Part 1 of 6
For Dominic.
This is the story of how you came to us, your birth story,
or as some would call it, your adoption story. But mostly, it is just a story
about waiting and praying and not losing hope in God, who hears all our prayers
even when he doesn’t seem to be listening.
You may believe that your birth story begins in August 2016,
but for us, the story of how you came into our lives began many years before
you were actually born.
For your father and I, your birth story actually begins in
October 2012. October has always been a sentimental time of year for your
father and me. It is the month when we were married, and it is also the month
when we lost our first child (whom we named Francis) in 2006. In 2012, it was
the month when we would have been welcoming a baby that we’d lost 8 months
earlier. So, that particular October was a little difficult for us as we struggled with an emptiness that had
become all too familiar during much of our marriage. For some reason, our
family still felt incomplete even though we had two beautiful sons. We began to
wonder if God was asking us to adopt again. We knew we had more love for
another child and so, after much prayer and discernment, our hearts began making a place for
you and from that point on, our wait for you began. Little did we know then
just how long that wait would be.
We told our families about our desire to adopt again during
our Thanksgiving holiday that same year. There was enthusiasm regarding the
idea of us adding another child to our family, and our parents were excited by
the thought of becoming grandparents again. We knew they would open their
hearts to you.
That following December, we contacted the adoption agency
that we’d adopted your brother through and were told that it would be a few
months before they would be able to get the home study finalized. We were so
anxious to get started! Soon after, we found out I was pregnant again, but
shortly after, we lost that child to miscarriage, too. Needless to say, our
desire to adopt after that loss just grew stronger. After so much loss, we needed you in our lives more than ever,
and we were convinced that God had a special child in mind for us through
adoption.
Finally, in March 2013, our home study to adopt was
finalized and our official wait to be matched with a child began. We had no
preference regarding gender or race, and we were open to various adoption
situations. We wanted God to lead us to the baby meant for us.
We waited that year, even delaying our move back to Kentucky
from Missouri for a year for no other reason than to be able to adopt (each
state has different adoption laws). We were optimistic that we would be matched
with a birthmother within the year. We’d even completed a 54-day novena
specifically for our intention to adopt again. I just knew that our Blessed
Mother would not let us down! But when that year, 2013, came to an end and we
hadn’t even come close to being matched, we felt another great sense of loss.
Was God even hearing us? I asked this question time and time again. Knowing we
could not put off our need to move back to Kentucky any longer, we allowed our
home study to expire and relocated. Knowing that this move meant we would have to start the
adoption process all over again felt devastating. I just couldn’t understand why God
would ask us to start all over again if this was truly his will for our family.
The passing of time during the months after we arrived in Kentucky was agonizing because we were not eligible to adopt. I kept wondering
if we were missing our only chance at adopting during this period of time that
we were ineligible and if the baby meant for us been born and given to another family. Therefore, we were anxious to get approved again by an agency
in Kentucky so that we could be back in the “waiting pool”.
After getting settled into our new home, we began contacting
various adoption agencies again. With no knowledge of adoption agencies or laws
in our new home state, this became a very frustrating process. One agency was
very encouraging to us until they took our initial payment, and then they
became very discouraging, and of course, the money we'd already paid them was non-refundable. Other
agencies were nice enough, but did not agree with our Catholic beliefs and wanted
us to sign “statements of faith” contrary to Catholic teaching. Finally, after much prayer and searching, we
were led to an agency that felt like a good fit. Working with them, we started
the process all over again, and by the end of December 2014, we had completed
another home study.
It was a huge relief to be eligible to adopt again, and we
prayed that our wait would not be much longer. It had now been two years since
we’d made the decision to adopt. To hopefully speed up the process, we decided to
hire an adoption consultant after being told by the consulting agency that they
typically matched families within only a few months. So, we became excited and
happily paid our fee. But they were wrong. Again, after paying our money, we
found out that most of the birthmother situations presented to us by our
consultant would have a “catch”. It was then that we realized that there was a
darker side to adoption, and it was adoptive families like ours that often
suffered the consequences. And although our consultant did show our profile to
several birthmothers, none of them ever chose our family while other families
were matched within a few weeks or months. It all seemed incredibly unfair. Over the course of that year, we gradually lost count of the
number of birthmothers who looked at our profile. We were never given any explanation regarding
why we were not being chosen, and as time went by, the sense of
rejection began to feel overwhelming.
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