This is a sponsored series.

In light of National Adoption Awareness month in November, I will be sharing our adoption story/stories over a series of posts each week, with permission from my husband.  I will start by explaining what I mean when I say “we are expecting…maybe”. The second week I will post the story of our first adoption. The following week I will post about our second adoption. The final two weeks I will post adoption resources, provide helpful information/tips, and answer some questions raised via comments in the previous weeks! Stay tuned each week to gain a bit more insight into the adoption process and how our family came to be.

This series is sponsored by Grady, Hayes, & Neary, LLC Attorneys at Law in Waukesha, WI.

It’s Hard to Control the Excitement. Claire waited years for a family to call her own. Her new parents waited almost as long for a child to help complete their family. Then Grady, Hayes & Neary stepped in to bring them together. Over  the years, we have helped build thousands of families through adoption. We also offer unique expertise in cases of guardianship, surrogacy, paternity, child custody and foster care. For more information on our services, call us today at 262-347-2001 or visit www.ghnlawyers.com.

Week Three: Adopting Again…
Heartbreak & Hope

Getting the itch for another baby

We knew we wanted to have our children close in age…ideally two years apart.  So, after Quinton’s first birthday, we knew that we should start the process again soon. (For details on Quinton’s adoption, read the second article.)

In September of 2014, we joined a nation-wide adoption pool with an agency out of Illinois. We were very antsy to have our children 2 years part (I cannot stress that enough). Knowing adoption could take several years, we thought we already started too late.  We went two months and didn’t hear anything. Then in November we heard that a birth mom chose us.  She was about 14 weeks pregnant.  We chatted with her on the phone and she asked us to fly down to the ultrasound appointment in January when the doctor would determine the gender of the baby. WOW!  We were overjoyed.

Heartbreak at the Holidays

That Thanksgiving, feeling confident, we broke the news to our entire family over Thanksgiving dinner.  The family was excited for us…but then things started to change.

The birth mother was getting slower to respond to emails.  Eventually she told us the baby was due at the end of June 2014.  As we approached Christmas, the communication stopped.  We really wanted to tell my husband’s family (who didn’t know yet) about the baby at Christmas with a special shirt we bought for our son Quinton that made the announcement. It read, “Somebody has a secret. I’m going to be a big brother in June of 2014” with a reindeer on it.

We said that if we didn’t hear anything, we wouldn’t do the announcement…We never heard from her again. On New Years Eve, it finally settled in with me that this mother was going to parent. Although I wished her the best and understood it was her decision (and a hard one), I still had a good cry, all alone on NYE, in my parents-in-laws house.  It was quite the bummer of a Holiday season.  So we went home and packed that announcement shirt away, and also packed away the idea that our children would ever be 2 years apart in age.

Continuing to Wait & Hope

Several more months went by and still no word.  In early March, our home study agency reached out to us (important – the home study agency in Wisconsin was different than our adoption agency in Illinois).  They said that a birth mother approached them looking for an adoptive family (that usually didn’t happen for them and we were paying another agency to find a birth mother for us), so they asked if we could provide our profile for the birth mother to look at as an option. We agreed.

A whole month went by and no word. We assumed the birth mother had chosen a different family or chosen to parent. Then on March 27^th, we got the call that she had, in fact, picked us. She was 30 weeks along with a BOY. The following day I chatted with her on the phone and she asked what we were going to name him – so she started calling him that.  We put our adoption with the agency out of Illinois on hold-We were allowed to do that for up to three years. See the first article for details on when we went off hold.

To tell our family of our news, we broke out “that” shirt that we had packed away in January.  We fixed the shirt from saying, “June 2014” to saying, “May or June 2014” with masking tape and put it on our son.  The family was overjoyed again.

Blessed to be at the Birth

Seven weeks later, on May 15, 2014, the birth mother texted me around 5:00 am, “my water broke, better get up here”.  So we found daycare for my son (my parents were out of town) and drove up to meet her at the hospital. It was the first (and only time) we met her in person.  She was so lovely and when the time of the birth came, she was so nice to let my husband and I watch our second miracle enter the world!  We had a hospital room right next to hers. One of my favorite pictures is of me holding our baby boy Brooks with his birth mother looking at me smiling, with a smile that really read, this is meant to be…I’m at peace.

Miracles Abound

Now, if you didn’t catch in the first article, our first son was born May 14^th, 2012.  And if you remember, my husband and I wanted more than anything children 2 years apart.  Well, we got that, almost…  2 years and 1 day apart….nothing short of a miracle.  And to think that as of March 26^th  we had no word of a baby and it was 7 weeks until our son turned 2. And then the day after we celebrated our 2-year old, he got a late birthday present – a brother. God is Good. I wrote this about my boys, “Birthdays 1 day apart; forever brothers by heart”.

Next week I will answer some of the frequent questions that I have received.  For example, “Did you get to name your boys” and “Do your children know they are adopted”?  Check back next week for answers to these and other questions. Also, submit any questions you have in the comments and I’ll be sure to address them next week!

Check out the earlier articles in this series:

week 1, click here to read, “We are expecting…maybe”.

Week 2, click here to read, “Meeting our Miracle”.