The Call

When you are a couple looking to adopt, there is one call you never hope to get from your case worker: "The birthparents have changed their minds--they are keeping the baby."  On Sunday--Mothers Day--my wife, Michele, and I got that call.

It turns out that the birthmother who two weeks ago told us how happy she was to have picked us to raise her child gave birth to that baby on Thursday--without telling her case worker in Eau Claire.  In fact, her case worker had to track her down at the hospital late Friday to find out what was going on.  Apparently, her parents convinced her to keep the baby--and they would help her raise the child.  We were out of town this weekend--so our caseworker didn't get ahold of us until we got home Sunday afternoon.

Unfortunately, having a placement fall through is a very common occurrance in the adoption process.  It's why we were just going to "borrow" many of the things you need for a baby from our relatives and friends until the birthmother's parental rights were terminated.  Nonetheless, it wasn't easy for my wife to pack up all that stuff to take back to the people who were so happy to give it to us.

It would be easy to be angry or bitter toward the birthmother--but I guess this just shows how difficult it is to make the decision to give up a child for adoption.  My wife and I are very disappointed--but I guess that in the back of our minds we always had the fear that we would get that call.

So now it is back to square one--we go back into book of parents in this area looking for a child to adopt--waiting for another birthmom to find something in our portfolio that speaks to her and makes her believe we are the one's to raise her child.  We have no plans to give up on the process--no matter how difficult it might be from here on out.