Daniele and I have felt called to adopt for some time since I attended a meeting for a Haiti orphanage mission trip three years ago when I was pregnant with Luca, our son. Exactly one year ago, we began filling out paperwork for a domestic infant adoption.
We probably could have accepted a placement for a baby this past February or March, but we decided to take our annual family trip to Italy last spring, as we knew we wouldn't be able to leave the country with our new baby for about six months after placement. Two days after arriving in Italy, we received a call that we were matched with a birth mother due in July. We were so excited! We spoke with the birth mother and continued to speak with her about every two weeks for almost three months.
But in July things began happening that left us feeling that adoption might not be right for us.
After a very stressful month, the adoption fell apart at the end of July. It was very emotional, as we had thought in our minds that this was the baby for us. We had become attached to her, leaving us very stressed and drained.
As you often hear in adoption stories, God had other plans for us. Only two weeks later, I was on vacation in San Diego when I received a call from our agency that a baby girl had been born in Indiana that morning and the birth mother had chosen us. I flew out that night to Indiana on a red-eye flight, and Daniele met me there. We had a really emotional but good experience getting to know the birth mother and her family before our daughter Olivia was placed in our arms. We left the hospital with her the next day, and she became part of our family. The two weeks between the failed adoption and the call that we received letting us know were matched again felt like months for me. But obviously God had a plan that we couldn't see. Olivia was the perfect addition to our family.