The First BIG Hill

So yesterday I left you with the knowledge that we had some conditions to meet and we had a little boy on the way.

That was true.  What you don't know is that that little boy wasn't son #1. 

This was a little boy whom we'd seen on the bulletin and thought Hmmmm he sounds like he could be ours.  Well after quite a bit of back and forth between the social workers, it was decided that we had to: 1. Get his nursery/room set up. 2. Rehome the best dog we'd ever had.  3. Have our doctor look into the future and tell us what this child's special needs might develop into.

So within a month all 3 conditions were met.  We were excited!  We informed our worker we were ready to start our preplacement visits.  She contacted the child's worker and said we were ready and able to start the process.  The child's worker informed our worker that the foster family had decided to adopt him instead and she had homestudied them and done the placement.

WE WERE DESTROYED!!!

In the time we'd taken to do everything that was asked of us, the worker had taken the child out from under us!  We had to rehome our precious little dog because our soon-to-be son was allergic to dogs, we spent money on a specific designed (insisted upon) nursery that we didn't have the money for.  (The nursery/room had been set up and ready to be occupied but there were other specific things that this particular child required.) But more than the dog and the money was the knowledge we'd been deceived.  Our worker had been fully preparing to do the placement and she was very upset too.

This was our first encounter with the loss of a child.  You have to understand that we knew everything about this boy.  We knew his face, we knew his beautiful little heart, we knew his issues, we knew his familial background.  There was some pretty difficult things to accept and deal with the boy and we didn't care.  He was ours!  I know there are people out there who are going to say you still don't have a clue what it's like to lose a child.  In a sense they're right.  I don't want to know!  But the grief a family feels when they have wholeheartedly accepted that a child is coming and he/she is theirs for life, is really quite similar.  Not the same, but similar.  You feel the need to have some sort of process to go through.  Something to help you memorialize your time and connection with the child.  Something to help you move forward.

I remember having to tell our families that everything was put on hold.  That we weren't getting the boy.  That he would never be a part of our family.  We were all heartbroken.  As first time adoptive parents you're told in the AEP that these things can and do happen.  But you never think it will happen to you.  When it does it's devastating.  We put ourselves on hold for a bit and took the time to grieve. 

We were much better prepared for the next time.  We were now, to some extent, guarded.  When we learned about a possible match we were cautiously optimistic.  We told our worker that she could never again ask us to rehome a pet because of a possible match.  We would cross that bridge when the child came home.  If an allergy couldn't be dealt with then we would rehome the pet, but not before.  We lost the best little dog we'd ever had.

Like I said, we moved forward.  To this day I still pray for that little boy and hope that he's doing well.  He just wasn't in God's plan for us.  We can accept that. 

The next step we took brought us our son #1. :)