Emily Finnell's Path Through Loss and the Gift of Adoption

Transcript

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This episode depicts pregnancy loss.

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Listeners who are sensitive to this topic may prefer to skip this episode.

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Welcome to the Birth Journeys podcast.

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Today, I have with me Emily Finnell, diamond Ambassador with Plexus Worldwide and Leadership Mindset Coach and Trainer.

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Emily is a mother of two and she is here today to share her birth story.

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Emily, welcome and thank you for joining me.

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Hi, keri, hi, I am ready to hear the story that you have to share with us today.

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Okay.

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So I was a special education teacher for years in Dallas, texas, and I have to be honest, I'm a planner and I planned my pregnancy around summer break, like I wanted to make sure I gave birth in April so that I had maternity leave and then I had summer break, so I got the most amount of time with the baby.

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So there you go, just off the bat, telling you how crazy I am just with the planning.

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So anyway, the first pregnancy, it worked.

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I was due at the end of May.

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Everything went well at the beginning.

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I had a healthy pregnancy.

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There were some concerns that I had a low-lying placenta, but at 33 weeks I woke up in a pool of blood and it was a little terrifying.

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In fact, the ambulance ride alone was really scary because the baby wasn't moving at all and I felt the need to push Sorry, I mean we're getting graphic here, right, okay, and I was pushing out blood clots at the time, which you know, I mean I'm like deer in the headlights and the baby was not moving and they had no way of fetal monitoring in the ambulance and it was all men and they were just so uncomfortable you can tell the energy of the ambulance they were looking at each other and they kept saying things like just tell us if he moves.

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And I remember just thinking is my baby going to make it?

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It was very scary and it was right.

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When we pulled up to the hospital, all of a sudden he started moving and everybody was just relieved.

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They said it was placenta previa.

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I remember distinctly the nurse saying to me it's not, if you bleed again, it's when.

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So I was on really strict bed rest.

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I was actually in the hospital for the next week or two maybe, and then they let me go home because I hadn't had any bleeding and I made it all the way to 37 weeks with no more bleeds, which was the goal.

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And they did a C-section at the beginning of May May 4th actually and I feel like I had kind of checked the box for the traumatic birth, been there, done that and I was owed a very easy second pregnancy and birth story and God was like hold my beer because it was not at all what I had planned.

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It was the same thing where I had planned it out and really thought through the schedule and wanted to make sure I got pregnant at the time I wanted to, and looking back.

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I actually was pretty confident I was pregnant, but I wasn't the month before, so that was a little hard for me.

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Just because you know, as a woman, when you have your heart set on it and you feel like, okay, this is it.

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Just because you know, as a woman, when you have your heart set on it and you feel like, okay, this is it and it wasn't.

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That was hard but nothing compared to what was coming.

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I did get pregnant that next month, I believe, and I immediately didn't feel right.

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I was very, very sick.

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Now, looking back, I think there was some intuition that there was something not right, but I didn't know and I don't remember all the details.

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I was trying to go back and think through.

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I do remember at one point they did a sonogram to make sure there was a heartbeat and everything before I had my first appointment.

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So I was switching OBs, going to this new OB that my friend was using and loved, and she didn't want to see me until, I want to say, nine or 10 weeks because it was my second and she just felt like everything was good to go.

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But I think I was so sick Something was happening where they did bring me in for a sonogram, saw the heartbeat, everything was fine.

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So fast forward to that first appointment with her, went through all the paperwork.

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It was just the energy was very happy and lighthearted and I was so excited to be there and to be experiencing this.

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You know that excitement about sonograms and all of that was coming up.

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And then she went to do the first sonogram and there was no heartbeat.

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So that was shocking and they sent me up to a specialist just to verify.

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They wanted to make sure that she wasn't just missing something.

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But the baby was measuring at, I think, five weeks and it had been five weeks or six weeks and it had been the week before that we had a heartbeat.

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So it was really hard.

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But the heart just got worse.

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Because I basically became a medical mystery, I scheduled the DNC and when I went in for that I bled.

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It was a really bad bleed and Dan, my husband, because of something that happened in his families in the 90s, was told by his parents to never approve a blood transfusion because of fear around bad blood that his grandmother had maybe possibly gotten back in the early 90s or something.

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So that ended up being a really bad choice because they needed to give me blood and they weren't able to at the first DNC.

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And then the recovery was really rough from that because I had lost such a huge amount of blood.

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I think my mom had to fly in and help with Everett at the time because Everett was probably 17, 18 months old at the time and I was having issues with continued bleeding.

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And when they went in to do a vaginal sonogram they noticed that there seemed to be a clump of what they thought was pregnancy tissue that they were able to get out in the DNC the first time.

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So we scheduled another one.

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And this time in my life was honestly so traumatic it's hard to even remember exactly what happened, but I know there were three or four different DNCs and each time I would hemorrhage and they couldn't figure out why.

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And at one point the doctor said she thought she could just kind of do it in her office and I hemorrhaged on the table and they had to rush me to the ER and by then the bleeding stopped, but they couldn't figure out why.

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So again, it was just all these bleeding issues that I was having.

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This was all happening.

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In October was the first DNC.

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Fast forward to the middle of December, everett had a little Christmas program at his school and this is one of those total God things that I happened to reach out to my friend Stacy and say let's get our babies ready together at the country club there they had a huge dressing room and the restroom and so we brought our babies, olivia and Everett, and we were getting them dressed for their little Christmas pageant and their cute little outfits that the teacher had given us and I started to bleed and I ran to the bathroom into a stall and hemorrhaged.

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It was really scary and they had to take me by ambulance and they were trying to figure out where the blood was coming from and why I continued to bleed.

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And there was a man there I guess the text.

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I don't know what his role was.

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He did a sonogram and he said to me I am like a guardian angel for you, because no one would know what this is, but I do because I've seen it before.

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He said it was an arterial vascular malformation in my uterus At least that's what he was pretty confident that it was.

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And at that point the only way they could get the bleeding to stop was to do a I don't know what it's called where they put a catheter or a balloon, kind of, just to create pressure to stop the bleeding.

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So thankfully, they said if it weren't for this man being able to explain what was happening, they probably would have done an emergency hysterectomy.

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But instead my doctor said we're just going to put you in the ICU overnight and we're going to have you talk to a specialist tomorrow.

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And she did give me some space to process what was happening, because the reality was settling in that we were not going to have any more children biologically.

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And I have to also rewind to my husband is an only child.

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When we were dating, he and I talked about our future family and he is like this weird unicorn of an only child that appreciates being an only child, like he thinks it's great, and I made it very clear to him that I will never only have one child.

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That's been such a core belief of mine.

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My brothers I can't imagine.

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Here's my theory on it.

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Everybody's family is so crazy and you can't bear the burden of your own crazy family alone.

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Your siblings help you through life and my brothers and I are just so, so close.

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So I just wanted my children to have the experience of siblings.

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It's just important to me.

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So in the ICU that night actually I was looking up adoption agencies, literally bleeding out.

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And I'm looking up adoption agencies because it gave me some sense of hope, like there is a future, like there is something still to look forward to.

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Unfortunately, the story still isn't over, because even after the hysterectomy there was bleeding and again they couldn't figure out where it was coming from.

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And that was where I feel like a future and hope, and that light at the end of the tunnel seemed to dim to a point where the only answer that I could see was death.

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Because when nobody knows what's wrong with you, it feels so lonely and you start just assuming that there's something really wrong.

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And now, in hindsight, when I look back on that time, it's so silly.

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I was just having these little hemorrhages and there was obviously doctors who would find a solution and it would be okay, but one of the bleeds they had taken me back to the hospital again, because when you wake up in a pool of blood, it's just terrifying.

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And I remember sitting in my hospital bed and looking at my husband who was playing Angry Birds on his phone, because that's what he did, because we sat in the hospital room so often and I remember thinking about him being a single dad and raising Everett by himself, because I didn't see how I would survive it and that was probably one of the darkest moments of my life.

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And fortunately, that also happened to be the hospital visit where they finally found the issue and were able to resolve it and it just had to do with the way that there was a vein that was like dripping blood and it would just pool and then it would come out and they just had to sew it back up and make it in a way where there was no more and it worked.

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And finally that was the shift into true healing and recovery.

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But I think it's that prolonged healing and the continued surgeries, one after the other, and all of the questions that was just To go through.

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The loss of a miscarriage is heavy, but to have it dwarfed by the loss of fertility at age 28,.

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I've done so much growth since then and I do see the blessings that came from all of that darkness and despair and emotions.

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And now we do have our second son you mentioned.

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We have two sons and we did go through a beautiful adoption journey.

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In fact, I was just thinking about this, I do feel like birth journeys are also unique, but so are adoption journeys, and I feel so blessed to have experienced both.

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I think it's really unique.

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I wouldn't have that adoption journey if it weren't for what we went through losing fertility and all of that.

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So it's kind of a long version, but that is my story.

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Thank you, Emily.

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So you talked about the growth that you've experienced since then.

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How did you begin that journey to dig yourself out of?

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that dark space.

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I think when challenging things happen, that's the right space for faith to grow and I think it would definitely be explained as a faith journey and that going through that experience that I did wasn't all for none.

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I feel like it brought my husband and I closer together.

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It made me appreciate being a mother and you know an adoption journey.

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When you give birth, it is that nine months and you're experiencing every stage of it and there is this shared experience with other women.

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When you're four months, you remember what it was like to be four months and six months and you know, remember that third trimester and how that felt like.

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It's this shared experience.

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But with adoption you are literally waiting for the phone to ring and you could be a mom in like hours, you know, like days.

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It's just a different experience.

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So I think that experiencing childbirths and then the loss of my fertility created this space for me to be willing to go wholeheartedly into my adoption journey and it's a different level of trust, right Like a real free fall into God's plan, and you have to build a really strong foundation of faith to be able to do that free fall, because I mean we could do a whole nother episode on just the adoption journey, because it was a very unique experience and it really tested my faith in a lot of different ways as well, and I think I also just have the attitude of I always look at every experience in my life as you either win or you learn, you know, and there were so many things that I learned and I'm able to empathize with people going through hard times to a different level than if I hadn't experienced what I experienced.

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So, in between the time that you had the loss and the time that you started the adoption process, did you lean mostly on the church?

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Did you have a therapist?

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Did you try any medication?

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Did you have a support system?

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So it's funny because, you know, when I look back at that specific chapter, it was actually pretty deep, in some I would say debilitating anxiety.

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The one thing I think I did right was I allowed myself to experience all of the emotions.

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I mean, I really felt it.

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I remember standing in front of the mirror and looking at myself and feeling physically like there was this gaping hole where my womb was.

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I felt like this deep sense of grief, and I remember just allowing myself to fit in it, like allowing myself to feel that, myself to fit in it, allowing myself to feel that and process it.

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I cried a lot, I read books.

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I went through all the stages of grief.

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I remember being really angry at God.

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I had incredible girlfriends.

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Incredible girlfriends.

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I think we all know how awkward that can be during this stage of life, when they're all popping with their second pregnancies, that fear of telling me.

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That was really hard for me, because I genuinely was excited for them, but of course, it was painful.

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So just being authentic.

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And the blessing was, though, I feel like when I spoke my truth, when I was able to say I am so happy for you and simultaneously so sad.

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It brought friendships closer because we were able to be real with each other and we weren't putting on this mask of I'm just happy and everything's fine.

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I was able to be honest.

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So I would say there were a lot of really deep, healthy friendships at that time.

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That really helped.

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But after I physically healed, that's when I started experiencing what I thought was a neurological issue.

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I remember taking Everett to swim class one day the little baby survival swim and I remember feeling I had a full-blown panic attack and I thought it was a neurological thing.

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I remember coming home and telling Dan there's something wrong with my brain, like it's something with my brain that's happening Because it just felt it was like almost like disassociated with my body, like it felt swimmy and strange.

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I just wanted to be home, and so there was definitely a process of re-acclimating to coming back into the real world after such trauma, and what the answer was for me at that time was a therapist.

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I was really leaning into therapy and sharing my story with somebody that I can be totally, completely open with and not worry about how they were feeling, because they're also pregnant or they just had a baby, like my girlfriends.

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So that definitely helped.

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And then for me always having a light at the end of the tunnel, something to say.

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It's not always going to feel like this.

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I know that one day I will have the second baby.

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We will be a family of four, like I always dreamed.

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So holding on to that dream.

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Also, I'm a journaler, so just getting out of my head and onto paper was really important to me.

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Just getting out of my head and onto paper was really important to me, reading books, but yeah, I think I also this kind of gets into my faith a little bit.

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But we lived in Dallas, texas, and one of the biggest adoption agencies is really close and we went through the process.

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In fact, we didn't have a lot of money.

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That was.

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The other problem is financially.

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Adoption is so expensive and so that was a huge burden for us as a couple.

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That was really hard and it all worked out, but it was definitely a stressor and we ended up investing a little bit of money and going to this full day seminar thing and I was.

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Every time I had this big binder that you got and you had to fill up the binder and do worse.

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When I'm taking care of people who are having a loss, it's hard for me as a friend and I really like what you said about being open with it.

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A big emotion that people have is guilt, and it's not all this work and every time I took the binder out I would feel complete panic attack, sheer panic.

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I felt so uncomfortable.

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I felt like it was not in alignment with what God was calling me to do and it was really hard because we invested some money.

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We had already invested the money.

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So to step away from that and say like this isn't ringing true to me, this is not where we're supposed to be, that was definitely hard.

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Isn't ringing true to me, this is not where we're supposed to be, that was definitely hard.

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And then I actually decided to just take a step back and I got a phone call from a small agency and they only take a few families and they said are you open to coming to one of our seminar things?

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Because we're trying to get adoptive families, because we just had a huge rush of birth moms and we are out of families, and that was.

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It was like, oh my gosh, this is it.

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This is why I wasn't going that direction, because this is the direction we were supposed to go.

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And so, anyway, I learned a lot during that time and noticing I became much more aware of my body and my anxiety and how I was feeling and processing emotion.

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Again, like it goes back to that processing emotion but also being intuitive, I think.

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I think that really started to.

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it started to tap more into that, yeah, in those periods where you're so emotionally raw, you can kind of feel every single little thing that maybe you wouldn't have felt before.

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Then you can kind of look at the areas where you need to be put back together.

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And I'm glad that you did say that you sat with those emotions, because if you don't go through it, you're never going to process it, and that's so important and sometimes as moms we don't allow ourselves the space to process anything.

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We're so busy rushing around and taking care of those other little people that a lot of things just kind of get stuffed down.

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And so I really congratulate you for having the ability to do that internal work and recognize everything for what it was and work towards healing.

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That's really, really important.

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What it was and work towards healing that's really really important.

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I have a lot of questions for you.

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You talked about how your friends reacted to you when they were learning that they were pregnant and you were still physically and emotionally healing.

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What would you say to someone that has a friend who has experienced a loss similar to what you've been through, both the miscarriage and the physical trauma that you went through?

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So I had a friend who was afraid to tell me and she didn't.

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Instead, she sent an email to her entire friend group with an announcement and I have to say that hurt.

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And again, this wasn't just a friend, this was like one of my best friends.

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It was hard to hear that way.

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I wish she was just raw and honest and said this is hard for me.

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I think that's the best advice I would have is saying putting it all out on the table, having both of the emotions, like I was saying earlier, the friends that I did have, that I was able to express this is hard simultaneously.

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I'm so happy for you.

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It's both emotions, right, and I think if you have a friend who's been through trauma and loss, saying those words to her I know this is hard for you and it's hard for me.

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I don't want to bring you pain, but addressing the fact that you know that this is hard for them.

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But don't not tell them, don't exclude them from baby showers.

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That's what was painful was people leaving me out of playdates or showers because they were afraid it would hurt me.

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I want to be included, even if I'm not ready to go.

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Please don't not invite me.

00:21:34.138 --> 00:22:00.663
I think that's what I would say I think this is a challenge for everybody that has a friend that's experienced any kind of loss, and I just really want to invite people to explore their emotions when they're trying to have interactions with people like that, because it's hard for me as a nurse when I'm taking care of people who are having a loss, and it's hard for me as a nurse when I'm taking care of people who are having a loss, and it's hard for me as a friend, and I really like what you said about being open with it.

00:22:00.663 --> 00:22:06.583
I think a big emotion that people have is guilt, and it's not because they've done anything.

00:22:06.583 --> 00:22:12.616
It's because they're about to tell their friends something that's going to be painful for both of them.

00:22:12.616 --> 00:22:22.349
And, like you said, opening that up and sharing those emotions and being able to process that sadness together is important.

00:22:22.349 --> 00:22:36.532
And then moving on and allowing space for both of you to process the happiness is super important and I think will help other people learn how to process these things as well, because it's super hard.

00:22:36.813 --> 00:22:38.217
It's like the silence is deafening.

00:22:38.217 --> 00:22:39.881
It is yeah.

00:22:39.901 --> 00:22:40.201
And hurtful.

00:22:40.301 --> 00:22:41.432
Just name it to tame it.

00:22:41.432 --> 00:22:43.036
Like I'm feeling guilt.

00:22:43.036 --> 00:22:51.070
I feel guilt and I know I shouldn't, but that's the emotion that's coming up for me, like that is so much better than I'm just not going to call her because I'm scared.

00:22:51.070 --> 00:22:52.032
I don't want to make her feel bad.

00:22:52.513 --> 00:22:59.750
Yeah, and also giving you a heads up to emotionally prepare you for the announcing to the other friends, yeah.

00:22:59.750 --> 00:23:08.959
So my other question for you is if you could go back in either of your pregnancies and talk to Emily, what would you want to say to her?

00:23:10.029 --> 00:23:19.237
See, and I've thought about this before, I feel like with the first pregnancy I would just want her to relax and trust, because I did.

00:23:19.237 --> 00:23:22.291
I didn't really get into it, but I definitely had some postpartum anxiety.

00:23:22.291 --> 00:23:29.595
I had never experienced anxiety really at all in my life until the hormones of pregnancy and childbirth.

00:23:29.595 --> 00:23:40.645
I mean, honestly, it was like a night and day switch for me, because I mean, we talk about what women don't know, what you don't realize your body is going to go through.

00:23:40.645 --> 00:23:48.713
Those hormones are strong and new things come in that you've never felt before and I was that mom that was like is he breathing, is he breathing, is he breathing?

00:23:48.713 --> 00:23:58.419
I was just so afraid I think it was just that intensity of vulnerability, of loving something so much that you're terrified something could happen.

00:23:58.419 --> 00:24:06.991
And I also think I had mentally prepared myself to give birth to like a six-month-old and instead this little alien came out that I was like is he alive?

00:24:06.991 --> 00:24:07.753
He's so tiny.

00:24:07.854 --> 00:24:21.723
So I think, going back, it's funny that I even say this, because my dad did give me this advice at the time, but I don't think I was receptive to it, but I tended to seek outside knowledge instead of trust myself.

00:24:21.723 --> 00:24:33.299
I had to read all of the sleep training books and the parenting books and it was like everything I read I would jump on board to different ideas like sleep training or not sleep training.

00:24:33.299 --> 00:24:41.849
And my father noticed this about me and he said I want you to put the books down and I want you to trust that you know how to be a mother.

00:24:41.849 --> 00:24:44.615
You instinctually know trust yourself.

00:24:44.615 --> 00:24:52.583
And, like I said, I probably wasn't as receptive as I should have been because, looking back, that would be the advice I would give to myself during the pregnancy.

00:24:52.670 --> 00:25:22.943
But specifically after the pregnancy, after Everett was born and with the second pregnancy gosh, I feel like I just would love to let her know that whatever she thinks is going to happen, it is so much more expansive and amazing and abundant than she could ever have dreamed, because I just I was so living in the moment and, like I described back when I just I didn't have that light at the end of the tunnel.

00:25:22.943 --> 00:25:25.417
But the truth is I had to experience all that.

00:25:25.417 --> 00:25:29.476
I don't actually regret it, I don't wish it away.

00:25:29.476 --> 00:25:32.940
I feel like it was the true experience.

00:25:32.940 --> 00:25:35.510
So I don't know, I don't know what I would say to her.

00:25:35.510 --> 00:25:39.259
I would want to just assure her that it's going to be okay.

00:25:39.681 --> 00:25:41.894
I don't know what else I want to ask you at this point.

00:25:41.894 --> 00:25:46.231
I mean, I think we have time to get into a little bit of the adoption story.

00:25:46.491 --> 00:25:56.192
You're going to notice a common theme with the adoption journey, just like the pregnancies was everything's going to be easy and fun, right, Like that's how I felt.

00:25:56.192 --> 00:25:59.980
And so, remember, they rushed us through.

00:25:59.980 --> 00:26:10.780
We had to go through all these training courses to be adoptive parents, right, and they kind of rushed us through that, because they do an average of 12 adoptions a year.

00:26:10.780 --> 00:26:21.835
They had just had nine adoptions go through and they only had two waiting families and they were like we need adoptive families because we're not going to have anybody for these birth moms as they come in.

00:26:21.835 --> 00:26:32.182
So they rushed us and six or seven other couples through all of the seminars and got us all prepared for the call, right.

00:26:32.182 --> 00:26:41.123
And then this had never happened before in the history of this agency they had a 12-month dry spell where they didn't have one birth mom for 12 months.

00:26:41.123 --> 00:26:49.498
Might have been 13 months, and if you want to talk about a faith journey and remember I told you it was like truly free falling into God's plan.

00:26:49.498 --> 00:26:58.403
It felt again like the rug had been ripped out from under me, right, Like I had finally got my footing again and was ready and excited, was rushed through.

00:26:58.403 --> 00:27:00.833
It was that extra boost of being rushed through.

00:27:00.833 --> 00:27:05.307
That made it all that more painful to go through this experience of waiting.

00:27:05.307 --> 00:27:14.183
But again, I really feel so strongly that the plan for us was not at all the story I had written for myself.

00:27:14.183 --> 00:27:16.106
So I made up the rules.

00:27:16.106 --> 00:27:27.232
I was owed what I wanted because I lived through this right and what I wanted was a healthy infant girl, no drugs.

00:27:27.232 --> 00:27:55.372
I felt like I was owed and what God actually wanted was for us to take in a 19-month-old boy who had experienced a little bit of trauma in his early life and I think, in a way, that waiting that year of waiting was was to get me to the point where I would be open to that plan, and it was also a year of a lot of deeper healing for me.

00:27:55.372 --> 00:27:57.236
That's when I started a yoga practice.

00:27:57.236 --> 00:28:04.519
I feel like yoga and meditation really entered my life at that point and that really grounded me and helped me.

00:28:04.519 --> 00:28:15.163
Lots of journaling, a couple birth moms who ended up falling through, and each of those was painful as well, but it really did open my heart and my mind.

00:28:15.163 --> 00:28:18.259
So I'll tell you the story of the day that Trevor came on our radar.

00:28:18.950 --> 00:28:24.843
I was still teaching and I got an email from a teacher saying come to my room.

00:28:24.843 --> 00:28:31.383
And of course my whole school knew we had such an incredible community rally around us in every step of this season.

00:28:31.383 --> 00:28:36.182
And so, anyway, this teacher emails me and says can you please come to my room during your break?

00:28:36.182 --> 00:28:41.819
And I thought it was about one of my students because I was special ed so I'm always getting colorful emails from teachers.

00:28:41.819 --> 00:28:51.357
So I came down thinking that it was one of my students, something she had to tell me about him, and she grabbed my hand and she pulled me in and she said we found your baby.

00:28:51.357 --> 00:28:52.173
That's what she said.

00:28:52.434 --> 00:29:01.212
And I had just been through a fall through with one of the birth moms, and so I was kind of in a jaded place and we also had one potential.

00:29:01.212 --> 00:29:06.711
Somebody at my church knew somebody who was pregnant, so I kind of had my hope set on that situation.

00:29:06.711 --> 00:29:21.742
So another teacher in the building that I didn't know very well, Her parents were in Bible study with this couple who had just gotten custody of their grandson and they were planning on placing him for adoption.

00:29:21.742 --> 00:29:26.006
I think he was 13 months old at the time and she told me all about him.

00:29:26.006 --> 00:29:32.619
Birth mom has really all of her rights to her parents who are planning on placing him healthy.

00:29:32.619 --> 00:29:36.974
They know these people, and that's the other part I should also explain.

00:29:36.974 --> 00:29:39.503
We were all in on an open adoption.

00:29:39.503 --> 00:29:42.031
We felt really strongly and really called to do that.

00:29:42.031 --> 00:29:47.555
I am such an advocate for open adoption because I just think that it's such a healthy experience.

00:29:47.555 --> 00:29:50.181
You can't have too many people loving this child right.

00:29:50.181 --> 00:29:53.337
So I had my heart set on an open adoption.

00:29:53.337 --> 00:29:55.010
So that's what this scenario would be.

00:29:55.893 --> 00:30:01.003
Well, as soon as I heard it was a boy who was already over a year old.

00:30:01.003 --> 00:30:02.030
I was like, yeah, no, I'm out.

00:30:02.030 --> 00:30:04.959
But of course I texted my husband and just let him know.

00:30:04.959 --> 00:30:06.162
Like, hey, this came up.

00:30:06.162 --> 00:30:12.221
And then I went on to teach my next class and my phone kept dinging.

00:30:12.221 --> 00:30:24.394
And when I looked down next class and my phone kept dinging and when I looked down, my husband had been texting me every few minutes all the thoughts that he was having about this and at first it was like, yeah, it doesn't seem like it's the right fit.

00:30:24.394 --> 00:30:28.574
Then a few minutes later it was but wait, he would almost be out of diapers.

00:30:28.574 --> 00:30:31.642
But wait, he would be closer to Everett's age.

00:30:31.642 --> 00:30:37.057
But wait, he would be out of bottles, but wait, we could fast closer to Everett's age, but wait, he would be out of bottles, but wait, we could fast forward through all the baby stuff.

00:30:37.057 --> 00:30:41.101
It was like he was talking himself into it and texting me all of his thoughts.

00:30:41.950 --> 00:30:46.872
So by the time I got out of school that day I was sitting there thinking could we do this Like?

00:30:46.872 --> 00:30:49.336
This is crazy, Could we really adopt a little boy?

00:30:49.336 --> 00:30:58.814
And then I was secretively given a photo of this little boy and in fact the grandparents didn't know that until way after the adoption.

00:30:58.814 --> 00:31:06.116
But he was the cutest little thing Blonde hair, brown eyes, just so cute and the smile.

00:31:06.116 --> 00:31:10.051
I just remember seeing his smile and thinking like he is really adorable.

00:31:10.051 --> 00:31:18.335
And so we decided to just at least open ourselves up to the opportunity of what if this is our son?

00:31:18.335 --> 00:31:21.242
And anyway, long story endless.

00:31:21.282 --> 00:31:31.192
It was a very long journey because these grandparents were extremely connected to him and the open adoption part was so important to them.

00:31:31.753 --> 00:31:43.352
But not only that, it was important that they would be in our older son's life as well and be thought of as grandparents for both boys, and there was a lot of fear around that.

00:31:43.412 --> 00:31:58.998
I think, specifically for her that was a whole stepping into a range of trust that she wasn't willing to do until she really could build the trust up, and I was impatient because I just wanted her to trust us.

00:31:58.998 --> 00:32:02.912
So it was a faith journey on both parts.

00:32:02.912 --> 00:32:12.657
But I have to tell you, fast forward, we wouldn't be where we are in our lives without the grandparents, and we actually are incredibly close to them.

00:32:12.657 --> 00:32:17.226
In fact, we've taken them to Hawaii, taken them on a few beach vacations.

00:32:17.226 --> 00:32:26.696
They come up and see us because now we didn't move out of state, which was a big step for them years later and they come to see us I think she flies in next week again.

00:32:26.696 --> 00:32:29.278
We fly them up every couple months.

00:32:29.278 --> 00:32:33.862
They really are incredible gifts to us.

00:32:33.862 --> 00:32:39.935
We just love them, and so we're kind of on a very extreme open adoption situation.

00:32:39.935 --> 00:32:44.003
So anyway, that is a little bit about our adoption story.

00:32:44.810 --> 00:32:50.401
Yeah, I loved watching that story unfold in real time when it happened.

00:32:50.401 --> 00:32:55.452
I don't know if I ever knew all the little details, but I know that it was definitely.

00:32:55.452 --> 00:32:56.917
It was a journey.

00:32:56.917 --> 00:32:58.021
It seemed like it took forever.

00:32:58.021 --> 00:33:01.252
At least, I mean, I'm sure it felt like it took forever for you.

00:33:01.252 --> 00:33:03.779
From my end, it also felt like it took forever.

00:33:03.859 --> 00:33:05.333
Well, I have to tell you a funny story about that.

00:33:05.333 --> 00:33:08.280
The day we met our very first what they call interview.

00:33:08.280 --> 00:33:12.559
So we're interviewing them simultaneously, they're interviewing us right To see if it's a good fit them.

00:33:12.559 --> 00:33:16.048
Simultaneously, they're interviewing us right To see if it's a good fit.

00:33:16.048 --> 00:33:21.695
And as I'm walking out the door to this interview, I had Snapfish or something it's like where you make books.

00:33:21.695 --> 00:33:27.638
I had thrown a couple pictures and just to see the quality, to see if I liked that platform to make family photo albums.

00:33:27.638 --> 00:33:35.614
And on the way out the door I just instinctively grabbed the book that I had made so that they could see a snippet of like what our lives were like.

00:33:35.795 --> 00:33:41.775
So we're at the interview, we're meeting them, we're doing like initial stories to how we got to this point.

00:33:41.775 --> 00:33:54.611
And I said, oh, I have this book that I made that has just a few pictures of our lives, and the first page was a picture of our church, because that was a really big part of our lives at that season.

00:33:54.611 --> 00:33:59.423
And they looked at it and she said, oh my God, you're not going to believe this.

00:33:59.423 --> 00:34:01.718
She said that's the church we were married in.

00:34:01.718 --> 00:34:03.244
And I was like, oh my gosh.

00:34:03.244 --> 00:34:07.636
And then she turned the next page and said is that Chris Vedder?

00:34:07.636 --> 00:34:09.942
And I said yeah, they're our best friends.

00:34:09.942 --> 00:34:22.724
She said her older brother those are our best friends, so literally their best friends that they grew up vacationing with, with their children are the older brother of our best friends that we're growing up vacationing our children with.

00:34:22.724 --> 00:34:25.253
So it was all these little God winks right.

00:34:25.253 --> 00:34:33.184
And the interview went so well that I walked out and we kind of sat in the parking lot with our case manager.

00:34:33.184 --> 00:34:40.217
Her name was Elizabeth and I looked at her and I said mark my words, they're going to cancel the rest of their interviews and we are his family.

00:34:40.217 --> 00:34:41.523
I just knew it right.

00:34:41.543 --> 00:34:50.213
Then, years later, we find out that as soon as we left that room, the grandfather looked at their case manager and said cancel the rest of our interviews, that's the family.

00:34:50.213 --> 00:34:53.420
But she was just not ready.

00:34:53.420 --> 00:34:56.224
Again, that step of trust was too.

00:34:56.224 --> 00:34:57.873
That was too big of a jump for her.

00:34:57.873 --> 00:35:23.030
This was so emotional for her and anyway, it's funny to look back now and see that and we talk about that often that moment of him being able to jump in with full faith and just knowing and me just knowing I wasn't angry at all for her to have to go through what she went through to finally come to the point where she trusted us enough.

00:35:23.130 --> 00:35:23.952
Can you imagine?

00:35:23.952 --> 00:35:34.463
No, I mean the other part of it that's a really beautiful story is that she was struggling with a lot of health challenges at the time and she just knew she couldn't care for her.

00:35:34.463 --> 00:35:36.516
That's why they weren't giving him up.

00:35:36.516 --> 00:35:39.036
They were genuinely wanting the best for him.

00:35:39.036 --> 00:35:56.039
It was very selfless, but also with her health, there was a lot of fear of her not being there, and she's had an extraordinary healing journey since we've known each other, and it's just amazing.

00:35:56.389 --> 00:35:58.755
I'm just so glad that you shared your story.

00:35:58.755 --> 00:36:09.643
I think it is a very inspiring story that will resonate with a lot of people and I really appreciate you being so vulnerable and open.

00:36:10.510 --> 00:36:11.634
Well, thank you for asking me.

00:36:11.634 --> 00:36:16.898
I think there's so many women that need to hear what you're sharing in these stories.

00:36:16.920 --> 00:36:17.119
Yeah.

Emily Finnell's Path Through Loss and the Gift of Adoption

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