Finding Our Baby - Adoption Part 4

In December, more situations kept coming up and we kept showing our profile with the hope that eventually we would find the right child. December 14th I saw a posting for a baby girl born two days earlier and we decided to show our profile. The next day our profile is shown, but no family is chosen. Meanwhile the baby is in the hospital and we wonder if we'll ever get to go to the hospital again for a baby. I begin realizing just how lucky we were to be at the hospital when Zachary was born. We were able to hold him an hour and a half after he was born. We then spent four days in the hospital with him and his birthmother. What a unique experience! Those are cherished memories.

December 20th, we finally find out another family was chosen for the baby girl. That same day Ron gets a fortune cookie from a friend at work. The fortune says:

"Don't let doubt and suspicion bar your progress."

We know our adoption is going to happen, we just don't know which situation is going to work out. Then just before Christmas I was reading adoptivemomma's blog. She has some great adoption information and she also passes situations along occassionally. She had reposted a situation she'd seen from adoption adertising. They were looking for a family to match an expectant mother due January 6th with a baby girl. We had heard good things about adoption advertising from a few people, so we decided to contact them about the situation. When I emailed the caseworker, she was working out some of the details and actually the situation sounded a bit complicated. We told her we would show our profile if she thought we were a good match. We also found out that a family had already backed out on this expectant mother after being matched. (Sounds familiar? Same thing happened to Zachary's birthmother). Everything was a good match for us so far, we were just waiting for the legal part to be worked out. The caseworker and I emailed back and forth a few times and I felt really good about working with them. I also felt good about the adoption situation.

Then Christmas Eve Day I get another email from the caseworker. She had spoken with a few attorneys and the adoption was going to be about $4000-$5000 more. I told her, sorry, but it was out of our budget. We couldn't come up with the extra money on such short notice. It's a little bit easier to say no to a situation when you know you can't come up with the funds. I felt at peace about it. I felt like if this adoption was going to happen, it was going to happen. You cannot force it to happen.
After that, we had a great Christmas. All of the adoption situations had fallen through this year, but we had our sweet Zachary. If no other baby joined our family, at least we had him.

December 27th we went to Gardner Village with some of Ron's family. We see this figurine and decide to buy it.

It reminded us of our little Zachary, who loves balloons. We thought how perfect to let our hope float a little higher.
Then Tuesday, December 28th, the caseworker calls me on my cell phone. She asks me if I've heard of an adoption agency called Heart and Soul.
Indeed I have. We applied with Heart and Soul in September. They have all our documents except our birth certificates, which are sitting on my desk. (I was waiting until they matched us to send them because it happened to be our last original copies).
She then tells me they've been able to get the legal work for this adoption back into our budget!!! I had thought about calling Heart and Soul, but wasn't sure what to tell them (and I knew the adoption would happen if it was supposed to happen). The caseworker had done everything for me, yay!
That same day I forward her an email with our profile attached. She tells me another caseworker will be in touch the following day.
The caseworker does call the next day and she thinks we'll be a good match for this expectant mother (Amanda). She thinks she'll like us. She also tells us she can send our profile electronically, but Amanda doesn't have a computer. She schedules a conference call with us all for the following day at 10 am.
We're nervous, excited and can't believe this is happening!
December 29th, I watch the clock all morning. I have a pad of paper to write down everything she says. I also have a few questions written down in case I can't think of what to say. Ten O'clock comes and we get a call from the caseworker. She tries to conference Amanda in, but just gets voicemail. She tries for 30-40 minutes, but nothing. We feel a little defeated, but this is adoption. We have no control over it and we move forward with the rest of our day; still hoping to hear back. Later that afternoon the caseworker calls again. She finally reached Amanda and something had happened with her phone. She still WANTS to talk with us! Big sigh of relief. The call is planned for December 30th at 4 pm. We anxiously await. The day and time comes and the caseworker tells us to talk about ourselves. Afterall, Amanda hasn't even seen a photo of us or anything. We did talk and also asked her questions, but there were distractions on both ends. Afterward, the caseworker told us she would call us back the next day and let us know Amanda's decision. We didn't feel the call went all that well, but I still had the thought that this adoption would happen if it was supposed to happen.
I still had hope.
I gazed at our little "Hope" figurine sitting on the shelf. We had placed it next to "Our Gift" figurine we had received at Zachary's sealing.

Everything felt right.

The next day the caseworker called with the best news! She had read our letter to Amanda over the phone and she wants us to be the parents of her baby girl! On December 31st, we were matched. We wouldn't have our baby by the end of the year, but at least we were matched! That night we went to a family party with the great news! Everyone was so excited for us. The next day we helped my dad all day and bought a few new girl clothes and road trip food on the way home. We thought we had plenty of time to drive to Texas the following Tuesday to meet Amanda and be there before her due date on Thursday.

Oh yeah, we were wrong.

Adoption Part 5 coming soon...