Failed Adoption, Failed IVF & A Glimmer of Hope
Failed Adoption
If you haven’t read What Family Planning Part 1 or Part 2 make sure you go back and catch up! This chapter is the most jagged pill to swallow. It’s where I share about our failed adoption and failed IVF. Picking up where we left off… lets get to it!
Within hours of being with our foster child (let’s call him B), he started calling us Mom and Dad. When we got home, Ethan & B hit it off as instant playmates. They were only 6 months apart.
B was a sweet little guy and we thought he was going to be our son. Long story short, he was taken from our family after 2.5 weeks. It was heartbreaking and traumatic. An experience I wonder to this day if we made the right decision.
When we signed up to become foster parents, Mark and I made it crystal clear that we were here to adopt. We didn’t go through an agency, and maybe that would have been helpful. We simply signed up to be foster parents who want to adopt an adoptable kid. Simply put, we told them to give us the kids in the worst circumstances.
Between a combination of bad communication within the system and some naivety on our part, we lost him. I could spin around the details here for hours – I won’t – but I will share how B was taken:
One afternoon I was out driving with the boys when I got a call telling me to make sure B was packed and ready to go because he would be picked up within 20 minutes. No explanation. No answers as to why. No details… but someone will be at our house within 20 minutes so, be ready.
Shocked, heartbroken and heavy I drove home. On the way, both boys fell asleep in the backseat. When I pulled up to our driveway, a car with 2 ladies was waiting for him. I let the boys sleep while I packed up B’s stuff. He didn’t have a bag by the way. He didn’t come with ANY stuff. Whatever he had we gave him and packed it away in a duffle bag. I loaded it up in their trunk and they asked if I wanted to transfer him. I said he would freak out if they tried… which is true… so I did.
I knew this was the last time I would hold him. I worked every single day and night to gain this little boy’s trust. Each night while he tossed, turned and cried himself to sleep, I sat near by until he let me approach him. When that was allowed I would rub his back and sing Amazing Grace over and over and over until he fell asleep. Each night got a little easier.
Now he was asleep and I had to give him up. How could he not feel betrayed? Mid-transfer he woke up to me putting him into a stranger’s car. He started screaming “Mommy! Mommy!”
B, who was so motivated to do anything for food, slapped the orange out of the woman’s hand when offered and held out his arms for me. They restrained him and strapped him in a car seat.
He wanted me to rescue him and I couldn’t. He wanted me to save him from what was to come and I couldn’t do anything about it. All I could tell him is that it was going to be ok… but even that was a message of hope I’m not sure was true.
This was a living nightmare.
It felt like a kidnapping. Just short of putting a bag over his head, although, transferring while he was sleeping was not far off.
How many times had he experienced something like that? Why did it have to be this way? What did we do wrong? More importantly, he didn’t do anything wrong.
The whole thing made me sick.
To this day I pray for that little boy. I pray that he has a family who loves him. That he is safe, stable and healthy. I pray he is OUT of the system in IN the arms of a family who is kind, loving and patient with him. I pray redemption against all odds.
Ethan stayed asleep throughout it all. When he woke up he asked where his friend was. I didn’t have any answers. I just knew we all lost and he was gone.
Off again with a new batch of emotional scars and fresh trauma. No one signed up for that. And while we were heartbroken and ruined by the abrupt deficit, B got the shortest end of the stick. It’s not right. It’s not fair. I was SO disgusted by it all.
Many details live here but short story: We promptly took ourselves off of the list. Not interested in repeating this event or any other offense to an innocent child or working with a calloused system. We were SO ruined by what happened that I was done with the idea of adoption. We wanted to adopt to love a child and welcome them as our own.
Mark and I agreed to pause. I remember telling God that if He wanted us to adopt, He needed to put a baby on our doorstep.
We tried. It didn’t work. Don’t ask me to do that again.
Failed IVF
A week or so after this event, Ethan turned 3. We so badly wanted to grow our family and since we weren’t adopting, we took a serious look at medical help to boost our odds of getting pregnant.
Mark and I made an appointment to meet with fertility specialists at Northern California Fertility Medical Center and it was concluded that we could try 2 things: IUI or IVF. My husband is a best bang for your buck kinda guy (sounds so wrong in this context, but y’all know what I mean!) so we opted for IVF.
Hear me out: I H A T E needles. In college I almost dropped out of a class because it required a blood draw to analyze our nutrition/health. I avoid the flu shot because… 1) does it really work? and 2) I’d rather be sick. I’m that person.
But my desire for more children and a sibling for Ethan was greater. SO we started our IVF journey.
I want to shine some light on what this looked like practically in the day-to-day given the heartache and current circumstances:
I had to let go of the unknown and trust God through it all. It made zero sense! I still have to trust God will work in this boy’s life and believe in the power of prayer! He is mighty to save!
The Lord your God is among you; He is mighty to save. He will rejoice over you with gladness; He will quiet you with His love; He will rejoice over you with singing.
Zephaniah 3:17
Not only was my body still barren but it was getting poked every single night at 9pm. I can still hear Mark’s phone alarm going off and feel my palms start to sweat when I think back. Thankfully Mark did all the poking for me! I was a human pincushion. The doctors also had me on mini-asprin so I bruised up real good on those injection sites.
Then there was Ethan. I poured into him and carried the mindset that he wouldn’t be the “only one” forever, so I soaked in every minute. We both did.
I still felt the tick-tock of the clock each month, but louder than that was the booming echo of what it meant for sibling spacing. I wanted my kiddos to be close in age and with each month that dream seemed not only unattainable but cruel.
The day came when we got a call from the doctor saying we had 12 viable embryos. We were sitting in church when Mark excused himself to answer the call. When he returned, he leaned over and whispered, “Looks like we’re going to have a baker’s dozen!”
Fast forward to implantation day, we had 5 strong embryos. They picked the 2 strongest ones and froze the rest. Our doctor said to us on the way out, “I’m not supposed to say this but you guys are healthy and these embryos look great! You’re going to be pregnant.”
We left with all the hope in the world! When I went back for my blood draw to see if I was pregnant, the numbers qualified but were low. They told me not to get my hopes up even though I was “technically pregnant” but that they would like to have me in every other day for blood draws to monitor my levels worried I might have a “chemical pregnancy”.
More needles? Sure.
Every draw the numbers went up to the minimum. The news bearer on the other line cautiously said, “Congratulations, you’re pregnant!”
I searched and searched the internet for other women who had numbers like mine. I was hanging onto hope as thin as it was. The great unknown was truly unbearable.
About a week later Mark and I took his staff out for dinner. While seated I felt the sensation like when you start your period.
Noooo!
Excusing myself and I went to the bathroom. What I found caught in my panty liner was our baby. It was white, translucent. I wrapped up our little loss in a paper towel and headed back to the table.
Panicked, I whispered to Mark what was happening. He got up, paid the bill and said, “I’m sorry we have to go. It’s an emergency.” I can still see their worried puzzled faces as we headed toward the car.
We drove to the ER and called the IVF doc on-call. I described what I was holding in the paper towel and his advice was to wait a few days for the heartbeat check at the clinic. He said if we went in we’d spend hours of our night and hundreds of dollars on what they could tell us at our heartbeat check up anyway.
The great unknown was hope & a thief. It was table tennis with my heart.
So we waited. When we got to the clinic a few days later: no heartbeats. Not even one. I guess I was holding out for the other baby to stick too.
Soon after this event was Mother’s Day. This was the WORST Mother’s Day to date. I felt defeated, empty & robbed. I remember going to Costco to collect dinner items with my boys. Mark’s parents were coming over for dinner that night. We did some browsing and stopped at the jewelry case. I asked Ethan which “pirate treasure” was his favorite. Then I pointed out mine.
On our way to check out, someone ran into me with their shopping cart. They were horrified and kept apologizing. Holding my arm I repeated, “It’s fine. It’s fine.”
But I wasn’t fine. I was done. SO done trying.
A Glimmer of Hope
I gave up and told Mark to drop me off at home. He could pick up the cake himself… I was out. I needed a few hours alone before helping put on dinner to honor my mother-in-law.
That night I opened a gift from our little guy. The card said
I found this pirate treasure for you. I love you Mommy. Happy Mother’s Day
Ethan
The pirate treasure was a morganite pear shaped halo ring. It was beautiful! Also… it was a pink gem in the shape of a tear fitted with a halo.
I was so touched that Mark turned around and when back to Costco after dropping me off. His thoughtfulness meant the world to me at a time when my world was pretty hopeless. What I didn’t know then was that God was using this sweet gesture to speak to my heart. This gift was the Lord saying,
Just hold on a little longer. I know this has been a hard season for you. You’ve shed many tears and I’ve held each one. I love you. I am working all things together for good. Wait on Me child, I have something for you…
A true glimmer of hope!
In Part 4 you will get to meet the gift God was referring to. The gift of Grace.
