Road to Adoption

I had the best mother in the world, so naturally, all I ever wanted to be was a mom like the one I had. So, my husband and I looked at adoption since I couldn't have children of my own.  We checked into many different adoption agencies around the Colorado Springs area and finally went with Catholic Charities.

We started the intense process of foster to adopt and went through the home study where we had to bare the most intimate details of our lives, attend all the classes, and pass our CPR class.  We read every book we could get our hands on.  Finally we were certified.

Our portfolio was done and we were eager and ready to see what lay ahead of us.  One day I got the call I had been waiting for.  We had been selected as prospective adoptive parents by the birth mother.  We were very excited and eager to meet the birth mother and her boyfriend.  As the days led up to that meeting date, it was hard to contain the excitement that we shared at the possibility of finally having a baby in our home in the near future.

What happened next?  I'm really not sure.  I got a phone call just an hour or so before that anticipated meeting time that we didn't need to come.  Complete devastation.  Disappointment doesn't even begin to describe the feelings that we experienced.  Had she changed her mind and was no longer placing the baby up for adoption?  Or had she found someone else to place her baby with?

It was quite awhile later before we got the answers to our questions. Apparently, over the weekend, the birth mother and her boyfriend had run into some long time friends and after a lengthy discussion, decided that they really wanted to place the baby with these friends.  Thus, the phone call to us letting us know that we no longer needed to meet.

While this was a very disappointing time in our life, I'm still a firm believer that things ALWAYS work out the way they are supposed to.  And so, for whatever reason, that little baby boy or girl was not meant to be loved and raised by us. It was almost as if I could hear my own mother whispering in my ear, "In God's time, Jari, in God's time."  Easier said than done by a most impatient person such as myself.

Thus, we continued the wait...and the wait...and the wait...until one day, we talked to some good friends of ours about the foster-to-adopt program that they had gone through with Colorado Family Services in Lakewood, Colorado.  They put us in touch with the director there, and thus, we started part two of our road to adoption.