Friday, March 27, 2009

The days after THE CALL
The church in action!! What the body of Christ should look like!
Part 2


When I last left you, I had received the call telling us there was an infant little girl waiting for us to bring her home!! I arrived at my mom's Wednesday late afternoon, stayed one day and turned around and drove the 7 hours back home on Friday. My one day with my mom was filled with constant phone calls...lawyer, Brent, friends ~lawyer, Brent, family!!

One of the things the agency had told me on the phone was that this was classified as a "legal risk" adoption. Without having to go into great detail, it simply meant that the birth father had not been around to sign any relinquishment papers and therefore considered a "risk". Because of the state we lived in, the adoption laws stated that once the birth mother/father signs those papers there is no waiting period, it is done! In our case, the mother signed at the hospital, the father however, was said to be out of the picture and after some legal procedures (typically that consisted of a notification and a time period for him to relinquish) his rights would be terminated. Because of this risk we had to talk to our attorney before we picked up little one~we had to get all this together before Sat.! (We had not even met our attorney yet!) Yep, not even a week to get things ready, 3 DAYS!!! And remember I'm still in another state!

I subtitled this post, the church in action, what the body of should look like, for a reason! One of the first few calls I made were to some very dear friends about our local fellowship. My friends wept with me, gave thanks with me and then said to me..."don't worry about anything, we will take care of the things you need!" To this day it makes my heart fill with emotion and my eyes fill with tears ~ I could never, never, imagine the outpouring of gifts & support. These dear sweet ladies rallied together and when I walked in my front door Friday afternoon I was blown away. ( This pic is just things that were on my dinning room table...I had things everywhere!)
A Car seat, clothes, bath things, blankets, wipes, diapers, formula, more diapers!!! Anything I could think of (did I mention diapers & formula!!) was at my house and if it wasn't there on Friday it poured in all week long!!! This is just an example of how generous the people of God were to us during that time....I DIDN'T BUY DIAPERS FOR ALMOST A YEAR!!!! Yep, you read right. I had a whole closet full of diapers!! Formula was right behind that. I think Brent & I in the end bought maybe 5 cans of formula. God's people, His church in action!!!

What really touched my heart was a simple act which I've not shared with these people so I hope they are reading. Meals were brought to our house the week we brought Tess home. Why you say would that make such an impact on you? Well, you know the routine, when someone you know gives birth to a baby they are obviously in pain for a couple of days, they are not only adjusting to having an infant in their home but they are physically adjusting to what just happened to their body~so what do we "church women" do...we bring meals!

I did not give birth...I didn't experience labor, physically I was fine! However these precious women treated me and my husband no differently than if I had gone through hours of intense pain! To a woman who cannot experience carrying and birthing life into this world that was HUGE!! In their eyes I was a REAL mom...labor or not! It didn't matter, I was a new mom just by different means! To those dear friends (who know who you are) thank you, thank you, thank you!! You will never know how such a simple act, made such an impact on my thinking about motherhood!

So we're set...we've gotten all our info from our lawyer, we are preparing for the possibility of meeting the birth mother, and we have most of what we need for our new little one...whew, what a whirlwind of activity & emotion!

So here we are, the night before Brent & I go pick up this little one that we already love so much even before meeting. What goes through a couples minds~ what went through my mind that evening?....

to be continued later this evening!




5 comments:

  1. I love this Marian! Thank you for sharing this journey. God is so good!

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  2. I'm loving reading this! It's a beautiful story, and I can't wait to read more!

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  3. When's the book coming out? Seriously!

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  4. What a beautiful testimony to GOd's provision through His church.
    We have a very supportive and genourous commited church family. It is our life line in so many ways. It is God's design for the body to work this way and it so encourages me to hear stories of it doing so.

    Loving your story!

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  5. We felt the same way about how grateful we were that people treated us like it was a "real birth". My best friend came to the hospital and held our little girl. Friends brought meals. We didn't have a shower, but we had fostered, so we had lots of stuff already.

    It just makes you feel normal. And after struggling with infertility, normal feels really good.

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