What is the Journey like? Part 2

Getting Matched and Meeting the Child
I was not sure how to react to this. I talked with a few people that had adopted and asked them how this was for them. You are placing yourself out there hoping that you are good enough. Will they like me? What if I say the wrong thing? These are thoughts that are running through my head. For us we looked at so many situations, some of them we were very close to saying yes to but in the end we did not feel the peace of God allowing us to move forward.

The first situation we said yes to the birthmother that was from Georgia. She was due to have a boy at the end of June. I cannot tell you exactly why we said yes to have our profile shown to her but I can say that there was a peace in the situation. Something was there and calm for us and we knew that we were free to say yes. That was on a Friday morning and we were told that we should hear something by Monday either way. The birthmother was going to be shown 6 families in total and so we knew that at least we were one of 6 families that had a chance to be the forever family for this little boy.

I do not remember the time on that Monday that we got the call but I remember that my heart sank. All weekend we had been thinking of names and looking at flight information and hotel stuff. But we got a call that Monday letting us know that she had chosen someone else. The one thing that we did not want to happen was to get to high or to low on any one case. But it was the first time we had said yes and so it was a little heart breaking to say the least. We went about our day like normal we received another one or two situations over the next two days.

The Call
It was a Wednesday around 5 or so. Sarah had just gotten off of work and I did not have youth group that night as I had decided months ago that we would have it as a off week. My phone rang and as I looked to pick it up I noticed it was the case worker from Utah that we had been working with. I answered the phone and after hello's were exchanged she told us that we had been picked by the BM. I will not go into the details but she asked us if we would be open to an interview with her. We agreed and hung up the phone. What had just happened?

Later that night as we sat on the couch waiting for the phone to ring I was wondering what we would talk about? This is a person that is trying to decide if you should adopt their child. No matter what someone says BM love their children more than anyone can imagine. Some people will tear her down and destroy her for placing her child up for adoption. But this is love more than some parents every give their child. The phone rang...am I going to be a father to this child? Part way through the conversation of getting to know each other and sharing about our families she asked us if we knew her baby was a boy. We said yes that we did know. She then asked if we had picked out any names yet. We told her that we had four names picked out two boys and two girl names. She asked us if we would be willing share our boy names with her. We told her that we were looking at Ezekiel Herman, Herman after my grandfather who had past away and Titus Allen. It was almost like you could hear her smile on the phone. She said that she had been thinking of the name Ezekiel as well and really liked it.

Stunned is to small of a word to describe how we felt. What are the chances that of all the names that could be chosen for a boy that two people would have that as their top name? All I know is that it was a God thing for us. Sarah and I both started to smile and if I remember right one of us or both of us started to cry a little. Towards the end of the conversation it started to tail off. Then she asked her case worker, I am not sure how this goes now? And her case worker said it is up to you. OK she said. Ryan and Sarah would you like to adopt my little boy. AHHHHH!!! The tears started to flow and we said yes. We set up another phone call for after her next check up. We hung up the phone and just hugged each other. After all the wait we were going to be a family with a child. We called our parents and family. And others cried and rejoiced with us as we shared the news with them over the next few days and weeks.

Our son was supposed to be born at the end of June and so we started to get things ready. From getting the crib put together and his room all set up and then packing his diaper bag. During this time there was this little feeling in the back of my mind that there is a chance that she could chose to parent the child. If she did we would be back to the beginning and our hearts which had started to bond with this child would be broken.

The Sunday before Memorial day in 2012 Sarah decided to pack the travel diaper bag just to have it ready. I told her that she was crazy because we had a month to get it ready. The next morning around 6:30 my phone rang. I wondered who was calling me that early, I did not recognize the number but answered it anyway. It was a case worker with the Utah adoption agency letting us know that our BM had gone into labor and was at the hospital. Sarah says that I said, "Are you serious" and that was when she knew he was coming. We raced to get tickets, a car, a hotel, and a ride to the airport all in 4 hours or and pack for either 7 days or 2 weeks. It ended up being 17 nights in the hotel.

We arrived at the hospital just about an hour after he had been born. We raced around the hospital looking for him and the BM. We found the BM and her family and they brought us to where he was at. I can remember falling in love with him again the moment we saw him for the first time. It was nothing like I had ever experienced and it is hard to explain. Over the next 17 days we had so many ups and downs but through the whole experience God was there with us.

It was day three or four of being down there, Zeke had been moved to the NICU because of some of the things going on. It was our first day of it just being the three of us. Sarah and I went out to have lunch and sat down at a deli down the street from the hospital. Sitting there looking at my food it was the first time that I remember it hitting me that I was a father. I was responsible for a child. I stared to tear up and would not look at Sarah for a moment. She of course saw what was happening and she started to cry as well. That was it, the first time I knew I was a father. After the struggles we had been through and the struggles we were going to be going through I knew right there that I was a father and my life would never be the same.

Again I want to say that each story is different...Bur the author of our stories is the same. We chose to step out and allow God to write our story the one that he wanted to the whole time, we just had to allow him to do it. This is part of the story but it is not the whole story. When we left the hotel....