I have typed and re-typed this a thousand times. Where to start?  I know I need to tell this story, but man it hurts. It is also amazing, inspiring and as much as it hurts, it also is happy.  Maybe the greatest happiness comes after the greatest pain?  Our family is amazingly chaotic. When we started out adoption journey, we had 5 chaotic kiddos.  Even though we had always talked about adoption, it just never seemed to be right.  But God. When God opens a door, there is no question. It is open. We walked through that door and started our adoption journey in 2016. I will include the agency we used and other info at the end of the blog for those interested. It was what we expected at first. Lots of paperwork, to do lists, online training on what to expect.  Our  homestudy was completed in December of 2016 and we started looking over profiles in January.  We met our adoption advocate that would walk us through some of the most emotional days we would ever have. Jill was amazing and so patient with all our questions.  There are so many steps to the adoption process, one of them is creating a profile book that will be shown to mothers that are choosing adoption for their child/children.  I would love to share ours with you! Man, the nerves that we felt every time we sent this out.   ourstorycover.compressed

We read through a few of the profiles for birth moms that were choosing adoption and chose to submit.  I still remember the late night call from Jill, letting us know that a birth mom had seen our profile book and chose us for her baby.   Excitement level 1,000! We dove headfirst into reading about the birth mom and walking our kids through the process so they would know what was happening.  We met B (we will call her B for privacy reasons) through Skype for the first time and answered her questions and asked a few of our own.  After several more Skype’s, she would meet our kids and we would see a sonograph photo of our June Bug.  (we called her June Bug since she was due in June)

People will tell you not to put your whole heart into adoption, because you just never know what is going to happen.  I understand that but that is like saying you shouldn’t get to attached to your baby while you are pregnant because you never know what is going to happen.  It just wasn’t possible for us.  We loved her from the moment B chose us to be her parents.  She was our June Bug.

Fast forward a few months to May and we were headed to a birthday celebration in Tennessee. We brought her little suit case filled with her coming home dress, a baby book and love notes from her siblings. Just in case B went into labor early we wanted to be ready to fly out to Arizona at a moments notice.

Sure enough, we got a call on the way there that she was in labor and it looked like June Bug was actually going to be a May Bug.  So many emotions.

The adoption agency told us to stand by and be ready to fly out.   After 24 hours of hearing nothing, we knew something was very wrong.  I wrote in my journal from that time, “Adoption is like living inside a kaleidoscope, one good twist and everything changes.”  We were told that she had given birth, but did not want to honor the adoption plan.   I can’t even imagine how she must have felt,  B left the hospital without signing the papers and our June Bug went into state custody.  Our June Bug. What kills me is that she will never know how much she was loved. That her story is that she was left at the hospital.  She wasn’t. She had brothers and sisters, a family that loved her dearly and would have set the world on fire to protect her.

There was nothing we could do. We wanted to fight for her. We couldn’t.  We told the kids, one by one. Sophie took it the hardest. Nothing prepares you for how that feels. We drove back to Florida and I just wanted to scream. I wanted to fight, I wanted to do anything but cry, but crying was all I could do.  We were with our church family and I just couldn’t face them, face anyone. I was hurting so bad but also felt stupid.  I was never really her mom, was I? Did I even have a right to feel this way?  Adoption or no adoption, Marc and I both felt like she was ours and someone ripped her away from us. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right.

The most beautiful thing came from us losing her. Our kids got to see the love of God in action.  Our church family held us up when we couldn’t stand.  They gave us their faith when ours was not enough.  They let us cry and be broken. They prayed with us and helped us to let her go and to realize that God loved her more than we ever could. That He had a plan for her and it was good.  So, we let her go and started again.

 Adoption doesn’t take someone extraordinary, it just takes someone willing to be broken.

Amanda Star

READ PART 2 – HERE