Andies' Adoption Story Part I

(a sweet pink gown was on our bed when we got back to my parents house after we found out we had been picked)


We have been waiting a long time for little miss Andie to join our family.

We put in our papers with hopes to adopt again through LDS Family services when Miles was 14 months.

That was a couple of years ago.
He is now 3 1/2  years old.

We had a couple opportunities come up but they just didn't work out. 

It was frustrating and hard.

Then in December of 2014 LDS Family Services announced that they would be no longer facilitating adoptions.

We weren't even sure what to do and where to go.

Our caseworker from LDS Family Services kept suggesting a specific agency for us to check out over that last year but it was triple the cost (why does it all have to come down to money?)

Anyway...when LDS Family Services was done, we decided to give that agency a call to "just see."

We called in January of 2015 and had a great consultation.

We didn't sign up with the agency right then, but were very interested.

We still needed to save a little bit more to do it.

We went down to meet the staff a month later and really hit it off with one of the employees. 

Her name was Jessalyn.

She herself placed a baby for adoption 7 years ago and now works with birthmothers all over the U.S.

She and I became friends on Facebook and Instagram.

A month later we had all the money we needed and could finally sign up with the agency.

Romney was driving to the bank depositing that last chunk of change when I got a phone a call from Jessalyn saying there may be an opportunity for us.

The problem was we hadn't signed up with the company just yet, and didn't have a profile to show off.

I told Jessa to give this expectant mama our blog address, our facebook page, and our adoption.com profile that was out on the world wide web and crossed our fingers.

 Jessa called the next day and told us that this girl really liked us but she also liked another couple.

It was between us and another couple hoping to adopt.

She was a girl from Utah and we were going up there in April.

We wrote her an email expressing our humble gratitude that she would even consider us as a couple and that we were going to be in her area in April then asked if she'd want to meet up for dinner.
....and she said yes.
Eek!

April 3, 2015 we met up in Utah at the restaurant of her choice.
She brought a childhood friend to make things easier on her end.
She shook hands and hugged and sat down and all took a deep breath.
Within 5 minutes of visiting she told us that she was having a girl and showed us ultrasound pictures.
But that was the extent of baby talk.
We went on to talking about work, our hobbies, our lives and had an easy conversation.
It was getting late and the night would be coming to close and we hadn't really talked about "adoption."
So I just flat out started asking questions about her situation.
We learned that she got pregnant when we were doing our homestudy, we learned that she signed up as a birthmom through the agency when we were having our consultation with them also.
The day Romney was driving to deposit the money was the day a couple she was talking with originally wasn't a good fit and that she was so frustrated.
So on that frustrating day, she was presented "us" as a couple that would be signing up later in the day.
 
"The stars had aligned" for us to find each other and it was awesome to see it all unfolding right there!


We hugged goodbye and we went our separate ways.
We wondered what she thought of us.

Saturday April 4, 2015 the agency called us and said
"SHE PICKED YOU".

We had a baby girl coming in 20 weeks!!!