First, our most recent failed adoption. The baby girl was expected in June and she was biracial. Before this, the idea of a trans-racial adoption was something we were open to, but we were still nervous when placed with an actual situation. We took the leap. We moved forward. After much fasting and prayer and wavering, I had a vivid image while dressing Paige for church one Sunday that I was dressing another little girl, a little girl with cute brown legs I was putting tights over. At the time, it made sense. We were to move ahead. It was one reason that when it failed it was so confusing(see June's post for more info). I felt like I had had a serious experience that answered a prayer. I did! I just didn't understand it yet. Also, the fact that Mark moved ahead and truly opened his heart to the idea of trans-racial adoption was a big deal and something that needed to happen. So while it hurt, I suppose the lessons learned from that failed adoption were lessons we needed to learn.
Second, while I was at soccer camp a friend helped with Paige while Mark was working. This friend had recently had a baby girl. In fact, this friend had a niece that was in a position that adoption was maybe an option for her. My friend and I had a lot of conversations about adoption and babies and a part of me hoped that this connection was going to be something that would work out for us. At any rate, she was fully aware of all the craziness that was currently going on in my world and the extreme loss I felt. She watched as I held her baby with tears in my eyes. At camp, I got a text from her that while watching the new baby, Paige proclaimed, "I am getting a baby sister soon." My friend had to reinforce that the baby was no longer coming. I think now that Paige had more faith than I did that something would happen and hope was still something to maintain.
We updated our home study. We decided we would no longer work so hard to network ourselves, but we needed to keep our home study current. It expired July 29th, so we got everything done in June and it was sent off. By the time July came around, we were only waiting to hear back from the state that our study was approved.
Over the three years of our adoption journey I had become fairly adept at networking, Facebook, and other social media outlets scouring adoption opportunities. We had our profile up on Parent Profiles which is run by adoption.com. A good family friend, Mindy, worked with adoption.com and had told me that her company was going to be opening an adoption agency soon and would have an office in Idaho. Yay! Finally, resources in Idaho. The first office opened in Utah and I started following their social media accounts. We were still hesitant to sign up with an agency and pay any upfront costs, especially after our recent heavy financial loss. A lot of our money was tied up with our failed adoption and the referral service was supposed to be working on re-matching us but why do that when you can get new clients and more money? I tried to keep working with the Kansas agency but none of her situations felt right. On July 9th, I saw social media post from Adoption.org, the new agency, about a new situation. It was a baby girl due in September in Utah. It sounded perfect, no drama, no drugs, and truly a breath of fresh air after all the crazy situations we had had and had been presented with. It was out of our price range, but I didn't care anymore. The trade offs were worth it. The problem was they wanted a Utah family. I inquired anyway and convinced them we were close enough and that our current open adoption was out of Utah. Being a new agency, they didn't have any families signed on yet and they needed families so there was no cost to present to a situation, only if matched. It felt like we had nothing to lose and we presented right away. I had our profile, background checks, and paperwork ready to go and emailed it over. The birth mother coordinator, Liz, was impressed I had things so organized. I told her by this time I was professional.
A week went by, and I hadn't heard anything. I didn't think any thing of it because that isn't entirely unusual. Also, Mark and I had agreed that we wouldn't over extend ourselves and let things happen if they were meant to happen. It finally had become a lot easier not to get to attached or excited about things. That weekend we were making arrangements to head to Boise for Mark's nephew's missionary homecoming. It was Friday the 17th and I was busy packing bags and cleaning house. I checked my email and had an update from Liz. She asked if we were going to be around Pioneer weekend because the birth mother due in September was going to have work off. She hadn't made any decisions yet, but hoped to have some profiles narrowed down and couples she could meet with while she had work off. What seemed like an afterthought was a blurp about California. Liz said that she should hear about California soon and would let us know when she did. I honestly had no idea what she was talking about. I felt nervous to ask because I didn't know if I hadn't read something close or if I had missed something important that I should have known. I wrote back and implied I was confused but we were open and ready for anything. In the meantime, I checked an adoption Facebook group because I religiously scanned the groups for situations and such. I noticed that Liz's co-worker, Josh, had posted a question regarding support groups in the Bay Area because he was working with a possible birth mom. I emailed Liz back and asked if this was the California situation she referred to and that I wasn't sure what was going on but we really were open to anything and ready to go at a moments notice.
Not ten minutes later Liz called me, a bit frantic and started telling me about this healthy, 5 day old, mixed race baby girl. She said the birth parents were very sweet, the birth mother had contacted the agency on Wednesday after googling adoption. They had talked with her over the course of two days and she seemed pretty serious about placing. No drugs or alcohol were involved and she seemed really put together. It all sounded pretty good and I told her great, can we present? I explained that Mark traveled to the Bay Area all the time for work and really tried to talk us up to encourage her to present us. That is when Liz informed me we had already been presented and that we were one of four families being considered. I asked how, and she told me Mindy had submitted our profile and that the agency thought we knew that, that we told her to present us. I said I had no idea but that I was thrilled and that it sounded like I owed Mindy a big thank you! Liz told us that they hoped to know really soon what the birth mother was going to do and she would let us know when she heard something. Little did I know that at the time of this phone call, that K was already leaning towards our family--hence Liz freaking out a bit that we didn't even know a thing about it!
I proceeded to get ready and Mark came in to see why I was being so slow because we needed to be out the door and I wasn't even showered yet. I explained what was going on and that I had very little info really but that it sounded good. He told me he had a trip to San Francisco scheduled for Monday. I was floored and immediately texted Liz to tell her that Mark was headed that direction and how crazy that seemed. I texted Mindy a thank you. She apologized 20 times for presenting us without asking first but that when she heard about the situation she just had to. I told her we were thrilled. It was SO hard not getting our hopes up, but since I hardly knew what was going on it all felt like a long shot, but one that would work so perfectly. I went out to the living room and saw Paige playing with some toys. I told her we should pray. She said ok and told me she would say it. During the prayer she prayed that "a baby would come to our house and that she would be the right size." I swear she knew something we didn't! We decided to still go to Boise because we knew better than to think anything would happen and you really can't plan or change your life so onward ho.
On our way out of town we needed gas so we stopped at a gas station we never use and guess who we see....Mindy and Courtney. They seemed a bit excited and a little awkward. I didn't know if I should say something, if things were a secret, if Courtney knew what was going on, what in the world was happening. At the end of our conversation, Mindy motioned for me to call her. On the road I called Mindy and she explained a little more about what happened. Since the baby was already born the birth mother was anxious to see profiles and the agency really didn't have many. They were scrambling a bit. The agency office was in Utah, but main head quarters were in Rexburg and shared an office with adoption.com, where Mindy and Courtney worked. Melissa, the director had come upstairs all excited that the agency might have their first placement. She told Courtney and Mindy about the situation and then headed back to her office to pack things up for the evening. Courtney and Mindy looked at each other and immediately thought of us. Mindy raced downstairs as Melissa was heading out the door and talking on the phone to Liz about possible families. Mindy told Melissa she had to present the Steiner's Liz overheard and said hey I know them and I have all their stuff (because I had sent it all so fast for the birth mother due in September). Melissa said if they had our stuff to go ahead and send it to K. They were only supposed to present Utah families for legal reasons, but in the hubub no one bothered to see or check where we were from and we kind of slipped in there under the radar (we only learned this fact later).
After talking to Mindy about this I got excited. I couldn't help it. We were almost to Pocatello and I had this overwhelming feeling that I wanted this to happen. I was in tears and I told Mark I wanted it. I wanted it bad. Sometimes it was easy to talk yourself out of situations because you didn't know enough and it was scary. A huge life changing event that would happen so fast. Life was easy with Paige, did I really want to do baby stage again? But this time I did. I wanted to be all in and it scared me. I asked Mark how do you pray for His will to be done but also pray that things would work out the way you wanted them to? I uttered a silent prayer and basically said that I was ready. I was all in. I was ready to jump. And then we continued on and really tried to relax but thinking of very little else.
Meanwhile, everyone at the agency, including Mindy knew that things were close and we were front runners. Mindy kept telling Josh, Liz, and Melissa that we needed to know something because we were on our way to Boise. They couldn't say anything because they really didn't know what K was going to do for sure and didn't want to get our hopes up. Just after Pocatello Liz texted us and said "FYI, no final decision yet." Mark by this time was getting as anxious as I was. He told Paige we needed to pray the hardest we ever prayed. He told Paige Heavenly Father hears kids' prayers first so she said it again even though she didn't really want to. We kind of made her! She prayed the baby would come to our house. I texted my mom briefly that we really could use extra prayers and that we were being considered for a healthy baby girl already born. She texted back saying "praying hard!" Not ten minutes after Paige's prayer Mindy sent me a text asking where we were. I told her we were past Pocatello and heard nothing else. About the time we got to the Raft River area literally the middle of no where, I got a call from a Utah phone number. Josh and Liz were on the phone and told me they had good news for us. K had chosen us and that we needed to get to San Francisco as soon as we could. The baby's name was Veronica, they were working on getting some pictures and that Melissa would call us with more details and what we needed to do. I hung up the phone and we all screamed and cheered. It is bizarrre. A phone call people. A phone call to let you know you get to be a mom again. I got the text of the most beautiful baby and showed Paige who was so excited her prayer worked.
We literally had no idea what to do. We just kept driving. I texted some friends and asked "hypothetically if we had a baby coming if they could help with Paige and find us a car seat." They jumped to our rescue and we decided that we better just turn around. On our way back, Melissa called and asked if we could come meet with her at the agency as soon as we got back to town. We called our Boise families and told them we would no longer be coming. Mark called Delta who moved up his plane tickets from Monday for free. We rolled back into town, dropped Paige off with Weston and Mandi at their family reunion and headed to the agency. Then it was time to get scared. We talked about fees and the crazy California process. There was going to be a lot of hoops to jump through. We learned more about the birth mother and father. They had two other children and were together which seemed odd to me. They wouldn't be able to sign papers for at least ten more days. We were going to be fancy baby sitters and quite a bit was at risk, mostly our hearts. Things felt fast and real and I didn't know if I was ready. Could we do this? Could my heart take it? What if we took that baby home and had to give her back? We discussed lots of information and I tried really hard to understand it all. Melissa told us to expect three weeks in California. I asked if we had to stay in the Bay Area or if we could go stay with Mom and Dad in SoCal. She said that while technically we could because we would not be leaving the state, that was a good 7 hours away and made them a bit nervous and it would be something they would need to talk to K about. She asked where Mom and Dad were and I said Rancho Cucamonga California. Her mouth dropped open and she said, that is where your lawyer is! His office was literally a mile away from Dad's. She said that shouldn't be a problem at all and may make things easier. Coincidence? I think not. A big concern for Melissa was our home study update. Our current one was still good for another week or so, but wouldn't be good before papers could be signed. I told her that we would hear back about our new one at any time, it was done and we were just waiting for approval. Mark and I left feeling pretty well in the dark but that we had committed and were at the point of no return and it also felt like things were falling into place. Really though, we had so many questions and very few answers. In hindsight, I am still really shocked we went ahead and took such a leap. It was all such a whirlwind and nothing seemed very clear. We knew nothing. Mark felt tired, and that he wanted to figure out the details later, he just wanted to get on with things.
We already had bags packed so we said goodbye to Paige at Weston and Mandi's. She cried because she thought we were coming to get her and she wanted to stay and have a sleepover. It was so hard to leave her and I felt like a crazy bag of nerves. Mandi had gotten a infant car seat for us, even cleaned it. We have great friends! All in all, it didn't seem real. We tried to sleep and I stuffed my bag with baby things. Fortunately I never took down the nursery from our failed match the year before and all my baby girl stuff was clean and ready to go. I took some burp rags, blankets, and some clothes, and like 5 outfits for me. I felt entirely unprepared in every way. I checked my email and saw one from our social worker who did our home study. She had no idea what had gone on, but had sent me an email saying she was in the middle of a move but that she had gotten our update THAT DAY and would send it to us when she got a chance. I emailed her back right away and told her we had an immediate placement and needed it ASAP. She emailed me and said she thought her computer was at the back of the trailer and she should be able to get to it easy and would sent it as soon as she could. Mind you, this social worker had emailed me, out of the blue, late at night, on a Friday. Coincidence? Hmmm......miracles happen people! We tried our best to sleep, we had a super early flight out of Pocatello and really only had three or four hours before we needed to be out the door.
Part 2 to come......stay tuned!
These are the first pictures we got of Maci, (who was still Veronica) texted to us from Josh.
