For Want of Four

The answer was yes.  When Abraham was born, we jointly decided that if his birth mom ever found herself in a situation where she needed to place another baby, the answer would automatically be yes. No questions.  No consulting one another.  Just yes.

So when I got that call two and a half years, I said yes.  Then called Scott freaking out, crying, and with much joy.

She wasn't sure what she needed to do.  The decision, while her own, was influenced by many moving parts in her life.  In the end, she decided that baby needed to stay with her.  We were sad, but with that baby a seed was planted in our hearts that we had room in our lives for one more.

One more very wanted baby.

So a year after his birth, we finished up our home study and were set for a fourth.  If you've followed here for long, you know we were matched very quickly and poured our hearts into a woman just a few hours from us in Kansas who changed her mind about adoption at the last minute.

With broken hearts and spirits, we mourned, then picked up the pieces and started being shown again.

We got another call from Abe's birth mom.  A friend of hers was pregnant and wanted the baby to grow up with Abe.  It was a dire situation for this woman.  She needed out, and we did all we could to get her to a place of safety and stability.  She ended up miscarrying that baby in some tragic circumstances, so again, we mourned.  For her and for that baby.

Then I heard of an expectant mom in Michigan who needed a family for her child.  She couldn't find one that felt just right to her, but after praying over a stack of profiles, she found us and quit looking.  We again, with abandon, poured our hearts and lives into her and this baby.

I received a call two weeks before the fourth of July asking me to come adopt the baby in Kansas who was now four months old.  I drove out to pick him up.  I held him, played with him, and fell completely in love.  She decided she needed two more weeks to say goodbye and tell her other children when they returned from grandma's house.  She texted me a week later to say a friend convinced her to go through with it.

Then last week it all fell apart... again.  The baby in Michigan a week old now and in the NICU and we are home, without him.  While we cling to a sliver of hope that he will indeed end up with us, its fading fast.  Paternity test and then further decisions will decide where he ends up.

And sometimes the mourning just takes over.  How many times can this happen to one family?  Is this really what we were supposed to do?

The road forward from here isn't one toward another child.  Its one of moving forward with our three because at this point we have reached a point of emotional and financial exhaustion.

The thought of loving big again doesn't even feel possible.

And yet the longing for a fourth didn't go anywhere.  Its still there.  The nursery still sits empty.  Our hearts are still in it.

This is what it means to be held
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive
This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was that when everything fell
We'd be held 

This hand is bitterness
We want to taste it and
Let the hatred numb our sorrows
The wise hand opens slowly
To lilies of the valley and tomorrow 

This is what it means to be held
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive
This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was that when everything fell
We'd be held 

If hope if born of suffering
If this is only the beginning
Can we not wait, for one hour
Watching for our savior 

This is what it means to be held
How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life
And you survive
This is what it is to be loved and to know
That the promise was that when everything fell
We'd be held