Well, to refresh, we were wait-listed with our agency in August of 2011. We had been told since day one of our journey that the "normal" time to expect to wait would be 12-18 months. I heard that when we were told that, however, I will tell you, I of course thought we would be the exception. So as the days, weeks, and months went by I never went without full anticipation that we wouldn't get the phone call any day.
The agency that we were wait-listed with would send out a monthly update to all of their waiting families. They would give us a heads up of any birth moms that they were working with and ones that they anticipated would be looking at profiles soon. Their standard procedure was that they have the birth mom or birth parents look at profiles about 2 months prior to their due date. As of February of 2012 we had been looked at by maybe 2 birth moms. We hadn't been chosen by either. When the update came in February we discovered that there wouldn't be any birth moms ready to look at profiles until possibly April. After I read these kind of updates, I usually spent the rest of the day struggling with my restlessness in waiting and reminding myself that God's timing is perfect. It was really my only way of getting out of the cruddy attitude it left me in. Oh my restlessness.
Well, fortunately for me my younger sister quickly gave me something to redirect my focus on. She found out mid-February that she had won a trip to Australia to meet Taylor Swift and attend her concert in Australia. Lucky for me, my brother in law was too busy with work to take time off and I just happened to have my passport ready! So the next couple of weeks were filled with complete excitement as we prepared to go to Australia! Our Australia trip was scheduled for March 7th, 2012. Now, March is a pretty special month for our family . You see, my birthday is March 5th. Our twins birthday is March 9th. I was going to miss their birthday for Australia and Taylor Swift. While I felt like a terrible mom, my husband was very supportive and excited for me to go. He assured me that they would not hold it against me if I was not there on their 4th birthday. He also agreed to take their birthday off work and to spoil them like crazy in my absence. We made plans to celebrate their birthday the weekend before I left. Back to packing for Australia I went!
OK, now stick with me here, I am going to throw some dates at you, I wish I could draw you a timeline, but it is worth it if you see how this all played out!
During the months of January and February I had been feeling incredibly burdened to pray for our birth mom. Again, we technically didn't have a birth mom yet, however, I knew I needed to pray for her. We had always prayed for her. My sweet boys got so used to praying for our house to sell and our birth mom I was sure that they would never be able to pray again without praying for them! But this burden was different. I would be driving down the road and this overwhelming urge to pray for her would strike and it was almost like I couldn't help myself but to pray. It happened in the grocery store, the movie theater, as I cleaned the house. Constantly. I told Adam at one point, "I don't know why, but I feel like I need to pray for her all the time. Even though I don't even know who I am praying for." He is so simple sometimes. His advice? "Well, then you better keep praying." So I did.
Just to warn you, this is the part of our story that if I were reading this on someone else's blog, I would be very skeptical to believe. However, I am putting this all here because this is God's story. Also, this is so unbelievable, I still can't believe this is our story! Thursday February 23rd, was a normal day. That night I went to sleep and had a dream. In my dream I was hugely pregnant. It was so real. I knew what it was like to feel hugely pregnant, I had twins remember. This dream was so vivid. I could feel the baby move and kick. I remember feeling my stomach and feeling like it was as big as it ever was with the twins. When I woke up Friday morning, I told Adam kind of in passing, about the dream. He didn't really know what to think, all he said was, "huh, that's crazy." I went about my day, never thinking about it again.
Friday night (the 24th) I went to sleep. I had a dream. In this dream, Adam and I were at an educational meeting at our agency. While we were there our social worker pulled us aside and told us there was a birth mom there who would like to meet us. We were taken into a different room and met a beautiful young woman. We spent some time talking to her. She asked us questions. She had a two year old little boy. We met him. She was due with another baby boy in 2 weeks and she was scheduled to have a c-section. At the end of my dream she asked us if we would be her child's adoptive family. I woke up. When I woke up I remembered all of it. That dream was so vivid. I told Adam about it. I even remembered her name in the dream. I told Adam every detail. Really, at that point, I didn't think it was anything more than a dream. To be honest with you, I told Adam about it, and didn't give it another thought.
Saturday night, no dreams. On Sunday afternoon Adam was on the phone with his mom. His mom said to him, " I had the weirdest dream about your wife (me) last night. In my dream she was extremely pregnant. So pregnant that we actually were feeling the baby kick around in her belly. But you guys were trying to hide it from everyone. It was so strange!" Adam laughed and said, "Well, I can assure you she is not pregnant, and we have nothing to hide. That is a crazy dream!" Now, this is the point were we are going to seem like we are completely not intelligent people. Neither Adam or myself, put these dreams together. We never connected the fact that these dreams had all just occurred over a 3 night period and consisted of similar material. Nope, nothing. We missed it.
We went on with our week as normal. Just to remind you of where we are on our timeline. It is now the week of February 26th. On Monday mornings I attended a training meeting for a leadership position I was in at a local Bible Study. A gal in Bible study with me, stopped me afterwards and told me, "hey, you have been on my heart lately. I just wanted you to know I am praying for you." This is not an exaggeration. From Sunday the 26th to Monday the 27th, 6 people contacted me and told me the exact same thing! That night I told Adam, "I am kind of thinking that maybe something is going to happen to me and God is trying to either protect me with these people's prayers or prepare me with them." To be honest, I was doing great! I was getting ready for Australia. I thought these people were maybe wasting their time praying for me right now! Little did I know!
On Friday March 2nd, I woke up and started to get ready to go to a friends house to clean. Another friend and I enjoy cleaning and our friends family happened to be out of town for the week. Leaving us a nice empty house to clean any way we wanted! It was good therapy! As I did my hair I had this conversation going on in my head..." I think we are going to get a phone call today from the agency. No, there is nothing for them to call us about. No, the phone call with come Monday, that is my birthday. I would love to find out we are getting a baby on my birthday. Lord, I know you love me. I know I don't deserve a baby. But if you wanted to bring us a baby, it would be really cool to do it on my birthday."
That was it. Back to my day. Off to clean. That evening we were headed out to dinner with the boys and then to get some last minute things for their birthday party the next day. In the car, my phone rang. I answered it. It was our caseworker, Sarah. She started the conversation with "Hey, this is Sarah. I need to talk to you and Adam about a birth mom. She isn't our usual case." She went on to tell me about this birth moms situation. As she gave more details, it was as if I new them already. They were details from my dream I had exactly one week before. I kid you not, the details were exact. Down to her name. This birth mom was scheduled to have a c-section on March 8th, 6 days away. Sarah asked a question that seemed a little funny to me. She asked, "are you going to be around next week if this birth mom wanted to meet you guys?" (She didn't know I was going to Australia.) I immediately said, "Yes, I won't be going anywhere next week." Adam looked at me with a huge questioning look. If you remember, which he did, I was supposed to leave for Australia on the 7th! I knew then and there, I would not be going to Australia. Sarah said, "ok, she is going to look at profiles on Monday (March 5th). I will let you know either way." I said okay. Then quickly, said, "Wait! Do you know what the gender of the baby is?" Sarah laughed and said, "Oh yeah, I always forget to tell people that! It is a boy." I tried as hard as I could to hold back tears. I didn't do very good. I didn't ask Sarah how many other profiles were going to be shown. At that point I didn't need to know. I knew, we knew, that was our baby. In the car still, we turned down a different road and I said, "That is our son. We are supposed to name him Isaiah." I have no idea where that name came from. It wasn't one from our list. Adam said, yes, we are.
Well, now I needed to change gears. We decided that we didn't really want to tell anyone just yet. You see, when you tell people that you are being looked at by a birth mom, if she doesn't choose you, you have to deal with the let down and then let down other people. It is not fun. So as confident as we were, we decided we needed just to enjoy this on our own for now. However, we did think we needed to prepare my sister that I may not be going to Australia with her next week. Well, God had that worked out already. As we were out getting last minute birthday party things, we "happened" to run into my sister at a store. Now, I will tell you, this hadn't happened before that night and it hasn't happened since. We told her about our phone call. We agreed we wouldn't worry about working out the details of Australia and that we both trusted God to take care of all the details for us. We agreed with would deal with it Monday after we found out for sure.
On Saturday we had a fantastic time celebrating our amazing 4 year old boys birthdays! At the end of their party one of Adams family members asked us if we had heard anything about our adoption lately. He glanced at me and said completely straight faced, nothing for sure. That satisfied them, no one asked anything else. After they all left Adam said, "It is just like my mom's dream! We are extremely pregnant and we are hiding it from everyone!" We both laughed and sat in awe of God!
Monday, March 5th. My birthday! We did our very best to go about "normal" life. I attended my Monday leadership training and did my best not to look at my phone all morning! I prayed. Boy, did I pray. At 4:00 that afternoon, the phone rang. I answered. Sarah was on the other side, she said, "Mary, I want to let you know the birth mom that looked at you today, would like you guys to parent her child!" I feel like I need to insert a hundred exclamation points here, but I will refrain! She went through some details of how the next few days would look. A c-section was scheduled for March 8th. We were having a baby in 3 days! By far, the best birthday present God could ever give me!
