The Schoonovers

In the 6 weeks since our last update, we have gotten to sit back, breathe for a bit, and just enjoy baby girl! Matt’s family was in town the week of the 4th of July and got to meet her and spend time with her and my parents came for the weekend a few weeks ago to meet her as well. It was so great to finally celebrate her being a part of our family with our families, even if the future was still uncertain. This baby is so loved!

The last two weeks, however, were pretty heavy for Matt and I. Two weeks ago our law firm informed us that DCS no longer knew where the birth mom was. While we expected she would resurface when school restarted, we weren’t exactly sure how that would affect the future hearings. The upcoming hearing and the reality that our period of safety and stability was coming to an end soon and the giant question mark clouding our future with baby girl was returning. With each passing day the reality that we may not get to raise her forever was feeling heavier and heavier.

We weren’t hopeless about our future with baby girl but we weren’t hopeful either. We have been trying our best to just stay grounded in the present reality of enjoying each day for what it is and trusting that God is in control of the situation. We love baby girl so deeply and she’s been growing so fast and hitting new milestones, but there wasn’t a clear answer on how the situation was going to end up.

One of those hard days, I texted some friends and asked them to be praying for our hearts in all of it and one in particular said she was praying for God’s great care for us to be evident. We have seen that care throughout this entire journey in so many ways. In this instance, we saw it in the outpouring of prayer from friends and first thing the next morning when the adoption agency we had originally gone through reached out to just let us know we were heavy on their heart and wanted to let us know we being thought of.

God’s care and goodness is steadfast and consistent in the good times and the hard whether we see it or not but it is sometimes nice to have the tangible reminder and that felt like such an answer to that prayer.

On the morning of Friday, August 1st, we received a call from our attorney that DCS located the mom and was removing the older two children from her care. A relative was at the court house that morning to gain custody of the older two children but did not have the ability to care for a baby, so she encouraged birth mom to move forward with surrendering her rights to baby girl and birth mom decided to do just that.

I immediately called Matt ugly crying to share the news and so he could arrange to leave work because we had about 2.5 hours until we had to be at the courthouse. When he answered the phone, he thought something terrible had happened. They were tears of joy but they didn’t sound like it over the phone. To be fair though, if you had been on the emotional rollercoaster we have been on, you would be ugly crying too.

We reached out to our support system and asked them to be praying for the outcome of the afternoon, to pray for birth mom and her other two kids, and for us and baby girl. Then off to the courthouse we went.

The surrender went about as smoothly as it could go. Even though we were over the moon about the idea of getting to finally rest in knowing we get to be baby girl’s parents forever, it’s still a hard and heavy situation all the way around. Once the surrender takes place, there is a three business day window where the birth mom has the opportunity to change her mind. After that, she is no longer able to change her mind down the road and no longer has rights to the child.

Our waiting period officially ended today, August 6th, at 4:30 pm EST after 72 days of uncertainty! We get to officially move forward with adopting baby girl and couldn’t possibly be more excited! Now that we are in the clear, our attorney will file the petition for adoption and her adoption will likely be finalized between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Baby girl will officially be a Schoonover by the end of the year!

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who has been praying us through this journey, checking in, and supporting us. It means the world to us!

With love,

The Schoonovers