Our Life

I ran out of pages in my journal the other night and I'm desperate to write and release all these thoughts. So here it goes.

My heart is broken.

We dont talk a lot about Kayla online because we arent really supposed to. We arent allowed to post pictures. We arent allowed to even use her full name or mention aspects of her case. But for those who know us well, they know that we have had this little baby girl in our lives for the past 8 months and that we are desperately in love with her.

She came to live with us just a few weeks before we found out I was pregnant. We werent looking to adopt a baby at this point in our lives. We were content to be foster parents for a while until someday, God put it all together for us to adopt a child.

We bonded to her almost immediately. I would come home from work and watch vances face light up when he would tickle her... hold her, give her millions of kisses on her sweet little cheeks and I knew by how smitten he was that we were in trouble. I was a little bit more guarded at first... I tried to remain emotionally distanced for the first couple months we had her. After all, I had just found out I was pregnant with my first child and that was more than enough for me to process emotionally.

The months have flown by though... cutting her first teeth, taking her first steps, hearing her first words, celebrating her first birthday, taking her to her first hair cut... and we have grown such a deep and fearsome love for this little girl in our souls. A love we were not expecting and a love we could not stifle. No matter how hard i tried to protect myself from feeling those pricks of attachment and adoration towards her... it became useless and we gave in to being totally and completely enamored by this precious girl that came into our lives so unexpectedly.

Perhaps we could have guarded our hearts more carefully, seeing as she is a foster child and there is always the potential for something to come up in her case at any moment. But with both parents being out of the picture and no family members actively pursuing custody of her... we kinda just felt in our hearts that her case would be pretty black and white and that eventually she would go up for adoption.

That was up until a few weeks ago.

All of a sudden, there is family back in the picture fighting for custody and it looks promising for them.
For us, it looks and feels like we are about to lose our baby.

We are in a waiting period right now. Waiting for home studies to be completed on family members. Waiting for bond assessments to be scheduled and carried out. Waiting for August 30th when her next court hearing is and we will probably find out if this little girl is close to leaving our home.

And we have no control. We hardly have any rights. There are some things we can do to fight for custody but we will have to get an attorney and the average cost of getting one is around $15-20 K. We cant afford that. So we wait. We're calling every attorney we know, asking questions, seeking answers, trying to do what little we have the power to do... but it ultimately is out of our control at this point.

The Judge will decide on August 30th if our little girl will go live with family or stay with us. That is all there is to it.

And so, my heart is broken. Our son is due in two months. This should be the most exciting time in our lives, but instead, I'm plagued with sadness and a deep sense of despair. I dont want to feel like that. I dont! But i dont know how else to make it thru the day. Potentially we could be losing one child as we welcome another into the world and the bitter sweet dichotomy of the situation has left me undone.

So this is our lives right now. We ask that you pray for Gods will above all things. and that God would give us the grace to endure whatever it is we are going to endure in the next couple months.

We ask that you pray for Judge Clark and the ability of the holy spirit to speak to her heart on August 30th and give her wisdom and understanding to make the right decision for Kayla.

Pray for the attorney's and caseworkers involved in this case, that they would have favor on us and make right decisions.

And pray for our hearts. Mine, Vance's and Kayla's. We desperately need the love of the Father to lavish us with his peace and comfort in a tangible way... and for baby boy in my womb- that all these tears I'm crying dont negatively affect his development and well being.