From that moment, we KNEW we had to have her... we had been talking about adoption for years. We are always drawn to families that have adopted, curious, inspired by, and envious. We have always known that we love being parents and it was no secret that we hate seeing our kids grow up so fast. We are the kind of parents that don't ever miss a game, a performance, a practice... we volunteer in the classrooms and coach their sports teams. We love being parents and it just felt right that we wanted to add to our family.
Thanks to some wonderful friends that we have been blessed to have met through social media months ago, we were introduced to an adoption website featuring children with Down syndrome and other special needs. We hold a special place in our hearts for children of all abilities, but we were especially drawn to these beautiful babies and children with Down Syndrome. We knew adoption was for us, but what we didn't know until then was that we had just stumbled across something that changed us forever... Reece's Rainbow!
Together and separately we spent hours on end scrolling different children's pictures and reading their stories on Reece's Rainbow, to the point where we felt as if we all of the children personally. We showed their pictures and stories to our biological children and let them share their opinions on who they imagined would fit into our family well. We discussed a variety of different children and their ages, and we felt as if we could have loved them all had they been given to us. Other adoptive families always say "you will know when you have found your child." But I just couldn't understand that. When you see so many adorable children that need a family, how do you REALLY know that you have found YOUR child! How do you know when it is the child that is meant to be in your family. I kept questioning that in my head ... will I know? Do I like too many of the children to really have one child to commit to? Is there a child that is meant to be for us?
Then one night there was a special little girl that popped up under the "Newly Listed Children" and my heart sunk. My eyes filled with tears when I showed her to to my husband. We couldn't take our eyes off of her. I spent the entire night staring at her picture and re-reading her story. I had to have her!
We spent the next few days talking about her, discussing how we would be able to take on the financial commitment of the international adoption, and reviewing the commitment process documents. It was such an emotional few days thinking and thinking. Was this our child? The big question kept coming back... yes we want her, but "how do I know she is the one".
During those 48 hours, as we did our due diligence, something happened... She got taken! She was moved on the website and I couldn't find her. I was DEVASTATED. I went everywhere on the site, but she was no where to be found. Usually I was happy when I saw a child moved because it meant that a family was committing to adopt him/her and soon there would be one less orphan in the world and one more child loved! This time it was different. I felt my heart break in a way that I hadn't ever experienced before. I was supposed to be happy when a child is committed to, and instead I was so angry and I felt broken. I will never forget the knot in my stomach when I walked in the other room to tell my husband that we had lost her before we even got her... the words barely came out of my mouth as I burst into tears. I kept saying "our baby was taken"... my husband held me and with sadness said "maybe she wasn't meant to be."
As difficult as it was, I pulled myself together and put on a happy face for our children (whom we hadn't yet told that we had picked AND lost a child). Within the next few days I began to search on the Reece's Rainbow site again, but I couldn't stop thinking about her, and if only we had committed to her faster and followed our hearts instead of "thinking" so much and waiting for a sign. I searched and searched the site to see if I had missed her. Still I couldn't find her. I emailed Reece's Rainbow AND the Adoption Facilitation team that was recommended to me, to ask for more information about her and if she was still available. I told them I couldn't find her on the site anymore!
I received an email back that said YES she was again available, another family commitment had fallen through. We then knew exactly what the other adoptive families had felt when they said "you will know when you find your child!" This baby girl was meant to be our child! We quickly filled out the adoption commitment paperwork as fast as possible, while I cried the entire time. From that moment we KNEW we had to have her ... she was our baby!
