On Friday, March 19th I got a call from my friend Teresa at 9:30am. She was down in Guatemala on Spring Break taking Spanish classes (she’s a Spanish teacher locally). She was staying with her cousin who is a missionary in Guatemala City. Her cousin had just told her of a story of a Guatemalan mother who was on the verge of ending a pregnancy and Teresa’s cousin asked if she knew anyone who would be interested in adoption. Just two weeks previous I had told her how Dave and I were starting to consider adoption and that our desire would be to adopt from Guatemala. Some of you may know that Guatemala is closed to adoption with the US (due to lots of legal stuff). Anyway, she thought of me right away and called. I was shock and overjoyed! Immediately I called Dave and told him the story, his quick comment back was “we will do whatever we can!” I quick emailed Teresa back and said we were on board send me all the info you can and we will talk and pray about it tonight!
All day Friday I was so emotional and could not believe that God had just put this opportunity into our lap, now what are we to do. We received the info first thing Saturday morning, T cousin’s, pastors wife(M) was willing to do whatever she could to help the mother to and from the doctor. M had all the information and speaks very good English so I was told to call her and right away, I did. We had a great conversation, she had a lawyer lined up for us who was a good Christian and honest man and was also willing to do whatever it was going to take to save this baby. The mother of the baby had verbally committed to not ending the pregnancy as long as they found a family who could give the child a better life. The mother is very, very poor and already has two children and could not financially or emotionally care for another child. She had already tried several abortions with this child.
First thing we needed to do was to get the mother a doctor appt. She was thinking she was about 8 month along and had not had any prenatal care. It took about a week to get the appt and everyone’s schedules together but it happened. All the while we were on vacation in TN and didn’t have internet access, so via my sister we did a little communication to Guatemala. On Saturday (27th), M took the mother to the doctor there were a few concerns with the baby size very small due to lack of proper diet and having tried previous abortions, so we got her some meds and the doctor said that the baby should be fine as long as she takes the vitamins and eats a better diet. The baby will be very small, she will also have to be born via c-section due to the mother previous surgeries. So they set a date May 14, 2010 this little baby girl will be born.
When we arrived back home the following Monday (29th) I got busy emailing and calling different people to find out what we needed to do here in the States in order to bring the baby home. Once I started looking and researching, things just didn’t look so promising for us to be able to bring this baby home. We want to do God’s will for this baby and whatever we could to help bring this baby into the world. So our hearts started to get in deep and we knew that we might never be able to bring the baby home, but again we prayed, told everyone about it b/c the more people that could pray for us the better it just might be.
Yesterday we got really good news and really bad news. First, I got a email from M that Guatemala had just passed or stated that any American families who want to adopt from Guatemala can not be charged any money for the process. Which we were first looking just 1 ½ weeks ago for the process to cost $10,000-$20,000. This meant the processing down there would be FREE!!!! WOW! What another God thing that is. Later, Tuesday afternoon we went to meet with Catholic Charities Agency here in Blm. They were researching and checking with the State of IL and the US Federal government to see if we could proceed with adoption. Going into the meeting I knew we were going to hear the words NO that we could not proceed, but I was fully trusting that God is in control and he can and does perform miracles. Well we got the NO and it was sooo hard to hear! I so did not want to hear that and it was heart breaking, my heart has been growing so much love for this little baby girl and God had already put to many things into place for this. But in some sense I did feel peace! Well today Wednesday was hard to think about where we are to go from here. I had to email M and tell her that we were not going to be able to proceed with the adoption. We were going to need to find another option. My biggest concern is that the mother would now know that we could not adopt the baby and with only 5 weeks left in the pregnancy she would end the pregnancy for good!
Today, Wednesday April 7 my friend Teresa called me just 24 hours after we got the NO news. Her cousin had just emailed her to tell her that a family in there church a Guatemalan couple just came to them asking for prayer, because they had just found out that after 6 years of trying for a family that there were no other medical options for them. So we pray now that this couple would get to adopt this precious baby girl. I feel this is what God’s plan is for this little girl. Only he knows and I am so glad that we have been and will be apart of this little girls birth. I still plan to go to Guatemala around the time of the birth to meet everyone that we have been praying with and communicating with in this process. We have trusted that God would provide for us or whoever may get this precious little girl. We are so excited for this little ones future that she may have a better life and grow up knowing and loving the Lord. We don’t know the end just yet but we do know that God is FAITHFUL TO THE END!!!
