Baby D’s case has moved from the goal of reunification to adoption. There are so many bittersweet emotions in this.
His birth mama recently made the incredibly selfless and loving decision to surrender her rights because she isn’t capable of caring for all of his medical needs. Seeing her deep love for him and knowing the pain and grief this decision has caused her — and the loss that it is for him and his siblings — has broken my heart over and over again.
For the past 4 months, there was a plan in place we were working toward for permanency with another family. We felt this was such a good option for him and we had been preparing our hearts for the transition of saying goodbye soon.
But then, four weeks ago, the door to that plan began closing and the door to us adopting him swung open. It wasn’t something we had considered because we thought that this other plan was a for sure thing.
As soon as adoption was an option, we all realized how much he had attached to us and how much we had fallen in love with him. Without us even realizing, he had become family. After lots of prayer and conversations, we all had complete peace about saying yes to adopting him!!
So, in just a few weeks’ time, we’ve gone from preparing our hearts to say goodbye very soon to saying yes to forever!! It’s been a little wild… but we see God’s handprints all over his story!
This is foster care, so there’s always a chance that something changes, but at this point, it looks like we’ll officially be making Baby D a part of our forever family sometime in the next 6 months — and we couldn’t be more excited! And we’re so grateful that his birth mama is very much on board with this plan and we hope to continue the relationship with her. (She has wept multiple times telling me through an interpreter how much it means to her that we are caring for her son.)
Thank you for rejoicing with us in this news… and thank you also for honoring his birth mama in your comments about this. If God puts her on your heart, please pray for her as she processes and grieves this loss. She is such a brave and loving woman and we are grateful for the honor of getting to know her.