she was looking for.

We were excited and nervous when we learned that we would meet Ash, as well as her Mom, Dad, and sister. When we walked through the door, she jumped from her seat and gave us both a huge hug. As we spent the next hours in conversation, laughter and tears, we quickly began to love this very brave amazing young woman. It was very evident to us what a selfless person she was.

Six days after our initial meeting, our social worker called to let us know that Ash was in labor!! B was born on March 8, 2009. Two days later we arrived at the hospital for B's release. Ash, initially, requested a very limited amount of contact.  She wanted to spend every minute of those first two days with him, because she didn’t know when she would see him again.  We were very open to openness, but the amount of time between our meeting and B's birth didn’t allow any of us to really know how things would turn out.

When we walked in the hospital room, B was sleeping on Ash's chest and he was so beautiful and perfect in every way.   Her eyes were filled with tears as she watched him sleep. We exchanged tearful hugs with the whole family, and gathered in a huge prayer circle around her hospital bed. She then handed B to me. I stood there holding him as the whole family said their good-byes. It was the biggest mix of emotions I have ever experienced; pure joy in holding this precious baby who now belonged to us, but overwhelming grief for Ash and her family.

After placement, we really hoped Ash would be open to emailing directly with us. When her social worker told us that she was interested in the same arrangement, we were so thrilled, and we started emailing her the next day. We were so excited each time we received an email from her!  In her email replies she always closed with how confident and secure she was in us, and even though she was devastated, her heart was at peace. She felt that this was the way things were supposed to be all along.  About three months later, we got together with Ash's family, for the first time since the hospital.  What an amazing reunion it was!  We talked and cried the day away!  The open adoption doors have been wide open ever since then.  

At one of the adoption seminars that we attended, we were told that we would want to adopt the birthmother, just as much as we wanted to adopt her baby. We really could not comprehend this and thought it was a little “out there”, until we met Ash.  She is so very special to us and we feel that she and her family are as much a part of our family as B is. We know they feel the same way about us.

We are excited for the years to come, that B will know first-hand how much his birthmother loves him and will some day understand why she made the choice that she did. We are so thankful that Ash chose life. Many people wonder how we can be so open with Ash and her family.  Besides the fact that she is so easy to love the explanation that I give is that it is truly a God-designed miraculous  extraordinary  FAMILY  that only  HE could have created!