One year ago, Big T and I were hiking up to Rainbow Falls in the Eastern Sierra’s. Our trip was intended to help us get through the depression from our failed adoption. We were really struggling and our brains were swirling with unanswered questions. Would we ever be parents? How could we have been so taken advantage of with our first adoption? What was going to happen next? Our agency said we’d been the brunt of the worst adoption experience they’d ever seen, and it was taking it’s toll on us.

We were in need of some healing time, so we went up to the mountains. We’d planned a hike to Devil’s Postpile and Rainbow Falls. I’d never been there before, but I heard it was beautiful. The night before our hike, our social worker called. She said there was a little baby boy who was about to enter foster care, and would we be interested in being his parents? The only thing was that his birth mother wasn’t signed up for Medicaide, and we’d have to pay for her hospital bills. As much as we wanted to say yes, we simply couldn’t afford to do this. It was hard to tell them no, but there wasn’t any way for us to make that happen. Especially after we’d spent most of our savings on our failed adoption.

Before I went to sleep that night, I told Big T that I had a feeling it was all going to work out, and that Little T was meant to be our son. It was the same feeling I’d had when I met Big T, and I knew we were meant to be together. I didn’t know why I felt this way, especially since we’d already closed the book on this adoption and said no to our social worker.

The next day we hiked to Rainbow Falls and amazingly, our cell phone reception came through. When I saw the number of our social worker, I quickly answered the phone. She said the mother had signed up for Medicaide, and everything was taken care of and she just wanted to make sure that Little T was going to be in a good home. She asked if we were still interested in parenting, and with tears in our eyes we said yes! Yes, yes, yes!

During our experience, we often wondered, why us? Why couldn’t we get pregnant? Why did we have such a bad experience with our first adoption? Why did these things happen to us? The answer is simple, if we hadn’t gone through all of those things, we wouldn’t have Little T. He is the best thing that has ever happened to us. It’s hard when you’re going through a bad run to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but now we have the honor of seeing it every day. Every time Little T smiles at us, laughs with us, cuddles with us, plays with us. I’d go through everything ten times over, if it meant we’d have Little T by our side.

To celebrate our hike to Rainbow Falls, we did the hike again for Little T’s first birthday. This time we brought more family and birthday cake, and we had Little T with us.

And yes, we all cried.