Adoption...When It's Really Hard (Part 1)

First things first...so sorry for such a lapse in updating you guys.  It's not that we haven't been super busy with the adoption, it was just that not a lot happened for a few weeks to update about....just waiting on paperwork to go through so we could submit our dossier.  Then, suddenly - it was time for a major update. I've promised this whole time to be transparent with you about our adoption and I have kept my word.  So far, there have been a few twists and turns to our journey - but nothing majorly hard.  Nothing to make my heart want to crumble under the weight of it all.  But the truth about adoption is that it's not always warm fuzzies...sometimes it just plain sucks.  And sometimes it's worse than that.

On September 27 - a Friday night - my phone rang around 6 pm.  Since I was in the middle of cooking supper and my kids were going crazy (and Jacob was at work), I planned to take a quick glance at the caller ID and keep at the tasks at hand.  But there it was...it said "Lifeline".  That's our adoption agency.  That's my social worker.  She's calling me after hours...on a Friday night.  It's either really good or really bad.  And it's too soon for this to be really good.  So it must be really bad, right? I finally stopped the inner dialogue and picked up the stupid phone.

I can truly barely hear our social worker, Beth, over the pounding in my heart - and the screaming squeals of joy coming from the smalls - when she tells me she has a file of a 2 year old little boy who seems just perfect for us...do I want her to send it to me? ABSO-FREAKIN-LUTELY! She walks me through the steps to download "Dropbox" and then all of a sudden, there's the file.  I pull it up and I scroll as fast as I can to the first picture.

And there he is...this beautiful, precious, so adorable that he has to be mine little boy..."V".  She gives me the quick rundown of his file and explains the next steps should we pursue to adopt him.  As much as I love talking to Beth, I don't think I could get off of the phone quick enough so I could pour over his file.  She gave me her cell and promised me that it was okay to call her with any questions at all or to talk about anything regarding this little boy over the weekend...that's another reason why she's the best.

I immediately called Jacob.  We were both floored.  We had no idea this would happen so quickly.  The excitement was building.  The love was exploding.  I gave him the shorter rundown of what Beth had told me and tried to send him a picture of "V" - poor Jacob...his cell isn't exactly this decade, but he rarely complains.  He couldn't see the picture - so he was going to have to wait until he got home at 6:30 in the morning.

All night, I translated his file in Google translate...did I mention this 70+ page file was in Spanish? And that I don't read Spanish? Did I mention my eyes were crossed and my head was pounding after 4 hours of copy/paste/translate/read/repeat?  Or that I didn't care how long I had to stay up to learn as much as I could about the little boy who I believed with every passing minute was going to be my son?

Y'all....this sweet, little boy.  So innocent.  So precious.  The brownest eyes.  The cutest smile. The darkest hair.  And so much to process about the things he had been through in his life and the events that led to him needing a new mommy and daddy.  My heart could not help but to start processing and protecting this child I had never held.

As soon as Jacob got home the following morning, I showed him "V"'s picture.  The look in his eyes...I've only seen it 3 other times - the first time those eyes landed on Anna Beth, Lynnsie, and Creek.  I knew in that moment that we were going to pursue this little boy.

Jacob tried to sleep that day (after working all night), yet he couldn't.  He tossed and turned. He got up.  He laid back down.  I tried to stay busy, but really - nothing could take my heart away from "V".  It would just hit me that I had most likely met my son.  The one I'd prayed for and longed for and ached for and filled out a small forests worth of paperwork for over the last 7 months.  I had texted a few friends and our parents, so they could pray with us.  One friend, Mary, said - "Wow...finally...the little boy we've prayed for!"

Finally, Jacob gave up on sleep and said let's talk about "V". Um...okay! Then he basically said, "It's him.  This is our son.  What do we do now?" And just like that - it felt like our family was on the way to being completed.  I immediately called Beth - who was ecstatic - and then typed up our Letter of Intent to send to Colombia's central authority.  The LOI tells them that you intend to adopt a certain child once your dossier is approved.

I couldn't believe it, y'all.  We finally knew him.  My mommy heart immediately grew as I began to take on all of his life experiences and grieve for him and with him what he had been through.  I vowed in my heart that he would NEVER experience those things again.  He was no longer an orphan.  He was my son and I was on my way to get him.

It'd be so awesome if right now I could share a picture of him with you.  It'd be so awesome if the update only got better from here.

But, like I said above, sometimes adoption just plain sucks.  In fact, I'd argue that most of adoption sucks - but that's an entirely different post.  Anyway....

A few days later, Beth calls me back.  I knew that she had to double check his file to make sure our LOI was the first one submitted, but we really weren't worried about that being a problem.  But I could tell in her voice as soon as I answered.  I could hear the sadness and the dread in what she was about to have to tell me.

We could not adopt "V".  Colombia should have never sent her his file.  It's really, really great for "V" because he was actually already being adopted by another family.  Beth wasn't really sure where the mistake came in, but his file should have been locked because he already had a family coming for him.  Pure joy and excitement for him.  Total heartbreak for us...

Next post, I'll write about what we felt and went through, how we processed everything over the next few days.  It's taken me a long time to write this because...well...it hurts.  I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to burst into tears right now or that the pain didn't come back as I revisited this experience.  It hurt.  It still does.  It probably will for a while.