Almost an Adoption

 On September 22nd, I received a phone call that we had finally been matched with a baby and could fly to Kansas to pick her up asap. The following is the journal entry I wrote about this experience just a few days after it happened:

Baby Via is a 7 month old Caucasian girl living in Kansas. The first two families that matched with her had backed out and we were the third. We knew Via was born with serious heart defects and said “yes” to her on condition of learning more about her needs from hospital staff. Natalie, our consultant, called me almost immediately after I emailed our yes and said we could go pick up our daughter asap after speaking to the hospital social worker. This was last Thursday afternoon. Alan was driving to Boise for a meet so I couldn’t talk to him and the social worker had already left for the day.

On Friday, I spoke with the hospital social worker and a nurse about Via. They gave me lots of important medical info about Via. She has lived almost her entire life in the hospital and her birth mother decided Via’s care was just too much after a short stay at home. Via has already had two open heart surgeries to try to make her little heart work. They can’t fix it, but the surgeries were keeping her stable for now. She will need a third surgery in 2-4 years and possibly a heart transplant in the future. Via is on a g-tube and oxygen. She is ready to be released from the hospital, but would come home with lots of equipment.

After those conversations, I knew it would be a lot, but didn’t feel too overwhelmed. I thought we could probably handle it and told Alan everything over the phone. Even though the agency and our consultant were pressuring us to make a decision right away, we asked to pray about it over night so we could be sure.

I had had a constant prayer in my heart and had asked my family to pray for us since Thursday afternoon, but hadn’t gotten an answer when I woke up at 4:00 on Saturday morning. I spent the next three hours sitting in my bed, praying, reading our patriarchal blessings, reading scriptures, going over notes, researching, and doing everything I could think of to get a clear answer. Sometimes I would feel peace and excitement and other times I would feel doubt and confusion. I was finally able to talk to Alan at about 6:00 (he was setting up for his meet in the cold and dark) and he was having the same problem – just swinging back and forth between yes and no. We decided to give it one more hour and then make the call.

During one of my moments of peace, I decided that we needed to choose faith over fear and take a step into the dark. I told Alan I wanted to say yes and he agreed. I texted Natalie our answer and she called me back almost immediately. Natalie is an adoptive momma to at least three special needs kiddos – two of whom recently transitioned off their feeding tubes and one of whom has a heart defect. She was able to give me a very real perspective about what it would be like to care for a baby like Via. She said she had complete faith in our ability to do it, but that it was going to be really, really hard and that Satan would work to convince us that we couldn’t do it.

As soon as I hung up, I had a sick feeling inside. Alan wasn’t available to talk then, but I texted him and then had to leave to get Mason to his soccer game. I desperately needed to talk to someone so I called Mom and Dad and just cried on the sidelines of the soccer field. I didn’t want to back out right after we had said yes, but I knew it my heart that Via wasn’t the right fit for our family. Mom and Dad were so good and said they would support whatever we decision we made, but that something probably wasn’t right if I was this upset about it. They urged me to think about the emotional toll Via’s constant care would take on our whole family, especially Mason. I knew they were right. We adopted Mason first and had to put his care first in this decision.

A few minutes later, I was able to talk to Alan and he agreed that we needed to change our answer to no. I don’t think Natalie was very happy with us, but at least we made the call just a few minutes after saying yes instead of after we flew to Kansas and met Via.

I felt a huge sense of relief after we changed our minds, but still felt so sad and emotional all day. It was a huge tender mercy that we had planned to visit the Holden’s in WA that afternoon two weeks earlier. I was able to drop the boys off at their house and then spend a couple of hours by myself on the trail to just process things. The Lacamas Lake trail is one of my happy places and being in nature is always healing for me and it’s one of the places I feel the Spirit the best.

Alan had also texted my RS president, Darcee Burnett, to let her know that he was gone, but that I needed someone and she showed up with Crumbl Cookies, a hug, and a listening ear.

As I processed throughout the day, I realized why Alan and I had both felt so much confusion about the answer and why Heavenly Father allowed us to say yes first. It’s like the “Wrong Roads” video from one of Elder Holland’s conference talks. We had to take the wrong road first so we would know for sure that it was wrong and wouldn’t have to wonder or regret our decision.

Saturday was one of my hardest days, but I went to bed at complete peace with the decision we made and so grateful for the tender mercies that showed that Heavenly Father knew it was hard and cared so much.

These two pictures are from the Lacamas Lake trail. I stopped my run and just stood on the bank and cried for awhile. It was very healing for me and this will always be one of my sacred places now. 

I am writing this post two months after my journal entry. We still have not been matched and are losing hope that we ever will, but I still feel the same about baby Via's situation. She was not meant to come to our family and I'm so grateful she was matched with a different family just a few days later. The dad in that family is a physician and likely much better equipped to care for her.

September

For the first time during our time in Sherwood School District, school started before Labor Day on September 1st. We didn't cross off every item on our bucket list before the end of summer, but got most of the plus a bunch of other fun things we never wrote down.

Spencer: Freshman!! 14 years old

Mason: 2nd Grade! Almost 8 years old

Spencer was mostly excited and a little nervous to start high school. He was really looking forward to seeing all of his friends again after the summer. Starting band for the first time as a freshman was a little scary though.

Mason was mostly nervous and a little excited for 2nd grade. He had some of his old anxiety in the weeks leading up to the start of school, but knew he had lots of friends in his class and that he would get to play with Krew at recess. We continued to take Krew to school with us to help Mason and to help out Krew's mom. Mason had a few rough days at the very beginning, but settled in and gained some confidence and has done so well since then. I'm so proud of him!

The boys and I participated in the Burnett family's Hero Up race for the 2nd time on Labor Day weekend while Alan was timing a meet somewhere. It's a great race to raise money for childhood cancer and the Burnett's are such an amazing family. Spencer and I ran the 5k. Spencer got 22:37 and was disappointed and I got 24:48. I hadn't raced a 5k in a really long time so I had no real expectations for my time. I was just happy that I beat all of the men in our ward. Haha! Mason did a good job on the kid's race and had fun wearing a superhero cape for it.

Morning run sunrises:

Spencer got invited to hang out at Langer's with some friends on Labor Day so Alan and I took Mason to a cool park in Wilsonville. We had a picnic, played frisbee, and explored the natural playground and trails.

Spencer had been training with the high school cross country team all summer and finally had his first meet towards the beginning of September. It was a home meet with just two other schools. Sherwood's course begins on the football practice field and I loved that the football team paused practice, lined the sides of the course and cheered for the runners as they started. HS cross country races are almost all 5ks. Spencer's beginning time was 18:53 - not bad at all for a freshman!

The pretty view from the stadium at our high school:

Mason finished his second piano book in just a few months! It took him 1.5 years to finish the first book so this was a huge improvement!

Mason turned 8 on September 11! We had his birthday party on the 9th so that's when we made his cake. He requested Minecraft this year. (Mason LOVES Minecraft even though he's only played the real video game a couple of times. He reads lots of books from the library about it though.)

We had the party at the Willamson's pool again. Ranell is so generous and lets us use it for free since I work for her. Unfortunately, the pool heater had been turned off and the pool water was a little cool. Plus it was super windy that evening and I had a hard time getting any decorations to stay put. The boys enjoyed the hot tub, but didn't use the pool much. I hadn't planned any other games since they swam the whole time last year, but wished I had this year when they got bored of the hot tub and resorted to chasing each other on the turf instead. They still seemed to have lots of fun.

We ate Dominos pizza, grapes, carrots, and cake. 

Uriah and Colt

Drew

Krew

Gannon

James

Lincoln

This sword was easily the most exciting present of the party. I wish I had gotten a picture of Mason's face when he opened it - pure joy! And, Lincoln wrote this great card for Mason all by himself. :)

Bees love the turf and sadly Mason stepped on one and got stung. :( He was sad for a few minutes, but then continued to party like nothing happened at all!

Mason had his first soccer game the next morning. It was a smokey day and the sun looked eerie. Mason was SO excited for this game! It was fun to watch him. I took a lot of pictures at this game and then hardly any the rest of the season. Mason was the only one on his team that hadn't played soccer before, but I thought he did a great job. He was especially good at defending.  

His birthday was actually on Sunday and he chose waffles with whipped cream for breakfast. Mason loves to have some kind of surprise decoration for his birthday so I always try to come up with something fun for his door. He got a fringe curtain this year.

Mason loves playing this game called Righteous (kind of like a Church version of Scene-It). The rest of us hate it and we don't play it often, but it was Mason's special day so we all played.

He chose bbq drumsticks and biscuits for his birthday again this year. He loves biscuits, but doesn't really eat the chicken so we're not sure why he always wants it. Ha! After dinner we played a keep away game that Mason made up. It was actually pretty fun. Then we finished off the rest of his cake. 

Here's a little about Mason at the moment:

Likes: Minecraft, Pokemon, Ninjago, playing soccer, swimming, biscuits, computer games, video games that he plays at friend's houses, reading

Dislikes: most vegetables, beans, getting up early for school, some things about school, homework, chores

We love this awesome, funny, silly, kind, snuggly boy!

Pretty flowers from our backyard:

Just a typical afternoon:

We celebrated Mason's placement day on September 13th with Papa Murphy's pizza as usual. 

Baptism invite photo shoot with this little goof-ball:

Over the summer, I received a second calling (I was already teaching the 11-12 year old Sunday School class) to help with the girl's activity days program in our ward. This was a first for me and I was excited to work with the 7-11 year old girls. Our first activity after summer break was a water kickball party with the activity day boys. Mason was happy I got to with him and it turned out to be super fun. I can't say that many of my callings have been "fun", but this one might be!

Another cross country meet: The Meriwether Classic. Alan has timed this one for years, but I had forgotten everything he ever told me about it and was shocked when Mason and I got there and realized there were 55 teams competing! That was just slightly different than the first meet with three teams! (I didn't even know what cross country was until I met Alan so this is all new for me.)

The atmosphere was electric with excitement and it was really fun to be there and cheer on the runners. Plus, it's always fun when Alan is timing. Spencer ran with the JV team on all of the big meets like this, but always finished near the front. This course was on a golf course and running on grass slows you down compared to pavement or sidewalk. Spencer finished with a time of 19:09. 

Mason's much anticipated Halloween costume arrived in the mail!

Helping

Mason's new dentist in Newberg. The boy's old dentist's office closed without even telling us (grr!) so I've had to find new ones for them. We are keeping Mason at a pediatric dentist for now, but Spencer had to move up to a regular one since he turned 14. It has been a hassle, but Mason was happy with his new one.

The lego set Mason chose to buy with his birthday money from Grandma and Grandpa LeFevre. He is getting pretty good at building and doesn't need a whole lot of help anymore!

Mason got to participate in his 2nd fun run on September 30th and it was way more fun since Alan was timing it! Mason did a great job and finished seven laps in just over 20 minutes! He had fun, but was tired by the end! Good job buddy!

Mrs. Sten's 2nd grade class