Choosing...

If you used to read our blog, then you may have noticed a conspicuous absence on here about our own adoption journey lately.  It was a purposeful effort on my part to keep things that were happening confidential.  This was hard for me as I tend to be a "let's lay it all out on the table" kind-of person... but sometimes you have to & this was one of those times. 
It's funny because for months our lives have been twisted & turned, and I thought I'd be able to just sit down & pour it out on here but I still find myself hesitating today over a week later from the outcome.  I think it's evidence of how difficult it has all been... 
But in an effort to chronicle this now nearly 2 year journey I am compelled to write it down.  To write out even the hard... with a hope that someday it will be something different. 
Last summer we were told about a little boy currently in the foster system who was very likely going to be needing an adoptive home.  Having been through this early on in our adoption journey we said we would think about it, all the while not imagining it would get too far.  But around late August/beginning of September things got a lot more real.  DCFS was recommending that rights be terminated & again the foster family wondered how serious we really were about pursuing T (& yes, his name did start with a T - just like our 3 other kiddos!). 
And here's a place I can be really honest - this was a scary part of the past few months.  The reality of the choice we were presented was enormous.  It wasn't just an abstract "child" anymore, but a strong likelihood that this could happen.  And so we would look at T & wonder "Is this what it's like? To look at the face of an adorable toddler who has not been birthed from your body but who you take into your home & allow love to grow??"  And then beyond that we would pray "Foster care?  Really?!?!?!"  The very idea of foster care felt scary - really, really scary.  In this case we knew what kind of trauma T had been through as a very young infant & it was significant.  When you start into adoption, you understand that most likely you will have a child with some type of delay, but that real possibility of dealing with developmental delay at some point in his life felt daunting at times.   In fact, towards the end of figuring all this out I wrote "Doing Hard" (you can click on that title to go directly to that post) so I could remember that dealing with the hard cannot be what defines doing (or NOT doing) something good. 
In the midst of all those questions as we prayed & talked we just knew.  We knew God was doing something.  In fact I started a Word document so I could remember & just today I looked at the 9 reasons that I had down by the end of October that confirmed to us that God was weaving our lives together at this point.  I can't post them all (again because of confidentiality) but we clearly saw it so much so that by the 3rd week of November we decided to choose T.  The hard part was we were 2 months from the January 17th hearing that would decide if he was even "choose-able" (it would let us know if rights were terminated or not.  If terminated we would start the foster-to-adopt process & transfer him into our home as soon as possible.)  But I'm getting ahead of myself...
We never anticipated the "choosing" process for us to come before the hearing.  We thought we would just wait, see what would come of the hearing & then decide if we would for sure pursue adopting him or not.  But then November 12th came.  As I sat in the waiting room of a local hospital waiting to welcome my newest nephew into the world, Ryan called me.  "Did you see the email?"  It's funny because even as I said "No I haven't", I knew what that email was.   It was the one we had waited nearly 2 years for.  It was a referral from Ethiopia. 
To say we were stunned is an understatement.  There was this ecstatic feeling of  "It's here!!" followed by a punch in the gut of "Now??"  We knew we were getting close but according to the "timeline" we still had a few months of waiting which fell right in line with waiting to see what would happen with T.  But now we had 2 children to choose between & truly how do you choose???  We had one week to make a decision so we prayed, talked, prayed... prayed, talked, prayed & by Wed night I cried to Ryan yet again -" How?? How do you choose??" 
Ryan finally said "I think we have to ask ourselves if we can say no to T.  Because accepting the referral from Ethiopia would be saying no to him & if we can't, then we need to say no to the referral knowing another one will someday come."  And so he said "Can you say no to T?" & I couldn't... And I asked him "Can YOU say no to T?" & he couldn't... And that was the night we choose T all over again.  Knowing he really wasn't ours yet to choose... 
Remember when I talked in a previous post about grieving losses?  This one - the choice to let go of a referral from Ethiopia - was a hard one to grieve - to let go of what you had waited to get for so long.... It takes longer to grieve something like that.  And so it took me awhile & it's one of those things I could stay in if I let myself, but I had to choose to get out of the grief at some point.  To lift my eyes higher than the loss. 
But all the while, truly we had peace.  This sense that we had honored the Lord in our choice.  A sense that no matter what happened on Jan. 17th we had made the best choice we could. 
But Jan. 17th loomed.  And all through the holidays it felt like we were simply counting down to that date.  In fact, on Dec. 27th we heard about a small group of Ethiopian officials trying to spur on an effort to close adoption in that country.  It felt sickening to think we had perhaps passed on our one opportunity, but we had to trust in our choice so we prayed & waited...
And the week before the hearing we heard that T's caseworker had now changed her mind &, despite DCFS's recommendation, she was now recommending a goal of reunification (in other words, giving the mom more time).  It was another blow - a BIG one, & I knew then that this "likelihood" of our family growing in this new year of 2014 was becoming dimmer.  I had to go back again to what I knew when we made the choice.  That God was doing something - not that we were going to get a glimpse of the something, but that He was doing it nonetheless....
Sure enough, Jan. 17th came, & the choice to foster-to-adopt T was not given to us.  And really all I can say about that is this - The foster program is just as broken as IA.  Sooooo not perfect...  And chance upon chance will be given to birth parents because as we all know you can always say whatever you want to say & saying that "I love him" seems quite often to be all that is needed to keep a child.  Never mind that quite often the "I love him" isn't backed up by the doing. 
So here we are, 2 years into an adoption that has not gotten us far & certainly not brought a child into our home.  And while we are top of the list for Ethiopia still if another referral comes (the fact that Ethiopia has become more unstable will have to be for another post), we feel really, really beat down by not only the lack of progress, but the whole "system" entirely. 
So really I sit here & think making choices are tough.  You do the best based on the information you are receiving but you're not always guaranteed the end result.  Regardless, the choices need to be made.  And if I'm super honest, here are the choices I'm having to make right now:
"Get Going"
Don't let yourself be bogged down by the confusion, the blindness, the uncertainty, the frustration of it all.  Keep putting one foot in front of the other. 
"Keep Loving"
Don't let yourself get so wrapped up in the injustice & in self-pity that you forget what is right in front of you.  3 beautiful children.  Parents, Grandparents, Sisters, Brothers, Nieces, Nephews...  Friends willing to support us.  For some reason I think that they will get so weary along with us that they will like us want to give up on it all - give up even on us, but I have to tell myself that loving them in all of their good & all of their mess is all I can do. 
2 choices really easy to name, but again in my honesty & vulnerability, 2 choices that are really difficult to do at this time.  Pray for us, would you??