I never cease to wonder at how amazing life is. We'd been looking into adopting again for about two years. Nothing had come of it. Either we backed out or the birth mother did for one reason or another. I had told Nikole time and again that when the situation was right it would all work out just how we needed it to. And it did!
Here's the short version:
I found out about a "situation" that was available through an agency in CA on Friday, Nov. 20. It was a bit unique-he was 4 months old and still in the care of his birth mother. The agency gave me the address to send our profile directly to the birth mother in TX. We sent it off on Friday to arrive on Monday. We heard nothing the entire week of Thanksgiving. We were pretty saddened by this because we had chosen that if this didn't work out we were done. Nikole, typical Nikole, was ready to be done by the time Sat. arrived. I kept telling her that I didn't think it was over yet. We needed to wait a bit longer.
Monday, Nov. 30th, Nikole came walking in the house sobbing! I truly thought someone had died. She showed me the text from the agency. It read "She chose you. We'll call her tomorrow." It was amazing. We called her on Tuesday and spoke with her. It went really well. Then, the fun started. We sent applications (we hadn't even done that yet) and money to the agency-got FBI clearance-and told Jayden he was going to be a big brother. He was so excited. He said "Can I tell everyone about the kid now?" We figured out a plan for Jayden for the next week with LOTS of help from friends & family and jumped on a plane for TX on Sat., Dec. 5.
It was all so crazy that I don't think we had time to think about it. We had dinner with the birth mother when we arrived. I was prepared for it to be pretty awkward and it was. But not in the way I had imagined. She was very nice but very detached. We met on Sunday afternoon and spent time with her. She signed the custody papers on Monday afternoon. It actually did go that smoothly. Then, we spent the rest of the week waiting for the ICPC clearance. We got the call of Friday that we could leave TX and were able to catch a plane that night. We got home in the early morning hours on Sat., Dec. 12.
Jayden was so excited to meet Lucas. He "presented" him to everyone who came over. He's so proud. He told me today that he wouldn't trade Luke even for a Ferrari! (If you know Jayden at all-that's BIG.)
