Lucas is getting a big brother!

On March 25, 2014 our adoption story went from crazy to unbelievable. Lucas and I were going about our normal morning routine when I received a phone call that I didn't answer because I had just got Lucas out of the bath. When I finally got around to looking at my phone I noticed my missed call was from the adoption agency. I also had a text message from our social worker that said, "Can you please give me a call. Everything is fine. Just need to chat with you about something important." We love our social worker, but hate getting phone calls from her. We have been conditioned to feel sick to our stomachs when she calls because so many of her calls deliver horrific news. My heart was pounding so loudly and my hands were shaking so badly as I waited for her to pick up the phone. The first thing she said was, "Everything with Lucas is fine. This has nothing to do with him or his adoption." Phew! She asked if I was sitting down for this news. I wasn't. I was pacing the living room, wanting her to spit out whatever it was she had to tell me. The words that came out of her mouth were, "Sawyer is available". The family that took him from us had some sort of emergency and weren't going to be able to care for him anymore. Her question was, "Did we want to take placement of Sawyer?" Elizabeth (our social worker) and I conference called Ron and I told him the news. The first thing Ron said was, "Why?" I don't think we will ever know the specifics of why they didn't want to or couldn't care for him anymore but that doesn't matter to us. According to his current foster parents and his social worker Sawyer is healthy, happy, thriving, handsome, has no health concerns and is meeting his developmental milestones.

Just to clarify... Sawyer was the first baby that we brought home and had for 31 days before he was removed because of an error made by Social Services.

Social Services wanted our answer in a couple hours. Ron and I started to process this information. Ron was completely on board almost immediately. I on the other hand needed to try and think rationally, even though I wanted to say yes. But it was Sawyer. We love him so much and the day we had to say good-bye was the worst day of our lives. But we had Lucas now. Would bringing Sawyer into our home be fair to Lucas? Would it be fair to Sawyer? How would we handle two infants? Would we ever sleep again? Could we afford it? Would we regret not taking placement of Sawyer? Did we really want to deal with Social Services again and weekly birth mom visits? But it was Sawyer. He was the first baby to show us how amazing parenthood was. He had a special place in our hearts. He was our son. I saw Ron become a great father when Sawyer was with us. This might be our only chance for Lucas to have a sibling.

I felt overwhelmed and nervous. I couldn't make such a huge decision in a couple of hours. I asked our Social Worker to ask Soical Services if we could give our final decision the following day. We needed to give our answer by 8:00am the following morning.

Five days before we received this news our social worker told us that she saw Sawyer and his foster family at Social Services about a month ago. She said he was big and looked like he was doing well. She described his foster family as 'earthy' aka hippies. We also found out his foster family was Jehovah's Witnesses. We were so sad. We had been praying for months that Sawyer would have every opportunity to come to know Christ. With this hope, we knew that if we didn't ever see him again on Earth that we would see him in Heaven. Maybe we were supposed to take him so that he would be raised in a loving Christian home. Who knew what kind of a home he would go to if we didn't take him?

We were told there were plenty of other families that would love to have Sawyer and that if we didn't take him he would be okay. Typically a family with a 5 week old baby would not be eligible for another child until the first adoption is finalized. However, our case is different because we were listed as first placement if Sawyer's current foster family decided they couldn't keep him. We just never thought that would happen. Plus, everyone involved in Sawyer's case knew how much we loved this little guy and how special he was to us.

After Landon's (the baby right before Lucas) birth mom changed her mind about keeping him and wanted to give him back to us a few weeks ago, we played the what if game. What if the foster family that had Sawyer didn't want him anymore? Would we take him? That answer was always yes. A yes with no hesitation. But now that it was really happening it was hard to try and make the best decision for everyone involved.

Ron told me he would be okay with whatever decision I made. He assured me that there was enough love to go around and that we could handle whatever was thrown our way. The first little while would definitely be challenging, but the pros outweighed the cons. He promised to step up on his daddy responsibilities so that I wouldn't feel extremely overwhelmed. He even tried to bribe me by bringing home a super huge burrito from my favorite mexican restaurant. However, by that time my mind was already made up. Sawyer would be joining our family once again.

O-M-G!!! I couldn't even believe we were going to do this. We are crazy! It will be like having twins. Twins that look completely different and are 3 months apart. We felt excited, nervous, hopeful, slightly sick to our stomachs but in a good way, and so happy that we had this opportunity.

On Wednesday morning we met with a team from the Department of Social Services and a social worker from our agency. We were completely unaware that this meeting would include a conference call to Sawyer's current foster mom. We got to ask questions about him, which helped completely reassure our decision. At one point his foster mom even said that he was going to the family that should've had him all along. When the conference call ended Ron totally called out the social workers from Social Services about our previous experience with them. We got several apologies and were told that because of their original mistake they have changed their policies so that it doesn't happen to other families. We never thought they would apologize and the fact that they did meant a lot.

We still have many court dates in our future, but each one will get us closer to Sawyer officially becoming a Sequeira. He still has weekly visits with his birth mom, which was extremely difficult to deal with last time. Because he is a foster child we have many rules to follow and cannot legally post pictures of him of social media. It will be a difficult road, but it will be worth it in the end.

Sawyer rejoined our family on Thursday March 27, 2014.

Pray that he adjusts well to these changes that he has no control over. Pray that we do an awesome job of raising our 2 boys. And pray for strength for us as we deal with the legal aspects of it all.

We never imagined that this would be God's plan for us after everything we have endured the past year. If Sawyer was never taken away, we wouldn't have Lucas. Just a mere 6 weeks ago I was doubting that God would ever bless us with a baby and now we have two!

Until next time...

An Unexpected Twist

Lucas was home for all of 2 days when I received a text message that caught me by complete surprise. It was from Landon's birth mom.

"...I know you might not want to hear from me, but I just wanted to apologize for being a coward and not following through with the adoption. I know that I caused you and Ron a great deal of pain and for that I am truly sorry. It wasn't my intention. Please don't think that I didn't like you guys as adoptive parents because that wasn't it... I changed my mind about the adoption. And as much as this hurts and breaks my heart to say, I need to stop being selfish and think about where my baby will be better off. I know that adoption is the best thing for my child... I'm doing the responsible thing and helping give my child a life he deserves to live. And I know you and Ron can provide that for my baby... I don't know if you guys are still willing, or want to continue the adoption process. If not, I understand..."

I couldn't believe it. When we went home without Landon, I hoped this would happen but I never actually believed 'Y' would change her mind. Ron was out doing an errand for me when I received this text, so as I waited for him to return home my mind was running wild. I read the text over and over and over again just to make sure I had read it correctly. I wasn't dreaming, this was real.

Ron looked stunned as I read him the text message. Of course we wanted Landon. Even though we only spent a short time with him, we loved him and considered him our son. After all, he was a Sequeira. We tried to figure out if it was in the realm of possibilities to take on another newborn. Sounds crazy, right? It didn't take long for us to start thinking logically. It wouldn't be fair to Lucas if he had to share our attention with Landon. It wouldn't be fair to Lucas' birth mom who picked us knowing that we had no other children and that he would be receiving all of our attention. Our bank account would be taking another major dip if we had to pay more adoption fees. Yes, it would be worth every penny to have Landon but that doesn't make it the right decision. It would be different if it was twins because that is 'buy one, get one free'! It would be double the diapers and formula (it's not like I can breast feed and save tons of money). We felt so torn. We loved Landon. We loved him enough to decide that he would probably be better off with another family that wanted to adopt. It would almost seem kind of greedy to take two babies in such a short amount of time when there are other families out there waiting for their forever child. But at the same time, this could be our only chance at having 2 children. After everything we've gone through, we are not interested in growing our family of 3. Our hearts can't take anymore. I felt guilty that we decided to not take Landon.

We called our social worker to tell her what happened. She told us she already knew that 'Y' had changed her mind. She apologized for not telling us and said she didn't want to confuse us, but was going to tell us eventually. I didn't blame her. I certainly did feel confused. She had forgotten that 'Y' had my phone number, so that we could be in contact at the hospital if she needed me. Our social worker told us that 'Y' had contacted the adoption agency and told them she changed her mind and wanted to place Landon with us. 'Y's social worker told her that we were 'unavailable' and that she could pick another family. If she decided to pick another family, she would need to sign paperwork to terminate her rights immediately and Landon would be placed with a foster family for 10 business days until her rights were officially terminated. She was too much of a risk to do it any other way. 'Y' made it clear that she only wanted to place Landon with us, which made me feel worse about our decision. 'Y' had no idea we had Lucas. 'Y' must have contacted us herself because she needed to hear for herself that we really were 'unavailable'.

Our social worker told us it was our choice whether or not we wanted to respond back to her. We felt it was only fair that we be honest with her. We knew it wasn't easy for her to send that text message to us.

"I really appreciate your apology. It means a lot. We were devastated when you changed your mind. We loved your baby so much and were so excited to be his parents. We couldn't believe that once again another adoption plan had failed. We really believed we were never going to be parents. On Tuesday another birth mom picked us and we brought Lucas home that night. We really wish we could be parents to your baby and Lucas but we don't think it would be fair to them or to Lucas' birth mom. If you really do feel that adoption is best for your baby then I would encourage you to pick another family. I really wish were were able to adopt him. It's really hard to say no, but we have to. We will be praying for you as you figure out what you want to do. We would love to know what you decide. Give that handsome little boy our love!" 

We haven't heard back from 'Y' and neither has the adoption agency, despite their efforts to reach out to her. For all we know, her keeping Landon might've been the right decision all along. 'Y' keeping Landon caused us a lot of pain but that brought us to Lucas, who has brought us so much joy. All we can do is pray that Landon is receiving the love and care that he deserves.

Until next time...