Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Brokenhearted

            (This is Day 8 of Our Adoption Adventure. To start at the beginning, click here.)            

            As each day passed I grew more and more excited about having a baby girl. I knew I should not count on anything, but it could happen any day. I told my husband we at least needed to buy some diapers. We could not bring a baby home from the hospital without diapers.

            I called a friend, who loved babies as much as I did, and we went to the store and walked up and down the baby aisles. It had been many years since I walked down the baby aisles. Our daughter was ten and our son was eight. We gave all of our baby things away years ago. We thought we were finished having kids, and now we were on the brink of adding a baby girl to our family.
            After admiring everything in the baby section and all the sweet baby girl clothes I bought a package of tiny pink diapers. They were so cute. She was going to need some clothes also. I knew I shouldn’t buy too many things, until we knew for sure she was ours. I bought three pink and white onesies and three sleepers. We needed to be prepared. I didn’t want to have to run to the store on the way home from the hospital. A friend let us borrow her white wicker bassinet for the baby to sleep in.
            When we got home, my friend and I sat on the floor by the bassinet. We opened each of the packages and laid out all the clothes. I opened the diapers and we marveled at how small they were. It was hard to imagine a tiny person fitting in those diapers.
            My husband and I discussed baby names. He said it was my turn to choose a name. I read baby name books. I looked online at popular names. When we named our other two children, both years they were born, their names were in the top five for most popular names. This time I wanted something special, a name nobody else had. I wanted to name her ‘Hoshiana’, a form of Hosanna, which in Hebrew means ‘save now’ or ‘salvation.’ It sounded similar to ‘Oshiana’ or ‘Oceana,’, which meant ‘from the ocean.’ I knew those were big long names for a little baby girl, but they sounded so beautiful, I thought they would make a great little girl’s name.
            The next week I took Shiya and Arianna to her doctor’s appointment. The following week, which was one week before her due date, I was planning on taking her again. The afternoon before her appointment I got a call from the adoption agency. It was the director, Mrs. C.
            “I have some news for you Robyn. Are you sitting down?” she asked. 
I found a chair and sat down.
            “I just left the hospital where Shiya had her baby this morning. I talked with her and she has decided not to place for adoption. She wants to parent her little boy and her new baby girl.”
My heart sank. Tears flowed down my cheeks. I couldn’t say anything.
            “I’m sorry Robyn. I know this is very disappointing for you. I didn’t see this coming. I really thought she was going to place, at least the baby girl. She has a hard road ahead of her with three little ones to parent by herself.” She said.
I didn’t say anything. “Robyn, are you okay? I know this is very sad for you.”
Holding back the sobs, I managed to quietly say, “I’ll be all right. Thanks for calling.”
            I hung up the phone, buried my head in my hands and cried and cried. How could this happen again? Why were we doing this? Is this some kind of cruel joke? This hurts too much. This is too painful. My heart ached inside my chest. Lord, where are you? I thought you wanted us to adopt? I thought she was the one you had for us. I thought she was going to be our baby, and now this? How could an 18-year-old girl parent three kids under three years old? I didn’t get it. Those poor kids. That poor baby girl that I longed to hold in my arms. Now nothing.
            I cried until I could cry no more. I found some tissues and tried to pull myself together. Picking up the phone, I called my husband.
            “Hello.” He answered.
Tears started silently falling again. I couldn’t speak. He could hear my sobs.
            “Sweetie is that you? What’s wrong? What happened? Are you all right?” he asked.
            “She decided to keep her baby.” I mumbled through sobs.
            “What?”
            “Shiya had the baby today and she decided to keep her.” I cried harder.
            “What? How is she going to do that? She can’t raise those three kids on her own.” He said.
            “I know. I can’t believe it. That was going to be our baby girl.” I bawled.
            “I’m sorry Sweetie. I know how much you were looking forward to this one.” He said, trying to console me. “God must have something else for us, some other baby. She wasn’t the one for us.”
            I looked over at the wicker bassinet, with the pink baby clothes and tiny pink diapers still spread out in the living room.
            “Will you take these clothes and the diapers to the adoption agency, so Mrs C. can give them to her?”  I asked, wanting to get rid of the reminder of how foolish I had been to buy them.

            “Why don’t we save them for the next time?” He said, trying to console me.
            “There’s not going to be a next time!” I snapped. I could feel the anger rising. “I can’t do it any more. This sucks! Who wants to keep going through this only to have their heart broken like this? This is too much. It’s too much to ask of someone. I’m done with this.”  I said, determined not to go through this pain again.
                       *********************

Have you been there?   Have you gone through a loss, and questioned where God was?

***Click here for Day 9.***


17 comments:

  1. Wow, so hard. We had some bumps in our adoption journeys too, but never had a flat out no-go.

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    1. I hesitated telling this story because I don't want to discourage people from looking into adopting. I believe adoption is such a miraculous event. It is definitely a faith journey, though. Thanks for reading.

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  2. Breaks my heart! While God is in control even in those hurtful times, they are still so hurtful. Praising God that He remained and remains ever faithful!

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    1. I knew you would need a tissue Michele! Yes, praise God that He is so faithful. ---As you know with your situation, just because we are in the middle of God's will, doesn't mean it is always going to be smooth sailing or easy.

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  3. Oh, so devastating. I'm so sorry for the heartbreak y'all have walked through in your adoption journey. <3

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    1. You know, I couldn't see it at the time, but in the end it was so worth it. I just praise God that He was in control. Thanks for your kind words Dana.

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  4. Oh, gosh, so hard. I have not gone through this personally, but a very close friend in my infertility group went through it THREE times. The last time was the most heartbreaking, because my friend and her husband had spent the days after the birth in the hospital holding their daughter, but when it came time for the birth mom to be discharged, she changed her mind. My friend has a happy ending - they now have 3 beautiful children (2 different adoptions). I'm hoping to read that your story has a similar happy ending!

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    1. That must have been so hard for your friends! I'm glad they ended up with 3 children after all. Ours was touch and go at the end, but thankfully . . . . well, you will have to wait and read it. :)

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  5. So very sad. We never tried to adopt. This was part of the reason why. Not all of it, but some of it.

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    1. I hesitate to share the hard parts of our story because I don't want to discourage people from looking into adoption. I am all for adoption, even after all this. It really has been so worth it in the end. There are just no guarantees in life. So many women have miscarriages and still births, that are so hard also. But as Believers we know that God is with us even when we don't feel Him and when things go wrong. Thanks for reading!

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  6. Wow! So sorry this happened to you. I'm a single 36 year old who would like to be a wife and mother. But no prospects in sight. I've thought about foster care and/or adoption. I LOVE babies!!!

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    1. Tara, pray about it and see where the Lord leads you. The foster care system and kids waiting to be adopted need wonderful people willing to do this. We have a friend, a single man who is 40, who was adopted himself, and has worked with Boy Scouts for 20 years. He always wanted kids of his own, but doesn't have a wife. So, he signed up to be a foster Dad. The state placed two older kids (he didn't want babies) with him. They think he is the best thing that ever happened to them. They were in a terrible situation before. He recently adopted them and the three of them could not be happier. --Blessings to you as you think about it!

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  7. Robyn, I'm glad you're telling the hard parts...Adoption is not always easy, in fact labor can be VERY long, and end in miscarriage after miscarriage; but God is faithful and you grow through the process and you learn to trust Him more and more. I often describe adoption as a CRAZY roller coaster ride, up and down and all around...a LOT of emotion!

    Waiting with baited breath to see where your journey led!

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    1. Thanks for reading! I hesitate to tell the difficult parts because I don't want to discourage anyone from looking into adoption. It is such a beautiful way God builds families.

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    2. Don't hesitate! People need to know that adoption isn't easy; it's just a different kind of labor. It would be much harder to think it was an easy process on the front end and get smacked with the hard stuff in the middle of it. A lot of people out there have no idea...in fact just yesterday, I was telling someone I was an adoptive mom and they said Oh, you took the easy way...I was quick to inform him that no! adoption is NOT the easy way, but it is worth it! You're writing a beautiful story Robyn!

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    3. That's true. I get that comment too, about it being easier. Thanks for the encouragement!

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  8. Still reading - and ready for the rest of the story but don't want to jump ahead to the end!! Ha ha!! That's what I do sometimes when reading a novel...but, I know how hard it is to share hard times...writing my blog these 26 days has sometimes been difficult. While I have never gone through the adoption journey, we are still on a journey with the dementia my husband has...not to make your journey less! Everyone has their hard times and sharing them is sometimes good for the soul, for others going through similar situations, or just going through their own troubles or experiences. Thank you for sharing even the hard times...God be with you!

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