Tonight

Tonight, Alexander’s birth mom changed her mind about the adoption. What that means is we had to give our son back to his birth mom tonight, forever.

We know this will spark a ton of questions like ‘How is that possible?’ and ‘Legally can that happen?’. We would like to walk you through the last week to give all the detail we can and explain how all this happened. But first we would like to ask everyone to be praying for us. This is one of the hardest things we have ever had to go through, and it’s going to leave some huge scars. Second, we need some time to figure this all out for ourselves and to heal. Please know that if we don’t respond to you it’s simply because we are working through this incredibly difficult time.

Last Thursday we drove to Cleveland ahead of the scheduled C-section on Friday at 10am. Friday morning we were at the hospital and spent the entire day with the birth mom, her sister, and little Alexander once he came into the world. From Friday till discharge on Monday afternoon we spent 10+ hours a day with the birth mom and any visitors that came to the hospital. We had many conversations and grew close to the birth mom. During this entire time, we were bonding and spending as much time with Alexander as possible.

Then Monday came and Alexander was discharged to us. We signed a Care Agreement with the birth mom which states that we are legally responsible for the health and well-being of Alexander. This does not start the adoption process. It simply puts the child in our custody for care while the court system gets everything lined up for the first hearing to begin the adoption process.

From Monday until Friday Alexander was in our care. We stayed at a hotel up in Lyndhurst, OH, just outside of Cleveland. We spent all day and night caring for little Alexander, forming strong bonds with him and getting to know his little patterns and personality. We took him to his first doctor’s visit at the same hospital where he was born in Cleveland. He was perfectly healthy and had no issues at all.

Since the court hearing date had yet to be scheduled, we decided that we would come home to Cincinnati on Friday and settle in at our house. We knew that next week or the week after we would have to drive back to Lorain County for the first hearing.

Over the week his birth mom had expressed a desire to see Alexander, which is very normal since she had just given birth to him. We had discussed what the open adoption would look like and had agreed to a schedule for visits. We thought all was good. At some point on Friday, his birth mother decided that she could no longer go without Alexander. She talked with the social workers and the adoption agency to let them know she wanted him back, and that the adoption was off. The agency then let us know that she wanted him back and that she would be calling us shortly.

At around 6pm, we got the call from the birth mother. She was traveling from Cleveland to Cincinnati tonight. We gave her a location to meet us to pick up Alexander. Needless to say, the hours after this were some of the most confusing and frustrating hours of our lives. We both cried off and on, all while taking care of little Alexander for the last time. We drove to the location, and at 10:27 she came and took him from us.

We both completely understand where she is coming from and that she wants to be with her child. We also understand how hard it must be to give birth to a child and then place the child for adoption. We are not mad at her in any way.

With all that said, this hurts deeply. It’s some of the deepest pain either of us has ever felt. We do not understand this at all. We are broken and hurt people right now. We need love and support more than ever. We trust God with everything we are in this horrible time.

We want to thank all of you who have taken this adoption journey with us over the years. To those who have given us your time, money, prayers, and gifts--we cannot thank you enough for all that you have done. We never thought this would be where we would end up. We don’t know what we are going to do from here. We have a lot of reflection and prayer to do, and we appreciate your prayers during this time.