Introducing Spencer

Two weeks ago today, we got a call from the head caseworker at our LDS Family Services office. She was wondering if we would be open to consider an unusual adoption situation. An adoptive mother was looking to place a three-year old with some special needs. She had narrowed it down to three profiles, including ours. Would we be interested?

I hung up the phone and called James and ran it by him. Of course, he thought of dozens of questions I hadn't even thought of. But James is very skeptical of these situations. I knew when he didn't rule it out in the first five minutes, that this could really happen.

We took the night to think about it and called the caseworker back the next day and grilled her for more information, like his name: Spencer. My final question to her was if there were still two other families being considered. Well, no. One withdrew themselves because they have a pending adoption. Between the other two families, she preferred ours. The adoptive mom had also shown the profiles to her father and to her best friend. They both picked ours. I asked to see a picture and she told me to come get it. This is what I got:


Cute, huh? At this point we were overwhelmed and wondering what we were really getting ourselves into. Could we welcome him into our family and give him the structure, love and home that he needs? Would I be able to keep up with a boy already being treated for ADHD?

After a day of fasting and prayer, we agreed to meet him on that Friday. What can I say? James and I fell in love with him right away. He warmed right up to us and loved the truck we brought as a little present. His engaging smile sucked me right in. Our Spencer.

That night we told A.J. he would be getting a new brother. He told Addison and McKenna (our neighbors) that he wouldn't be able to play as much with them because he would be playing with his new brother.

Then we left for vacation. I woke up from a nap on Sunday afternoon at the hotel and looked around with a distinct feeling that someone was missing. Spencer.

Today, I took A.J. to meet him. Holy cow are we in for some crazy days ahead. Spencer was showing off for A.J. and they were running around together throwing things and having a grand old time. Spencer was a bit rough with him, but A.J. was a great big brother and didn't get rough back. When Spencer ran off, A.J. went after him and brought him back. They were even holding hands.

Spencer reminds me a lot of A.J. at three and a half. He puts everything in his mouth. He likes to run away. Get into everything. Gets aggressive when he doesn't get his way. Maybe all three-year old boys are like that? Or maybe I just got two from the same mold.

But Spencer is speech delayed and isn't potty trained yet. So we have some fun days ahead. I am going to have to step up my game a bit and be a better mom. Lots of structure from day one and lots of love. And I've got to get the house child-proof again. We used to joke that there was child-proof and there was A.J.-proof. I fear that Spencer-proof might be an entirely new level of security.

On Friday we get to bring him over to play for a couple of hours and if things go well, we will bring him home for good on Saturday after we meet all of his current family.

Spencer is not the name we had picked out for a boy. Our good friends named their son Spencer earlier this year and I am pretty sure we would not purposely use the same name. But it fits him and it was his birthmother's last name. So even though we have the option to change it, Spencer it will be.

With A.J. I had lots of promptings along the way that let me know that he was coming. I was talking to my friend Leigh about this a few weeks ago. She is also an adoption worker and an adoptive mother. She asked if I had any feelings about the next one. I told her that I had in the past, but nothing that made any sense. About three years ago, I had a feeling that my child had already been born and that we wouldn't be getting a newborn. When nothing came of it, I figured that I had been wrong. Now it makes sense. God prepares us in many ways and sometimes it doesn't make sense right away. It's one of those lessons I apparently have to learn over and over again in my life.

My friend Angie said the other day something that has really stuck out to me: "If God leads you to it, he will lead you through it." I am going to cut that out of vinyl and put it on my wall some where were I can see it every day.