A few weeks after we received our call from San Antonio I received another call from our social worker in Nashville.  When I answered the phone she asked if I would sit down because she had something very important to talk to me about.  On a side note, when someone says that it's usually not a fun conversation that you're about to have.  I again remember exactly where I was when I got this call.  I was in our kitchen and I sat down in one of our red chairs and stared out the window as she told me that the woman who I had met with back in the summer had called them again and was ready to place her child who was now 5 months old.

Our social worker knew that we had already committed to a mom in San Antonio, and she was calling to inform me that this woman from the summer came back and wanted to place her son and she wanted us to be his parents.

I remember thinking that this can't be happening.  For months I had wanted to know who our child would be, and to be chosen by a mom, and now I have a dilemma of two moms wanting to place their children with us.  How could this be?

My thoughts went like this ….

If mom in TN places her child with us and we say no to mom in TX then she'll have 10 days to change her mind and if she does we won't have a child at all.

If mom in TX places her child with us and we say no to mom in TN that has a 5 month old and is ready to place now, then mom in TX could change her mind and we wouldn't have a child at all.

I was convinced that if I made the wrong choice I would be left with no baby and all my choices would back fire on me.

I said these scenarios out loud to our social worker and she confirmed that yes either of those could happen, or neither of them could happen.  We ended our conversation with her telling me that I had until 4pm the next day to let her know.  Yes, I had a little over 24 hours to make what I felt like at the time was the decision that could change the direction of our family.

I remember crying more than I thought I could ever cry.  I literally did not know what to do.  I felt like I wanted God to come down and whisper into my ear exactly what he wanted us to do.  I felt as if I had the actual ability to miss our child.  As if my choice was going to ruin my family.  As if God was up there waiting for me to make a decision so he could go with it.

Looking back now I realize how we sought God on this issue and then we had to just let it go and trust that we had done all we could.  I know now that God was in control the whole time and never left us for a moment to work this out on our own.  He already knew who our son would be.  He was using this decision to remind us that we are not in control and that we need him to guide us in all we do.

As we prayed about this and talked with friends Aaron and I decided that the best thing for us to do was to stick to our original decision.  We had already given this woman our word and if that were to change just because a “better offer” were to come along then what kind of people would we be.  Moving forward with our mom in Texas felt right to us.  It felt as though it's where we were always supposed to be.

Throughout the next month I had a few apprehensions and fears creep in that made me wonder if we had made the right decision.  I mean had we gone with the mom in TN we would have our 5 month old baby home with us.  But for us it wasn't about just getting a baby, it was about following the road that God had planned for us from the beginning of time.  It was us trusting in Him as he wove our lives together with the mom in TX.

So, I called our social worker in TN and gave her my final decision.  I hurt so badly for that mom in TN because me telling her no, felt as if I was standing in front of her and looking at her baby and saying “I don't want him”.  It was as if I felt like I was letting her down.  She had come back to the agency and specifically asked us to parent her child and we tell her no.  Oh it felt awful, but we knew it was right and that God would bring good from this situation.