Adoption update

I haven't written anything about how our adoption journey is going recently. July 3rd, we got an email from a mom of a 4yr. old Africian American boy. I sent her an email, and she was having some medical issues, and was worried about being able to take care of him long term. July 9th, another email from parent profiles. A lady in AZ that had an adopted child and wanted to relinquish him/her. July 20th, email from parent profiles: a woman with an 8 yr old child who said it was really hard to raise her (she had her at 16 and I'm guessing she was single). And for the last of the emails from parent profiles: A woman wrote me a very long (and kind of confusing) email about a little boy who is eight that needed to be placed. I'm not sure how (or if) she was actuallly related to him, but it sounded like he had been through a lot.

On Aug. 1st, Sally (our adoption worker) called me and told me that she thought she had found our baby. I was at Wal-Mart, and was a little in shock. She was going over to meet with her as soon as she got off the phone with me. After the meeting, she called and gave me her name and number. I called and talked to her, and it sounded good. I tried to call her two days later, to see how she was doing, and she didn't answer. The next day, I tried again to call her, and she didn't answer again, but called back about 10 min. later. She saw she had missed a call and was waiting for a call back from a hair dresser, and thought my number was it. She didn't want to talk to me, and got off of the phone really fast. I called Sally, and she said to go ahead and send her a little care package, but that the woman (who is 37) had kind of changed her mind, because this may be the last chance she has to have a baby, and was thinking about keeping it instead.

On a much happier adoption note, my brother Joel and his wife Lila got a call on Monday, Aug. 4th from their adoption worker. A birthmother had chosen them and wanted to meet them the next day. She had already given birth (2 weeks previous) and if the meeting went well, they would be bringing home a son on Tue. the 5th. The meeting went very well, and they were able to bring Calvin home that afternoon. They had less than 24 hours notice! One day she was at work, and the next day she was a mom! They started their paperwork back in Feb (I think) and had just finished it up in June and only had to be in the waiting pool for 8 weeks! We are so excited for them. They have been married for 4 1/2 years, and have been struggling with infertility. We are so grateful to their birthmother, for helping them to become parents. It was just an amazing story. You can read their story by clicking here. The first picture (on their blog) is of their birthmom with her baby, and the other one is of them with their new son.

Here is a picture of their new son, Calvin Kirkham Strasser.