It was two years ago today that we received the email that changed our lives forever.
Hannah's birthmother chose us to be Hannah's parents.
I'll never forget it. I had just been at gymnastics practice and came home and checked my email. I had a message from an agency saying "L just picked you guys. Here is the contact info you need."
I remember sitting at the computer just staring. I was so confused.
That morning we had submitted our profile to a situation in which the birthmother was due the next day. We didn't know her name or anything as it was happening so fast. The only other situation I thought it could be was "L" we had asked not to have our profile submitted to because it was $10,000 over budget.
My first thought was we were chosen for the situation we had just submitted our profile to and they just happened to have the same first name.
I told Mark about the coincidence and we both decided to call our consultant to see what she thought about it. I read the email to her and immediately she said "Congratulations, Tammy! It sounds like you guys just matched!"
Then I explained about the "L" situation we had asked not to have our profile submitted to and explained the situation we had just submitted to that morning. She agreed that it would be a wierd situation if they were the same name.
So, I started making phone calls, and emailing....and phone calls...and emailing. I didn't know what was going on. This was at 6 p.m. at night so trying to find someone around wasn't too easy.
I finally did get a hold of someone in the agency and told her my name and explained the email. She was excited to tell me that we were chosen. When I asked her if this was the one due the next day she said, "Uh, no. She isn't due until December 27".
At that point my heart sank. I knew it was the situation we had asked not to submit our profile to. At this time I thought for sure they were going to take our baby away because there was an error. Never in my life would I have thought we wouldn't say yes. I just figured someone would say we couldn't say yes now.
I explained it all and said there had to be a mistake. I started crying. She felt awful about the mistake and then asked we were still interested. I said of course we were if it was still okay. She immediately said yes and that it was our decision. She said she'd email over the birthmother's history, family history, etc. and we could decide and let her know the next day.
Honestly, the minute she said we could still have the baby, there was NO WAY I was going to say no. That was our daughter.
The next 4 weeks were very interesting. Not only were we caught in a battle with the agency (which I won't get into here) because of the error, we also had to come up with $10,000.
I thought there was no way it would happen but I knew there was a reason our profile was submitted in error and this baby girl was our daughter.
I often think back to that time. What if our profile wouldn't have been submitted in error? What if we would've said no for the third time? What if our family and friends wouldn't have come together and gave so generously so we were able to raise $10,000? (Through a fundraiser we raised $9500 and then had a friend offer her house in the city Hannah was born, saving us more money--almost the exact $10,000 we needed--cool, huh? :))
The answer to those questions is always the same: It was never in our control.
God was the one who decided the profile would be submitted.
God had us say yes the third time, not no.
God raised the $10,000 and opened the hearts of so many people.
It was always in His control and not ours. Hannah was meant to be our daughter, always was and always will.
We had to cross so many hurdles to bring her home and yet here she is today with us.
A journey that started 2 years ago today.
We are blessed.
Birthday Fun
4 years ago
