Olivia's Adoption Story

I must start Olivia's adoption story with the adoption that fell through the month before. In December of 2010 we received a call from our adoption agency asking us if we were ready to go back on the waiting list. Hannah was not yet one, but they knew we wanted more kids and the agency thought we should get our profile updated and all our criminal history stuff redone, along with our updated homestudy finished. At the time, I remember wondering if they had some birthmoms that they thought would like us, but the social workers never said anything like that. They just asked us to get started on updating things.
So we took our time. I think our homestudy update was finished on February 28th. We didn't get our fingerprints done until sometime in mid-April. To update our profile, all I did was laminate some pictures of Hannah. We never ended up getting another physical, we just had our doctor sign off on our old one (because really, it was only 15 months old, we hadn't changed health-wise).
As for finances, we weren't in a hurry to get our taxes in (for the adoption and new baby tax credits), we didn't really think much would happen for a while. So we basically did nothing financially to prepare for another big adoption payment.
At the beginning of March, we got a call that we had been chosen by a birthmom who was pregnant with a biracial boy and she was due at the end of the week.
That was like a swift kick in the pants (lovingly, I think, by the Lord).
I spent the next seven days getting our taxes done (all we needed at first was half of the payment, we could come up with the other half later) and applying to various adoption loan/grant services. That was stressful. If you want to go look in my archives, during the month of March 2010, I was a touch wigged out.
The baby was not born that week, nor the next. I believe he arrived two weeks after the initial phone call. By that time, guess what. We had raised $500 over the initial placement fee. Praise the Lord.
Before we found out whether we were going to parent this baby boy, we found out that another birth mom had also chosen us and would like to meet us, if this first adoption fell through.
That made the final disappointing the-baby-boy-is-not-yours phone call a lot less disappointing. As a side note, we know who the Lord chose to raise this precious boy, a friend of a friend. We praise the Lord he is in a loving and Christian family (we even know his name and we hope to meet him someday).
The day it was confirmed we were not going to parent him, we received an email, a very long email, detailing the life of the new birthmom. Everything about her, her mom, sisters, grandparents, and even the birth father and his family. We found out she was due in four weeks with a little girl.
We were encouraged to guard our hearts after the last disappointment but Matt and I wanted to meet her right away. We went on a vacation the next week and were finally able to meet her the following week, which would have been the middle of April.
After the meeting, which went as well as can be expected in the awkwardness of a pregnant teen, a pushy but loving grandma, a loud but adorable 1 year old (that was Hannah) and hopeful parents, we found out she liked us. We immediately loved her in a very protective way. We wanted the best for her. We wanted the Lord's best. We knew we wanted another child, but more than that, we wanted whatever it would take to bring this young woman to Christ. If that meant she was going to decide to parent her baby, then we were fine with that. Of course, I made sure the Lord was aware that I would like to have another little girl. I don't think He minds when we lay our request before Him.
So we waited. Our birthmom didn't make a decision. We worked and enjoyed Hannah. We prayed. In the meantime, we had an account waiting for us (http://www.lifesongfororphans.org/ for more information). With all the money we would need for the first adoption payment. I knew the first adoption fall through was what we needed to get our finances in order. I knew we were going to parent this little girl. I knew the Lord had done a miraculous financial miracle in our lives and that money wasn't going to sit there for long. I knew it was for this little girl.
Thursday, April 29th, 2010, Matt, Hannah and I were eating at Pizza Hut with Matt's parents and his sister an I got a text. Miss R was in labor at Parkview. I almost choked on my heart. I quietly showed Matt the text and his eyes got huge. That's all we knew and we both had to get back to work and try to concentrate the rest of the day.
We heard nothing that day.
We heard nothing the next day, until 1pm. I finally got a phone call from our social worker that she wanted to meet us and wanted us to meet the baby.
We got to the hospital at 4pm and met our newest addition. We immediately named her Olivia and fell in love the second time.
We were warned about some extenuating circumstances regarding the birth father and we were offered several times to put Olivia in foster care until things cleared up. We repeatedly denied the offer and decided we were going to love her as much and as long as we could.
I spent Friday night in the hospital with her (my first experience feeling like a new mom with the hospital bracelet and everything). One of the nurses, as she brought my hungry baby to me from the nursery commented on how great I looked. She couldn't believe how tiny I was. I reminded her that I had not given birth. Oh yeah she said.
Our birthmom signed the papers on Saturday. We brought Olivia home at midnight Saturday night.
The next few weeks were scary regarding what was going to happen with the birth father, but we knew we would never keep a father from raising his daughter if he wanted to. We just wanted whatever was best for Olivia and for her birth parents.
As it turns out, the Lord had Olivia for us to raise and we couldn't love this little girl more.
Her adoption is a little more open than Hannah's. Olivia's birthmom has requested pictures, which we are more than happy to send. Matt, Hannah, Olivia and I met with her when Olivia was two months old, although we have not met again. We would love to have more contact with her but we respect her decision.
We love to do what we can to bring peace to Miss R's heart. Adoption will probably be the hardest thing she will ever do (can you imagine doing anything harder than putting your baby in another woman's arms to raise?), so we want to minister to Miss R too. We love her. And we love Livi Lou.