March 26th, 2014. 4:30pm. It was a Wednesday afternoon. Naptime was over and, being that it was Wednesday night, I had the girls in the bathtub for an early bath time since it was Awana night at church. The girls were playing and I was getting myself ready when my cell phone rang.

I looked to see who was calling and saw that it was our adoption agency. Immediately my heart started racing because there was no reason they should be calling but I already knew in that instance why my phone was ringing…

“Hello.”

After the small talk I heard what I knew our adoption attorney was going to say, “She says she’s about 15 weeks pregnant and she wants you to adopt the baby.”

Emily had not clarified who was pregnant this time so I stopped her and said, “Wait. Who? Which one?” even though in my gut I already knew.

“Tracy.”

It didn’t matter who it was at that point. My heart sunk, still beating out of my chest, and my defenses went up.

I knew there was no way possible we could adopt this baby. No way.

Another adoption was no where near in our immediate plans for our family. In fact, just two weeks prior to Emily’s phone call on that Wednesday afternoon, I had gathered most of our baby gear and baby toys and sold it to various people who replied to my Craigslist ads. I was very proud of the money I had earned by selling all our baby things because I knew it would completely cover the cost of our homeschool materials for the next school year!

As Dave and I would toy with the idea of a third child, Dave was absolutely positive he was content with just having two daughters. I always felt torn. I had always wanted 4 children, but the reality of that seemed far fetched given our infertility. Since Dave knew he didn’t want any more children, I started trying to convince myself that we were in fact done. However, in our discussions about this, I would always tell Dave if we ever got a call about one of our daughters’ birth mothers, that would be the only time I would want to consider one more domestic infant adoption because it would rip my heart out to say no. He would always say, “Well, let’s just hope that doesn’t happen.”

And then it happened, but in the instant I heard the news, I knew there was nothing to discuss.

Oh, my heart wanted to say yes with absolutely no hesitation but as my mind quickly replayed the circumstances of our life since January 22nd, 2014, my mind knew what the answer had to be. There was simply nothing to discuss. To say yes to this would be irresponsible.

As much as I wanted to say yes, I knew we had to say no.

I hung up with Emily and walked from our master bathroom across the room and to Dave’s office corner of our bedroom.

I was angry. Not at him. Not at anyone but our circumstances. I spilled the news to him and then, like I expected, he said there was no way we could adopt this baby. I knew it. He knew it.

The girls were ready to get out of the tub by this time, so I headed back to the bathroom but my mind stayed on this baby.

It’s hard to explain the instant connection to this baby that I felt. My rational husband told me that we didn’t have to adopt this baby simply because it was Tracy’s baby. I knew that, but I still cared deeply for this child…because he or she was a biological sibling to my daughter. If the baby couldn’t be placed in our home, I desperately wanted to see this child placed in a loving home with a mother and father that would teach this child to love and serve the Lord.

I remember saying to Dave over and over again that evening that I wished our circumstances were different so that we could say yes. But then I would tell him, “But, honestly, I really don’t want a newborn at this time!”. With our youngest nearly three we were transitioning out of the baby phase and moving towards a new season of having school-aged children that we were going to homeschool. I was looking forward to starting our homeschooling journey in the Fall when Little Bug would officially start Kindergarten and bringing a newborn home at that time was no where in my homeschool plans.

While the decision to remain a family of four could have been an obstacle we could have easily removed in order to say yes to adopting this baby, the events surrounding January 22, 2014, left no room for even discussing the possibility of adding to our family at this time.

Life was a mess and adopting now would only make it messier.

To read the next part of this story, click here.

- Elaine