and now, for the rest of the story....

(Anyone else listen to Paul Harvey on road trips growing up or am I the only one who will get this post title?)

The Babe's social worker came to our house to give us the news that he would be going back to his family.  We had a pretty good idea that it was coming; the social worker seemed enthusiastic about the Babe's family's efforts over the past few months, and had told us the judge would not consider his foster family at all in the court's decision.  But still, we held on to a little bit of hope.  When we heard the decision, I lost my breath and felt numb at the same time.  So you can imagine we weren't really in the right state of mind for what she told us next.

Social has been inundated with children this month. We need homes.  Are you interested in a newborn?

My husband and I are Catholic, and believe that marriages should be open to new life.  Our situation has turned out a bit different from most families who have to consider adding another biological child to their family, but we try and follow the same guidelines.  We have actually never "gone looking" for babies (besides signing up for fostering), but somehow babies keep coming.  When we get a call that there is a baby that needs a home, our question is: do we have any grave reason not to accept this child?

We need a little time to think about it, we said.

To add to our emotions, in December we had been in the exact same situation.  We got a phone call-- there is a baby due in a week and the people who were going to adopt have backed out.  Would you be willing to adopt this baby?  At that point we had a 2 1/2 year old and a 7 month old.  I had a ticket to go to the States a week after the due date to take my boards.   We took 2 days to decide: Yes.  We will take him. 5 days later he was born.

He was with us for 2 days, we gave him the perfect name and admired his 5 dimples and fattened him up.  Then we got a call: his birth mother changed her mind. We had to give him back.

In Belize, the mom has 90 days after the child's birth to change her mind about adoption.  In that time, the adoptive family can care for the child, but has no right to keep the baby if the mom decides she made the wrong decision.  We knew this, but were still quite blindsided by her decision.  No one had been given any indication that she was uncertain about her decision at any time.  But we had no legal rights to him, so the day after we got the phone call we handed him back to his mom.

So as you can imagine, we had a lot to think about when the social worker told us about the newborn.  This new baby most likely would eventually be up for adoption, but there is always a chance it won't happen.  We will be sad about our little Babes, and oh by the way we have an 8-month old and I babysit a 2 1/2 year old 5 days a week.

And.... a week after our Babes went to his family, we went to the city to pick up little Lu :)

So this is our life right now.  It is crazy and I seriously question my sanity at least once a day, usually when everyone is crying at the same time.  The pace is a lot different, more "I-need-more-hands" then "little-boy-with-SO-MUCH-ENERGY." Another challenge has been getting out of the house with three under three.  The current solution is front pack, stroller, and leash, although sometimes I end up carrying the stroller occupant....while still wearing the baby in the carrier.  I'm getting a good workout.

 Lu and Miss M are 7 1/2 months apart.  Hopefully both of them will be with us forever.  I can't wait till they are old enough to play together, I am so excited to have 2 little girls who are almost-twins.

I hope this explains a bit also why we don't let friends know ahead of time our plans.  It can be so uncertain, and it just makes it that much harder to have to send emails and explain that we don't have our baby any more...  we are excited, and want to tell everyone, but we need to be sensible.  With Lu our parents didn't even know till the evening after we got her! I can't imagine we will be adding more kiddos anytime soon, cause two babies and a toddler seem to be our limit.... give us a year or two to recover.