Hanging by a Thread

It's been a tough weekend. The longer we've gone without an update from our birth family on the status of our birth father's rights, the more worried I've become. And this afternoon, my fears were justified. Our attorney notified me that she had spoken with our birth family, and the birth father is being resistant to terminating his rights. Not only is he threatening to not allow the adoption, but he is stating that his family is going to help him, and he may want to parent the baby.

I know what some of you are thinking: Why am I surprised? I knew this could happen all along. After all, the bottom line is that this is truly HIS baby. And, I have to respect his wishes.

Needless to say, my heart is breaking. What seemed so close yesterday could now be miles away. It's not for certain. He could just be treading the waters and stalling while he processes all of this. But, we don't know that yet. The scariest thing that our attorney said to us was, "honestly it could be this way up until the very end. Lots of birth fathers stall until their 30 day window after the birth but never take any action." Great. That's freaking terrifying. But, again, that is the risk we took when we agreed to this. Though, I must mention that the first time I spoke with our birth mom she said that the birth father was on board with adoption. So, I don't know what changed.

My heart is also breaking for our birth mom. She really wants to have us adopt her baby. And her relationship with the birth father is not a good one. I am sure she is just as scared as we are by the problems he is presenting. I cannot imagine her having to carry this baby only to have to either decide to struggle and co-parent with him, or allow the baby to go to his care, which I know she really doesn't want.

The most worry is actually not because of the birth father. Its that the birth grandma who was facilitating this termination of rights has not communicated with me at all. I texted her a "hi there, how are you" text last night and she didn't write back. Then, I left her a voicemail this morning and she hasn't called back. Not really a huge deal except that she has never done that before. And, open communication is huge in this situation.

So, I don't really know what I'm to do. I guess we wait. We pray, or plea with God. This seems appropriate:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.
The courage to change those I can.
And, the wisdom to know the difference.