Jason & Jen

AMEN!! I am bawling my eyes out reading and remembering their journey. Our God IS so great!

Congratulations to both families!

Wow, Mari! I just want to thank you again for sharing all the details of your daughter's story. I can't even imagine how painful it must have been to go through all of that. I feel so privileged to get to hear the story.

Mari - I have SO APPRECIATED reading your story (I just got caught up to this last post). I am so grateful for your honesty and a I appreciate all of the time and emotional energy you have put into sharing. Thank you so much for sharing. I am actually "Jen," the adoptive parent from Iowa, who you and Lauranda talked to on the phone back in January. So, on one hand it has been good to read the full story since I know you just a little bit. On the other hand, I have been so grateful to hear your perspective because I have been thinking a lot about our baby's birth mom (A) this last week. Your earlier posts on how you felt as a grandma who would miss your grandchild have been very insightful. Your thoughts have helped me think more about what A and her family are going through. We have a great relationship with all of them. I love them so much and desire do whatever I can during this time (our baby is 5 weeks old now) as they grieve the loss of Abram. Thanks for going through pain again so that you can share your story. I hope that God continues to use it to help others in their journeys (it has certainly helped me in mine). And of course, I look forward to hearing the rest of the story. Oh, and P.S. I got to meet and hold your beautiful grand daughter while we were in Texas getting Abram. It was such a blessing!

Okay, so I've not been very good at keeping up with the forum (I'm sure it happens to the best of new moms!). I'm just now finally looking at the baby announcement thread! Thank you for all of your prayers and blessings for Abram and our situation. God orchestrated quite an amazing story . . . and He deserves ALL the glory! He did way more than we could have asked or imagined, especially regarding our relationships with our birth family . . . we all agreed that we felt like we were watching the best adoption movie we have ever seen! And thanks, Elizabeth, for the wonderful birth announcement for our little guy. It was wonderful. I can't believe I'm just now read it!

I am all for open adoption. Once I did a little bit of reading on it, I was sold and desire it no other way. Suzi, I really liked the information you shared. I, too, have been trying to educate my friends and family on all things infertility/adoption related and this reminds me I need to do an open adoption post on my blog soon. My quesiton is . . . what if the birth mom doesn't want as much openness as would be ideal for us? In the grand scheme of things, I trust God's sovereignty and so I don't feel like it is my task to change the BP's mind. But, I am curious to hear any advice from others who have been matched/placed with BMs who preferred a more closed adoption when the adoptive parents preferred more openness.

Congratulations Joe & Shelley on the placement of beautiful Sloan Isabella. Continuing to pray many prayers for all of you.