'fox william' day.

sometimes i'm an internal processor and sometimes i'm a verbal processor, it really just depends on the experience that needs processing.

today is fox william day, and it took me a year of internal processing before i felt like i could share about it.

a year ago today we met a tiny newborn baby boy who was going to be ours forever. his mother went through an adoption agency when she knew she couldn't properly care for him, and then (through a long long series of God-ordained events) we were hooked up with the agency and headed to ANOTHER STATE to meet our son, fox william french.

we called DHS and ironed out lots of details that come along with fostering and then adopting separately from an agency. (during this time, my heart was hurting because our adoption with fox would be official before our adoption with eden, who was 16 months at this point). stefen called his employer and took time off work from the hospital. we would be in arkansas for 10 days, until everything was finalized legally and we could leave the state with our new family of 4.

we arrived in arkansas and recorded every detail. we have video of the first time we walked in and met him. a million pictures. a video of his first bath. the first time we fed him. all 3 of us were just smelling him, adoring him, breathing him in. i kissed him a million times through tears of joy and thankfulness.

we took our kids upstairs and put eden down for her nap, and in the next room we just soaked fox in alone, as his parents. he was laying on my chest as we were all resting from a long day. and that's when we got the phone call. birth mother had changed her mind. she wanted him back. time stopped. it was like my vision got blurry and my mind got foggy and i was trying to breath underwater. we knew the adoption laws in arkansas and knew there was nothing we could do. that she wanted him back, and that's what would happen. she would get him back, and we would lose him.

we wept. we wept over fox, with new friends holding us and praying out loud as the case worker came to pick him up. i kissed him for the last time with my tears of heartbreak falling on his face. he didn't like that. he cried, and i rocked him back to solitude one last time. i handed him to the caseworker, dressed in his new outfit. i wish i would have had someone else hand him over. i felt like (and still feel like) i was failing him in some way. as if we could have done more. like we should have fought harder for him.

after fox left, i woke eden up. my heart was just craving to hold her and kiss her in the midst of my sadness. i couldn't let go of her.

for friends and family that are reading this saying "what? i had no idea!" - don't have a cow. we told MAYBE 10 people. including our siblings and only one parent.

since we have become foster parents, i fear that people view us as "emotional leaches" - as in, "those frenches, it's just one thing after another with them these days.." - and sometimes i feel like it IS one thing after another. in fact, no one feels like that more than we do. no one feels more emotionally exhausted than we do. i have to filter what is worth reaching out for help for, and what needs to be processed and dealt with between only stefen and i. this was one of those things that we felt needed to be dealt with in the confines of our home. we wept together, talked in circles, and then we moved forward. we didn't need to call every friend and family member and tell them and ultimately have to relive the pain. and essentially, that is why we didn't tell many people in the first place. because we knew that birth parents change their minds all the time. this is one out of a billion failed adoption stories.

on a similar note, you know what i remember about this experience the most? the people that rallied around this baby boy who needed a family. sweet fox is STILL being prayed for, a year later, by our close friends and family. out of the very few people who knew, we had already had enough money to pay for the $5k adoption agency and attorney's fees (all money was returned, obviously). we arrived home empty handed to a large check in our mailbox addressed to "fox french"... our friend profusely apologized as he assumed it was painful to get that. and that wasn't the case at all, actually. it was a weirdly comforting that, even though we came home empty handed, there were people who loved this boy already. we still have that envelope with his name on it.

i must note something: for about 3 months i texted the caseworker daily to see how fox was doing (his momma gave him an amazing, strong name that starts with a "K" so i will call him that from here on out). K thrived. he loved his momma and sibling very much. but i honestly thought she would change her mind again, and that we would get him back. the day after we got home i went out and bought several baby boy onesies. i held onto hope for several months. i felt like God was comforting my heart, but giving me a sense of expectancy that we would come back. i still have the onesies, and all of that is ok. i'm confident in how we took every step of that experience and every decision that was made.

i will say that while we will adopt our second child, i am very scared. scared that we will decorate a nursery, buy baby clothes, get our home ready for a newborn, all to be heartbroken again. but risk can be beautiful. what's the worst that could happen? we have another failed adoption and draw closer to Jesus? i think i can handle that.

-----an update on eden's adoption-----
we had a long meeting with our private attorney yesterday! it kind of sucked. we are in the process of DHS moving the case from the 'child custody' department to the 'adoptions' department and the attorney said that can take MONTHS. this was heartbreaking for me because… 2 years, you guys. 2 freakin years. anyways. he then proceeded to tell us about how he does some adoptions where parental rights are terminated and it takes THREE YEARS before DHS clears it for adoption because it 'falls through the cracks'!! this is not ok. we are also in between caseworkers (our 7th caseworker) so we have no one to push this through except us and our private attorney. we could use some major prayers for God to expedite this process. thank you, friends.

all my love,
chelsie