It feels like a miscarriage. To have the hope and expectation of a life to join your family and a new soul to love, just to have it taken away.

I’ve gone back and forth about writing this post, but I feel like it will help me to process what’s happened over the last couple months. So, let me tell you the story:

In the beginning of January, Josh and I were asked by a friend if we would temporarily provide care for a newborn baby boy because they knew we were interested in foster care. We explained to them that we were not yet foster certified, but they said they were desperate and needed someone to step up. So we did. We followed up with the right people and never heard back. We didn’t really think much of it, we figured he found a home. Fast forward a couple months, we start going to interest meetings for Foster the Bay and decided we were going to start the process because we knew that God had put these kids on our hearts. I got another call regarding this same baby around March and I explained to the social worker that we are not certified but are willing to help, she shuts me down quickly and says that we are in a different county, so it won’t work. We understood and would pray for him when we thought of him. At this point, we started feeling like we should wait to foster because our schedules were waaaayyyy too busy to take all the classes needed and we wanted to make sure that we are fully committed and fully stable when we actually do start this process. Foster care is so much more than just providing care, its got a laundry list of qualifications, trainings, evaluations and hoops you have to jump through and once you are in, there are visitations with family, doctor appointments and therapy sessions you are responsible for…so we put foster care on hold for the time being and thought about having one more biologically in the meantime.

Fast forward to May and I got another call regarding this same baby boy from before. I was at a sushi joint with Selah, Josh and one of his co-workers for lunch. I stepped outside and promptly told the social worker that we were not in the same county and that we were not ready for foster care quite yet and I was not expecting her response. She told me that this was for adoption! When she said the word, my heart stopped. Could this really be God answering our prayer to add another child to our family through adoption?! We had been praying for God to guide us in adoption for almost a year. She went on to tell me that it didn’t matter what county I was in because his parental rights were going to be terminated and we were considered family friends, so the process would be quicker and he would be in our home by August. She answered all my questions and said if all goes as planned, he would be officially ours soon. Now, we had never met this little boy and had only seen a picture of him when he was born. We knew that he would be 8 months come August and that they were happy to find a permanent home for him. She told us that we needed to get approved through our county, so we started the intense process right away. Josh and I couldn’t believe it! All we could do was acknowledge that this could ONLY be from God because we didn’t go seeking any children at all, God sought us out for this baby boy. We were honored and honestly in awe of how God was working this all out. We prayed for the baby all the time and started telling our friends and family.

It was a weird place to be in because we had to prepare our hearts and our home for a new baby that would be arriving in just a couple months, but we also didn’t want to get our hopes up too much because these things can change quickly. We had faith that God was orchestrating it all, so we trusted that it would all work out with our baby boy.

After we had got all the paperwork, started meeting with social workers and started our 27 hours of training, we got another call. I had been trying to reach his social worker for 2 weeks but she was out of town, so I tried her supervisor and never heard back. I’ve learned that social workers are most often overloaded and commonly don’t really know what they are doing. I just wanted to make sure this was all still happening and to let her know that we were getting everything done on our end. Finally, she called me back. I was in the middle of a nap when she called and I was so excited to talk with her. When she started talking, her words weren’t making sense in my head. She told me that they were scrambling to find a concurrent home for him in his county. I was so confused and told her that we had a home here for him and were all on track to getting approved. She said that it needed to be someone in his own county. I reminded her of her exact words she had given me just a short while before…that it didn’t matter where we lived and that he was supposed to be in our home in August. She didn’t clarify anything and just killed my dreams of having this son.

I had imagined a whole life with Selah and him being so close in age. How much fun they would have together, how great of a big sister she would be. I prayed for him constantly and thanked God for arranging this to happen. I was over the moon. I was so excited to share the news with all our friends and family and they were just as excited as we were. I loved that this little boy needed a home and we had the room in our house and in our hearts to love and provide for him. Josh and I called him Corban when we prayed, because that is what we wanted to call him…it means dedicated to God. In fact, the night before I got this crushing call, I wrote him a letter about how excited I was to have him in our home and that I already considered him my son. I wrote:

“You are my son. Although I’ve never met you and it’s not even official that we are adopting you…you are my son. It doesn’t matter how you came into this world, God intended you to be raised in this family. Your past does not define you, your birth parent’s choices do not define you and your circumstances don’t define you. You are precious not only in my sight but even more so in the Lord’s”.

I wanted to write this letter to give to him when he was older to let him know that he was never an afterthought, never a burden and so so wanted.

I share this with you not to be dramatic, but because this pain is real. Some people may think it is ridiculous to be so upset about something that was never set in stone, but to me, I was so sure. I felt like God was bringing this little boy to us in a way only He could. I could blame it all on the social worker who gave us faulty information and got our hopes up way too high or I could blame it all on God and be mad that He would do this to us, but honestly, I still choose toa trust that He is working it all out for good.

Maybe the baby’s parents are getting their lives back on track and want to fight for him? Maybe another family member decided to step up and take him in? We honestly don’t know anything. We just know he won’t be with us anymore. We pray that wherever he ends up, he would be surrounded by love and never question it. We pray for his mother who wasn’t able to care for him at birth. We pray for his development and attachment. We pray that he wouldn’t feel tossed around while the state is figuring out what to do. We have to trust that God will take care of him, even though our hearts ache.

It’s so hard to know that the system is still trying to find him a home when we are over here with a crib in what would have been his room and our arms open wide.

As confusing as this all is, and how messed up the system is, we still want to adopt through foster care more than ever. I feel like God was preparing us for the road ahead, that it’s not an easy road to walk, but these kids are so worth it. We won’t be walking that road during this season of our lives, but when God leads, we will follow.