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...
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