Our Adoption Story: M’s Birthmom Finds Us

M’s adoption story is nothing short of a miracle.  It is really amazing how many things had to be in place for M to join our family.  There is no doubt in my mind that Heavenly Father had a hand in all of our lives.  It has honestly taken me a bit of time to organize my thoughts and feelings into a format that I feel comfortable sharing.  I believe what we experienced was truly sacred.  But I also know that our story is meant to be shared.  Adoption is a beautiful, wonderful, amazing thing.  I feel blessed to be able to be an advocate for adoption, as well as share my testimony that God loves all of His children, and has a plan for each of them. 


This is our story.  
   
We first heard from M’s birthmomma via e-mail on November tenth. 


It’s amazing that we even received that e-mail in the first place, because we were already in close contact with Natasha. Though Natasha had not yet officially selected us, our caseworker called us the morning of the tenth to tell us that he had taken our profile off itsaboutlove.org because it was looking like things were progressing.  We agreed that was a good idea, and logged on to our e-mail just to make sure that we hadn’t been contacted by anyone since we had last checked the evening before. 


Imagine our surprise when we discovered that someone had sent us an e-mail just a little bit prior to receiving that phone call from our caseworker.  The e-mail was from a girl named Natalie.  She explained that she had found our profile online and that she had a good feeling about it.  She wrote that she thought we were the ones! 


What she didn’t realize at the time was had she gone online literally just a few minutes later, our profile would have been gone.  Miracle.


What we didn’t realize at the time was that we were actually one of the first profiles Natalie had found.  She was looking at couples with her mom when she found us.  She said that she wanted to contact us right away.  Her family encouraged her to perhaps wait a bit and think about it, but Natalie knew that she needed to write us RIGHT THEN.  Had she waited even a little bit, she would have missed us.  Miracle. 


I knew that though we were in contact with another “potential birthmom” (keeping in mind that at that time that is what we thought she was), that timely message from Natalie was not a coincidence.  Heavenly Father wanted us to find one another.  We sent her a response back explaining that we were already in touch with Natasha, but telling her that we still hoped to be helpful in some way.  I wrote:


“Part of the blessing of this journey is that we can perhaps be a support to you!  Whether or not we end up being the ones, we want to offer our support of your decision and words of encouragement.  It takes so much courage to make contact with a potential adoptive couple, and we want you to know that we are grateful that you reached out to us.”


I have made lots of friends in the adoption community through blogging.  I actually wondered if maybe I could “introduce” Natalie to some of my friends who are birthmoms.  I know that meeting people who have been where I am can be a tremendous comfort.  I thought that perhaps one of the reasons Natalie had contacted us was so we offer comfort during a difficult time in some way.  I later sent her a list of links to some of my favorite birthmom blogs.  I also wondered if maybe we could help her find another adoptive couple somehow.  I didn’t know why we had found each other, but I knew that we were excited to get to know Natalie a little better.  It’s always a pleasure to meet another friend in the adoption community!


We asked Natalie a little bit about herself.  She responded soon after.  We started e-mailing back and forth just getting acquainted and updating one another about what was going on in our lives. 
And so our friendship began…