May is always a big month in our home, Our baby girl has a birthday, Nick and I celebrate our anniversary, its a month of joy and celebration. This year we were looking forward to our 5th wedding anniversary and our baby girl turning 2! May was a time for us to put aside the sorrow and the pain of trying to grow our family and celebrate the family that we are, or so we thought. We started the month with our baby turning 2, that day we also had very high hopes of another baby joining our family. That situation had a hard ending for us because we never found out what happened. This was a situation through an agency and they just never got back to us. No matter how many times we called or emailed they never responded and so we just let it go. Adoption is hard, Adoption is messy on all sides. 2 weeks after our baby girl turned 2 she was scheduled for eye surgery. Both Nick and I were worried about how this would go, in the course of getting ready for this every doctor, nurse, medical assistant asked about "family history". Normally this is a question I don't think too much because we don't know much about it. This time was different. Just 2 weeks after our little girls second birthday we got news that crushed our little family. Our sweet baby girls first mamma passed away. This is news I don't share lightly, it is part of our story and our families foundation, but to others it brings different response. A ll that people need to know about this is we were devastated, our world stopped. I've seen my husband cry about 3 times in all the time I've known him and this was worst I've ever seen him. This is something no adoption training or anything can prepare you for. We lost a huge part of our family, we lost part of our daughters identity, we were at a stand still we didn't know what to do. So back to being asked about my daughters family history all I could was cry. There was a whole part of her that I didn't know and even more I had no one I could get this information from. We proceed with the surgery and all went well and her eyes a straight and beautiful, I was very grateful for my own amazing parents who were with us as we went through this. They had been through this same surgery with my sister and were a great support for us and Vivian. We were/are blessed to have such a wonderful doctor (Doctor Bullard) who takes such good care of our babies eyes. The blessings didn't stop there. It was a Sunday morning and Nick's phone rang with a facebook call ( who knew facebook could do that). It was Vivi's birth grandma, we had never met or spoken to her and our nerves were very high. We answered the phone not knowing how this conversation would go but, "God is good, God is great." We had an amazing conversation with someone we loved instantly, we mourned with her over the loss of her daughter and rejoiced as we created a new family with each other. Now we have a wonderful open adoption with Tennessee grandma and we could not be more blessed. That fear of loosing part of our daughters identity has been turned to joy by welcoming in a wonderful part of our family. We are blessed at the love that can come through adoption because we know it is not without pain. This part of our story is special to us, its how our family is made, we know that many have different opinions about adoption and first families, some of those opinions are angry, hateful, and downright mean. So again I say this is OUR story, every family is different every adoption is different, don't try to tear our story and relationships down because your opinions are different or you feel we should have done something different.
We made it through May and we hoped that would be the hardest part of our year, we were now heading to Nick's little brothers wedding reception in California. We were excited for a fun family time and ready to have time with just our family. While on our way down we had gotten a message from a girl we had met a few months back. She wanted us to be the parents of her sweet baby boy. Our hearts were soaring, we felt like we had finally come through the fire. This adoption would be done privately and so we would be able to afford it. When got back form our trip we called our attorney and met with this sweet girl and we had and were on our way to growing our family. The summer was wonderful, we had added a sweet girl to our family and we were preparing to welcome a baby boy. Unfortunately for us as quickly as things turned good they were bad again. Our baby boy was born and we heard nothing. We were crushed, devastated and so was Viv, it was hard watching her not only loose her brother but a friend that she had made in this girl. Again, Adoption is hard, Adoption is messy. We could never be angry at her for changing her mind and doing what she needed to do, we wish her the best of luck in life and know that her baby boy will be loved and cared for. We were now left with nothing and less funds then before ( we lost our attorney fees) so when November came we had a hard choice to make, to renew our home study or let it go. There are some choices in life you have to make even though it breaks your heart, this was one of those. We made the choice to not renew our home study. This doesn't mean we are done with adoption, it doesn't mean we are done trying to grow our family, for now it just means we are taking time for our hearts to heal. we are looking but not actively searching. The adoption world has be a hard one this past year, with so many losses and heart ache but also with many unwanted opinions and hurtful comments from those who think differently about our adoption or adoption in general. This is our family and our story and we are proud of it. 2016 left us a little broken, but it gave us a lot of growth and lessons learned and of course more joy and hope. We look forward to 2017, we hope it brings a new family member but for now we are just grateful we have each other and ready for new adventures to begin.
