Something New

again

I want to remove the word "again" from my thinking...

That little tiny word has the power to discourage me and cause me to fear.  Adding "again" to the end of even encouraging and exciting news feels like a soggy, wet blanket... for example:

"We've been chosen by a birthmother- again."

Saying again  put this current chapter of our story on the same page as our two previous "chosen and disappointed" chapters.  I believe that tiny word is a tool of our enemy to steal my joy and cause me to doubt my God.  

Instead I will choose to trust that my God will work this chapter out for our good and I will hope that now God is "doing a new thing"!

My amazing Mom sent these verses last week:

“Remember not the former things,

    nor consider the things of old.

¹⁹ 

Behold, I am doing a new thing;

    now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

I will make a way in the wilderness

    and rivers in the desert. (Isaiah 43)

In this passage the Lord is encouraging the Jewish people (that were in exile) not to live in the past but instead to look forward to his fulfillment of his promises...

I choose to do the same!  
I will look forward and not back.


To help us battle the "again" doubts that creep in we have outfitted our door with encouragements from God's Word.

And to remind us that the Lord is in the business of changing ugly things into beautiful creations,  the boys and I have added butterflies!  

We would LOVE to fill all the white space with butterflies... and we were wondering

would YOU like to help?

We invite you (and your kiddos!) to get crafty!

We would love and be hugely encouraged by your creations.

If you'd like to mail us your creation our address is:

Ferguson Family

PO BOX 1771

Fort Mill, SC 29715

We love you all and look forward to seeing your "new" creations!

Rejoicing in His Nearness

"Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning." Psalm 30:5

Friends, we are rejoicing!  A beautiful woman in Florida has chosen us to be the family for her baby girl.  But the most amazing part of the story is that the Lord was already doing a mighty work on my heart even before he made my "dreams" come true...

Let me back up.

The 2 weeks leading up to the phone call we had been praying about, I was feeling the Lord drawing nearer and nearer to my heart...  

• Consistently I noticed when I spent time reading my Bible I felt him meeting me there, teaching me about himself and his faithfulness... (that doesn't always happen to me).

• One evening Niles and I had an incredibly worshipful experience at a Bethel concert. We felt the Lord's presence and his love almost tangibly that night even when our hearts were heavy and distracted when the evening began.  One song in particular touched my heart entitled Show me Your Face LORD.  The last line of the song said "I could make it to the end if I could just see your face"... I realized then that that was something I was longing for- just to see God's face in all that was happening...

• I also began to feel a "lightness" that was returning... God was healing my broken heart and I only began to notice it when things "didn't" happen... for example when I didn't tear up when I saw a baby girl or when I didn't  feel sad and sorry for myself when I walked by our nursery... or when I didn't fall completely apart when I heard a fellow adoptive mommy was matched with a baby girl after a relatively "short wait" (note- there were tears, but much less than one might expect!)

• And then I noticed that my excitement for the baby God would bring us returned- it felt possible again that our Ruthie would come home one day and my strength to move forward and "do" what I could was renewed...

• And then I realized that even in my grief and weakness over the last month God was giving me daily doses of faith and restoring my trust in Him!  Praise Him for his gift of FAITH!

I say these things not to say that I was doing anything worthy of praise... God did all the work!  (I just put one foot in front of the other and survived).   I point out the events of the last two weeks to say that now I see that God, in His great mercy and in His perfect timing, has worked all things together for my good (Romans 8:28).

... even before I received the call that would make my dreams of a baby girl come true my GOD gave me what HE KNEW I really wanted most... I wanted to be near Him and He has given me the desire of my heart.

And now he has blessed us even more abundantly with the news that we will be the parents of a precious baby girl!  We couldn't possibly be more excited.

More on that story to come :).

For now, I ask that you pray for our most precious new friend, "B", and the baby girl she is carrying that we hope will be our Ruthie.

 May the Lord shelter them and give them peace.

 Amen.

Encouragement

An encouragement from fellow  

waiting-adoptive-Mommy,  

Alissa Bray.

Thanks, friend!

Be sure to check out Alissa's blog to keep up with their growing family :)

Change

Our circumstances have not changed.

... birthmother K remains committed to her last minute plan to parent.  Neither K nor her parents have contacted us since the day before the baby was born.  And today we were told that both attorneys are essentially closing the case and settling accounts payable.  Blah.

Our circumstances haven't changed, but neither has our God.

"I the Lord do not change..." (Malachi 3:6)

"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." (Hebrews 13:8)

A "head knowledge" that God doesn't change doesn't take away the ache in our hearts for the babies we have loved and lost.  Not at all.  

But with each passing day we are renewed in the hope that our infinite, eternal, and unchangeable God has called our family to welcome our daughter through adoption- and in HIS perfect timing she will be home.  We know that this journey is not about finding "a baby"- it is the path to our daughter that the Lord loves more than I do and already knows by name.   

We want to say a most sincere "thank you" to all of you.  We have been overwhelmed by your prayers,  your hugs, your kind messages and your care.  You have helped sustain us, through the love of Christ, like only the body of Christ can.  We can't imagine our life or this journey without Him or you!

We wait expectantly upon the Lord; trusting and believing that He is already doing immeasurably more than we could ever ask or imagine.

Broken Hearts

I have delayed writing this post... choosing instead to hope that what was happening wasn't real...

But unfortunately we are here... again.

Again a woman that we loved and prayed for has had a last minute change of heart.
Again a baby we have fallen in love with will not be joining our family.
Again we are left broken.
Again we find ourselves asking the Lord why? and begging for his comfort...

So, what happened?

The Friday before K's due date I received a call from her father saying that there was a problem.  He said "K received a text from the birth father and he plans to contest the adoption."  Apparently, the birth father that had been supportive of K's plans to place their baby for adoption had a last second change of heart.  K on the other hand wanted to proceed with the adoption as planned...

We spent the weekend on the phone with K's father, our attorney and her attorney gathering information and making plans.  We were informed by our attorney that the birth father had little (if any) right to contest and we were assured over and over by K's family that what she desired was to move forward.    Niles and I remained committed to helping carry out her plans... even though there was a risk that we would be walking into a legal battle if the birth father moved forward with his threats.  We went to bed Sunday night just asking the Lord to change the birth father's heart and make clear what our next steps should be...

Our answer came in the form of a call on Monday afternoon.  K's father called Niles and work and explained to him that K was afraid of the possibility that our adoption would be contested and result in her baby being raised by the birth father (a 16-year old 10th grader with a difficult home life)... so instead she decided to parent the baby herself.

That's it.  No more discussion.  Just over.


[silence]


Two days, later in a moment of almost desperation to know something I began searching for the birth father online... 
Somehow, with bunny trails of old Myspace pages I found his name and was then able to look him up on Facebook.

...On his page I saw him and I saw the baby.

She was born that day, a sunny Wednesday.  
She looked tiny with a head full of black hair.  
Her name was Clara B.

Knowing that she was born and safe didn't heal the wound in my heart... but in some way it was a step toward closure... a tiny step.

Niles and I emailed K's family that day.  We let them know that our hearts were deeply saddened by the stress and difficulty that caused a change in K's plans and that we committed to supporting K in her decision.  We also asked them to communicate to K that our hearts are saddened but not angry toward her.  We closed the  email letting them know that if circumstances were to change and K decide that she longer wanted to parent that we were able to move at a moment's notice to return to our original plan.


They never responded to our email.


Now what?

Now we grieve.  
Now we sit at the Lord's feet and ask him to comfort our hearts.
Now we take things one day at a time allowing ourselves both  good days and bad days

Now we cling to God's word for strength, trusting that:

Those who sow in tears will reap with shouts of joy!
He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, 
shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him. 
(Psalm 126:5-6)

Psalm 27:14

Today I am clinging to this verse:

Our precious birth mother-to-be, "K" is due in "just" 18 days.  

I say "just" because it feels like FOR-EV-ER away...

I am reading a wonderful book entitled "The Open Adoption Experience" and it pretty accurately describes how I'm feeling right now:

"The adoptive parents may feel that these last weeks are taking longer than the many years they have spent trying to become a family.  They may be torn between being excited about the arrival of the baby, which they hope will mean taking the baby home and becoming her parents, and being fearful that the birth mother will decide to parent the baby herself.  Their excitement is further tempered by knowing the pain and sadness that will be experienced by the birth mother if she proceeds with the adoption plan.  They may be tempted to try to avoid thinking about the birth by keeping busy at work or with projects, taking a vacation or by detaching themselves from the process. "

But I will take courage!  

And I will wait for the Lord with great hope.

As far as details go- there is not much to update.  
Any day now we expect a detailed hospital plan from K's attorney that will outline the specific details of K's desired hospital stay (including when/if she wants to see us in the hospital, when we can see the baby, who will care for the baby in the hospital, whether or not we will have an "entrustment ceremony" etc).   We haven't heard any news regarding K or the baby's progress but we believe "no news is good news" in that area.  Other than that we are quietly, as-patiently-as-possible waiting to hear that our baby girl is on the way!  

I will keep this blog as up to date as possible in coming days.  

We ask for your prayers and look forward with EAGER anticipation to the day we can introduce you all to our baby girl!

We Are Ready. We Are Filled With Hope.

Since my last post we have been busily preparing for the arrival of our baby girl.   Thanks to one of my beautiful friend's help this week I was able to finally COMPLETE my sweet Ruth's nursery and rearrange furniture in all three bedrooms!  It seems that my "nesting" has extended beyond Ruthie's nursery to include the entire house :).

I'm sure however, that what YOU want to see is baby girl's nursery...

Tah-dah!  

(Is this owl precious or what?)

A HUGE thank you to Ruth's Titi Diana for this sweet detail!



And did you see the puzzle on the wall?

This beautiful puzzle is one of the most special things in her nursery.




And here are some close-ups of Ruthie's crib area. 

 

 (My goal is eventually to hang this mobile on a branch coming off one of the wall trees.)



Here are a few more close-ups...

I've joked with friends saying that by this point I should be an expert in nursery design... I mean this is the 3rd time I've designed a nursery after all :) (nursery #1 and nursery #2)!

(note: if you are new to our blog I encourage you to go back and read our story from the beginning- it's been a nutty and beautiful adventure!)


All kidding aside Ruthie's nursery has been a labor of love from the beginning.  It was a small way I could do something to prepare and express my deep love for the baby the Lord has just for us.


We have lovingly poured over the details of Ruth's nursery.
We have warm blankets and clean sheets.
We have her clothes in drawers.
We have diapers on the changing table.
We have toys organized and ready to be played with.

We have a carseat and all the funds we need be able to bring her home...

And by God's grace we have hearts filled with hope that our baby girl will be home with us soon.

 

We ask for your prayers for our precious birthmother as she endures the last 3 weeks of her pregnancy. May the Lord cover her with his feathers and shelter her with his wings.  And may she always know the Lord's promises Lord's promises are her armor and protection.