It's a ........(second installment of Agirl's story)

(scroll to the post below if you have not read part 1)

Well, we knew that if God indeed had another child for us, He would provide the way to bring him or her home to us! So, we sent in the paperwork and began the process yet again! It's so easy to think, "Geez.....we've done all this once before! Why in the world do we have to do it all again?!!" But, you do so, we did!

It took months before time for a seminar. Thankfully, our same stork, oh, I mean Social Worker, that we loved the first time, we had again! She was able to come visit our home and get the home study done and approved in May, 2004. Then, it was seminar time! In June, we traveled to Dallas, with several other couples, and had our "how to do this again" seminar with the awesome staff at Buckner! One of those other couples were these sweet people and their young son, back to add a brother or sister to their family. In talking with them, we found out that we had the neatest connections with people in their son's birth family! In the last city we'd lived in, we had gone to church with their son's birth grandfather, who was an associate pastor there, and his birth mother was pregnant with him during our time there! And, at that time, in our current town, where they live also!, we were attending church with his birth great-grandmother! It was so exciting to learn and make new adoptive family friends in our same town!

Anyway..........soon after, we had our "Dear Birth mother letter" completed and we were in "The Book"! Now, the official waiting really begins!

By August, we got a call! From a SW who works with the birth parents. She was meeting with a couple the following day and ours was one of the profiles they wanted to study and ask more about! I'll never forget this day...........I was keeping my sweet friend's precious little newborn after she had returned back to work teaching school. In my excitement that afternoon, I went flying out my door, into her face on the sidewalk, screaming and yelling! I scared her at first! She thought something was wrong with Baby E!!!! (Sorry Gail!)

That was August 26, 2004. We got "the call" that this couple in fact wanted to meet us and see if we would be the ones for their baby, should they chose to place. We went and met them on September 1st! This was a situation that the birth father was in fact involved, that does not always, perhaps even often, happen. They were together, already struggling to parent 2 young girls. He was very, very adamant and assured that they needed to place this new baby. V, birth mom, was not so sure.

We had a great meeting and shortly afterwards, we all agreed that this was "A Match". We proceeded quickly forward.....as their baby girl was due September 23rd!! We would drive back to Dallas twice more to meet with them and there would be many phone calls from them, letting us know how V and baby were doing. We busily began painting and preparing the nursery!

On the second visit, we worked up the adoption plan. They wanted us at the hospital, present during the birth, with visitation rights afterwards. V told me to choose the going home outfit. We worked out the contact details of the open adoption, etc. Lots of little details that we were not a part of with Jman. It all seemed too unreal, that this was really happening! When we left the adoption agency, they took us to the hospital to tour the delivery area and then invited us to lunch at their home. Home was a very tiny apartment for the 4 of them and they had so little in it. We could clearly see that the love for their children was there but, physically and materially, not much else. We couldn't imagine being faced with the decision they were going to have to make for this baby! We had taken Jman with us for this visit as we wanted them to meet the possible new brother of their baby.

September 18th, 2004, we headed out early to Dallas for our required support group meeting at the agency. When you are a waiting or matched family, you are required to attend quarterly meetings until after a baby is placed. Once they are, you must go to meetings monthly until the adoption is finalized. After this particular meeting, we were to meet with our matched family once again! Birth day was quickly approaching and we were so excited!!

We came out of our meeting and..............they were not there. I don't know exactly what it was, I will call it 'fear'.....seized my heart and I felt a panic wash over me. "They're just late. They had transportation problems (highly likely!). They'll be here. Maybe they called!" "She just called and talked to me days ago and said "see you then!""! We walked with our SW to the main office. Not there either. There were no messages. We went to Carol's office to talk. I began to cry. They weren't coming, were they?!

No.

They were not coming. An hour later. Nearly two. No sign of them. No call. We knew in our hearts, they had backed out. The anger set in. Why didn't they at least call! It's their baby! We know that! But, they invited us in.........we didn't invite ourselves in!! Have the respect to call and tell us! Carol told us to prepare ourselves to probably never hear from them again. (And remember that sweet couple from seminar that I mentioned up there? Before they left the support group meeting to drive home, they left us the sweetest note on our windshield....letting us know that they were praying...and to let them know what happened! Jenny would soon get the tearful phone call too!)

I cried nearly the whole almost 4 hours home. I was physically ill. My sister was there keeping Jman. I called my friend S at church. I could barely speak. I asked her to tell everyone, to start the phone prayer chain. There was no way I could repeat this over and over and over.

We called our parents. Again,I couldn't speak through my sobbing. This had happened to us prior to our getting Jman! S had changed her mind after her baby was born. How could this be happening to us again?!! Is this some cruel joke, test?! You open your heart, knowing that nothing is done, nothing is final, until 48 hours after that baby is born and those papers are signed. However, you have to allow yourself to hope, to love, to be open to the idea that this child could be yours. I told eveyone that I was not sure I could do this again!

Had we been wrong? Had we misread our message from the Lord? Was He now trying to tell us that we weren't to do this again? How could we set ourselves up to be so vulnerable again and the pain be so devastating, again. And this time, we had our first child involved too. We had to explain to him that the baby he 'met' in V's tummy would not be his new sister.

Each night after that day, I would sit in the nursery rocker and cry and pray, and pray and cry. It was horrible, to say the least!! Another emotional miscarriage of the heart!

Jman never wavered! He was insistent upon having a sibling and that it would be a girl! He prayed every night for a sister! He carried the faith when ours was lacking! And, we soon called the agency and said, "Put us back in!!!!"

Agirl, your story is far from over! I will end here for now, long posts are hard to read and follow! I am preparing to leave for the next 3 days. I have a Christian Weekday Education conference to attend. I don't think this story will finish itself tonight before I must sleep to leave at 6:00 a.m.!!! So, you'll just have to come back Sunday! You know how it ends, with my beautiful angel girl but, you'll want to see all that God did to get her here!!