It Does Happen!

No, not for us yet. But, Tiffany had a lot of good, positive adoption stories come her way on Friday. We were warned that typically people share scary tales when they hear you're adopting. We've heard some of those stories, and it's easy to see that the story teller is just concerned for us and wants to protect us from the downsides of this process. Last week though, they were all good, positive vibes coming our way.

Every Friday Tiffany volunteers at the Ronald McDonald House. She meets a lot of people who are living through a tough time with a sick child. Sometimes groups of volunteers make meals for the families staying at the House. Last week, that group consisted of nurses from a nearby hospital. Considering the lukewarm response from hospital staff to our reaching out in recent weeks, Tiffany was a little gun-shy about speaking up. But, we have to get the word out. One of the nurses was a lactation consultant in a local neonatal department and was very open to hearing about our journey.

She shared that just the day before we met, they had a relinquishment in her unit. What never ceases to surprise her is how harmonious that entire process goes. The adoptive parents are always so grateful and the birth mother is at peace with the decision and feels confident that she's made the right choice. This nurse expects hysterics and instead it turns out so peaceful. She started to cry as she spoke. We're not naive enough to think that this is how it always goes. But now we're not so naive as to think it can't go this way for us.

She also shared that her sister just completed her adoption and another nurse chimed in that her friend was celebrating the one year birthday of their adoption son. All positive stories of successful adoptions reminding us that it does happen.

One of the staff at the House is really advocating on our behalf at local churches and through her family's networks. She said that she heard back from one family friend that this method of reaching out does work. A few weeks ago, a young woman in her church placed her baby with an adoptive couple from New England. She said if she'd had our postcard telling our story, who knows what might have happened....

We still feel strongly that our babies will find us. We don't feel a loss from a "missed opportunity" because someone didn't have our postcard to share with a birth mother. That wasn't our story to be. We are confident that it will happen, but the little reminders that bombarded us on Friday were a welcome onslaught of positivity.