The Lord giveth & the Lord taketh away.....

About 6 months ago a friend of mine came to me and told me that someone in her family; we will just call her Jane, was currently pregnant and interested in putting her child up for adoption. She was in a place where she could not care for another child. "Jane" was taking care of two children who's father was in jail and his father that he left behind. She was barely getting by & she wanted to make sure her baby would be taken care of. This whole situation just seemed surreal to me. I tried to hold my excitement back because I KNEW where this was going ;-) and I did not want to seem like a weirdo. I was so excited and a little cautious because we had found foster parenting and we are pretty set in our ways on that and comfortable with building our family that way but something like that does not happen everyday. I couldn't help but be utterly excited that this was happening. My husband was deployed so I couldn't reach him to talk to him about it for a couple of days. Having to hold that in was killer!
My husband and I talked about it and we both decided that we needed to contact our social worker and pray about it. So I prayed and sought out reinforcement, I posted a brief status on facebook asking for our prayer warriors to keep us in their prayers. We desperately needed guidance. Only a few people knew what was going on and we kept it quite in case it did not happen. We have some wonderful supporters that have been on this journey along side of us and they also share the emotional & mental ups and downs of this journey with us, so we figured it was best to keep quite until it was a definite.
"Jane" and I finally had our first conversation.....I must say, that was THE MOST awkward conversation. I remember having SO MUCH anxiety. I had no clue what to say or how to act. After a few minutes of small talk she finally brought it up.......I was so relieved because my mind was going a mile a minute and my emotions were crazy so I just kept quite & did the small talk. She poured out her situation to me and I just listened. She never asked about me, my husband or our families. I found that so odd. She just wanted me to know her situation and that she wanted to give her child up for adoption. I didn't feel right just listening and she not knowing anything about us. It made me so uncomfortable. She didn't want any money, she just wanted a family for her child.
We spoke weekly and I finally told her that I needed to tell her something; anything about us, I just did not feel right that she knew nothing about us. So I gave a brief history of us and she responded with a smiley face. Nothing more just a :)
Months past and she had still had not said "I want you to take my child". I can not begin to explain the emotional roller coaster it was. She made every insinuation that the baby was ours but never said it. I gave her space and didn't pressure her. I cant imagine the emotions she was feeling. So I just continued to listen & she kept me updated on her appointments and she was taking her prenatal vitamins and I was trying to teach her breathing techniques to help her with her stress, then she told me the big news. Her next appointment would be finding out the sex of the baby :) I tried to hold my excitement, I just knew she was going to ask me if I would like to go, I just wanted to jump up and down with praise but she never asked me. It was after that appointment things changed. Her phone calls and texts stopped. It wasn't until I was on facebook that I got my answer. She had anounced she was pregnant and she was naming her son after the father. I remember thinking "Your having a baby boy!??" :'-) She was having a little boy :) As a woman you know, you know in your heart that its over at that point. We haven't heard from her since.
We had names picked out. Jonathon & Anastasia :) I cant say my world crashed around me but my heart was heavy. I think the only thing that kept me level headed was knowing that we still had foster parenting. It wasn't the end of the world for us. I put my trust in the Lord. He is the only One who knows why & for whatever reason He has other plans for us and them. No matter how much it hurts now; He ALWAYS has our best interest at mind.
I have to hold on to that hope, otherwise I loose my faith.....

"The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord!"