Worth the Wait - Emma's story

As soon as our first baby girl (Lilly) turned one, we immediately re-applied to adopt again. Mike and I love having siblings and longed for Lilly to experience the joy of having someone to share her life with (besides Mom and Dad). I was confident that our wait would not be long. We lived in a nice neighborhood, owned our own home, I was a full-time Stay at Home Mom and Mike had a pretty solid career. But… life is never constant, it is always progressing and not always where you think, or want it to go. I made the call in January 2007 to LDS Family Services in Seattle, WA to start things up again. Shortly after we received the news from Mike’s employer that he was going to be laid off, sometime in August or September. This news was pretty devastating to us, as I had just recently ‘retired’ from my career and Mike was the sole provider for our family. We began praying, and talking and trying to work through what our plans should be. In some ways this was a total answer to another question we had been praying a lot about. Mike kept feeling strongly that he needed to go back to school… Again with our new dilemma more education kept coming up. We decided we needed to sell our house and go from there. Our house went on the Market in April of 2007, it sold in 2 days! By this point we decided to have Mike go back to school. As crazy as it sounds we flew to UT and looked at over 20 houses in 2 days and made an offer on a little 1930’s home very near the University Mike would start at in the Fall. We made a good profit on our home in Washington and placed a large down payment on our new home to keep our mortgage low.
We made the big move West in May 2007, I called the LDS Family Services Agency to transfer our file to the local one. These two did not communicate well… I was so grateful that I had done the paperwork before and knew what needed to be turned in. Finally in September, after making duplicate copies of forms and hand delivering paperwork we were approved to adopt 9 months after we had started the process. This alone was very disheartening to us, but we kept our hopes up. Mike started school and I started working again. I was able to get a good job working evenings/nights this works really well so I can still be at home during the day and make money at night. Mike also started working for the University in the wee hours of the morning. Talk about a life 360, but so far things were working out great and we began to plan again for our future.
We still weren’t completely sure where our life was taking us and it took another BIG turn in September 2008. Mike has always loved art and is a very talented and creative person. I’ve always encouraged him to do more. He decided to go and talk to the director of the art department at the university to see about majoring in art. Well… to our surprise Mike was invited into the Art Major without even applying! The director of the Art Department was so impressed during their meeting he admitted him into the program. I was so excited and proud of Mike we both are now working hard towards a lifelong dream of ours and it began in such an amazing way. Also, during the month of September 2008 we updated our adoption profile, again. It had been a year since we had been approved. Lilly is so ready to be a big sister, she LOVES babies and always prays for a new brother or sister. I also am ready for a new little one. Lilly was growing up, she's my baby and she's getting so big, I didn’t have a new baby to cuddle and change and spoil yet. Something was missing in my heart and I longed to fill the tiny spaces with love for my children. Lilly does/did add so, so, so much to my life but I really wanted her to have the chance to be a sister and to feel that special connection that siblings have. It's was different this time around. When we were waiting for Lilly to come into our lives I wanted a baby, I wanted to grow our family, I wanted to be a mother. This time around my wants are a lot more complex. I still wanted a baby and to grow our family, but it's not all about my wants anymore it's more about what my family needs. I take pure joy in being a mother and I loved seeing Lilly develop into a beautiful, unique individual, I could hardly wait to see what the personality of our next child would be like and how it would change and add to our family.
In April 2009 I wrote this: It's been two years since we started try to adopt again. We are still waiting to be chosen by birthparents. I want to say that this time adopting has been just as peaceful as the last time, it hasn't been. I have moments of clarity, and peace. Not often enough, we pray for our family to grow, we pray for comfort. We've been sending out letters and cards to our loved ones pleading for their help. We celebrated our ten year wedding anniversary this year and I will also be 30. Life still continues at our home, we love each other and thank Heavenly Father and Lilly's birthmother every day for our Lilly. But something is missing, we long to have another child and Lilly even prays for a baby brother or sister, we are missing someone. It seems harder this time too Lilly is feeling the loss of not having a sibling, this breaks my heart. It's harder than knowing I will never conceive. Because it's something I cannot give her. I can only hope and pray that something big will happen soon.
5 months later we received an e-mail, it was from the LDS Family Services website. An expectant mother wanted to get to know us better. She explained to us that she had looked at many adoptive parent profiles, but kept coming back to ours. We responded and started building a relationship with M. October 3, 2009 we were called into our caseworkers office and was presented with the amazing news that M. had chosen us! I began to feel hope again. I feel so blessed, so lucky to be able to experience a modern day miracle again. We were anxiously awaiting the arrival of our new baby girl.

Abound in
Hope
through the Power
of the Holy Ghost
- Romans 15:13

When we adopted Lilly we didn’t have time to prepare for her arrival, with this new little girl we were given time. She wasn’t due until January 1, 2010. I added my name to the expecting list at church and started to unpack baby things and took my time to nest. I was really enjoying this time and felt blessed every moment. M. was having some complications with the pregnancy we prayed for her every day that everything would be o.k. and that she would start feeling better. We kept in contact with M. and went out to dinner together in November. Then as our life seems to go, the unexpected happened. My cell phone rang at 5:00 AM on November 13, 2009. It was M.’s mom, she wanted us to come to the hospital. M. was having more complications and they needed to perform a c-section. I told M’s Mom that we would be there as soon as we could. I called my Mom and asked her to meet me at the hospital and take Lilly for the day. I called Mike at work and told him the news. I packed a bag and made a PB&J for Lilly and we headed to Salt Lake City to meet my Mom and possibly our new bundle of pink.
As things go in a hospital (and life) it was a hurry up get there then wait. We had the opportunity to visit with M. and her Mom and meet her Dad. I was grateful for their support of M.’s decision to place her baby for adoption.
M. was wheeled to the O.R. and Mike and I waited. We received a phone call from our caseworker who wasn’t very supportive of us being at the hospital. But it was M.’s decision to have us there, so we stayed for her.
Little, tiny, itty bitty Emma Rose was born on November, Friday the 13th 2009 almost 7 weeks early. She was born at 9:07 AM. Emma weighed 3lbs 7ozs and was 16.5 inches long.

She was so small, but made such a huge impact in so many of our lives. Emma stayed in the NICU for almost a month and we drove an hour one way almost every day to visit her in the NICU. M. visited her every day in the NICU and I am so thankful that she did. It made my heart hurt to know I couldn’t be there every day, but calmed my soul knowing someone that loved her would be there.
On December 9, 2009 we brought Emma home! It was such a crazy, amazing day. Lilly finally was able to hold her baby sister, (they don’t allow children in the NICU) and my miracle became real.
We were now a family of four plus one dog. The hopes and prayers that I had been sending to heaven had been answered in my own individual way. We got to spend Christmas with our two girl angels and my heart was finally at peace. I am thrilled beyond words with how lucky I feel to have my family. It's been quite the emotional journey for Mike and I to build our family and it was all totally worth it. We’ve moved 1000 miles from where our journey began to bring Emma home, literally. We’ve endured and learned from what life throws at us. I think we are stronger and our love for Heavenly Father and his eternal perspective is deeper. I am thankful for adoption, I am thankful for a loving God and my trials that make me a better person, that make me a Mommy.
The name Emma means whole or complete and right now our family really feels complete because of little Emma Rose. She is amazing and she is such a special part of our family. I have struggled for many years with a hole in my heart and now it is full of joy.

Our eternal family, May 2010