The Morning After

We called our lawyer first thing in the morning. We needed answers and advise so we would know what direction we would take this. He told us that now the mom would be fighting for custody and even if she wins full custody it would not be in her power to choose adoption. Now that the birth father registered for his rights he too would have to sign a release of rights to us. At this point all that was left for us to do is cheer and support team birth mom and go home empty handed and back to square one with adoption.

Our second phone call of the morning was to the mom. With heavy hearts we told her what our lawyer said. She said that is exactly what her lawyer told her this morning too. We told her that we decided to go back home the next day, Daniel’s school was starting and so we might as well get back and get ready for life to continue on.

We wanted to see her and the little guy. We meet up at the hospital that afternoon. We sat and talked, but every time I looked at him I started to cry. We hadn’t gotten the chance to take pictures of us three and the baby (we had been planning on taking those pics at the signing), so we did a little photo session. We may not have the best pictures; the mom and I were comparing who had redder, puffier eyes from crying. It was still nice to get the pictures though. It was hard being at the hospital, so we didn’t stay very long. That and the mom was going to start/learn how to breastfeed and needed privacy for that. But we told her to stop by the house we were staying at because we had some stuff to give her.

Some dear friends of ours live just an hour or two from where we were staying so they said they’d come over after work and hang out with us for the evening. I love having a distraction when I am grieving. I like to have fun and pretend/forget that I hurt. We hadn’t seen these friends in over two years, they have a son we’d hadn’t met. It was so nice catching up with them. We had a nice quiet dinner at home (I wasn’t ready to be out in public for any extended amount of time – you never know when the crying will start again!), and they got us dessert and we just hung out and chatted. I loved it! It was so nice of them to come all that way for us. We have amazing people in our life, we really are so blessed.

The mom did stop by that evening as well. We gave her everything we had brought with us. We had brought enough stuff to stay there a week with a baby, just in case we weren’t allowed to go home immediately. It wasn’t everything she’d need, but it was a good starter kit – diapers, wash cloths, boppy, sling/wrap, wipes, shampoo, baby book, blankets, onesies. I mean this poor girl was not financially, emotionally or physically ready to bring a kid home because that was never the plan. We wanted to help out as much as we could. And at this point she needed it more than we did, that’s for sure.

The next morning we packed the car. I wanted to stop by the hospital one last time. We asked the mom if that would be okay and of course she said yes because she is the biggest sweetheart in the world. We stopped by just for a minute. The baby was still in the incubator under the blue lights. I put my hand on him, still aching for him to be mine, but today I knew he wasn’t, never would be. And it hurt, but it was okay because he has a great mom, who loves him. She really will be a great mom, I should say is a great mom not will be, because she already is and he’s a lucky kid that he has so many people that love him. We hugged her goodbye, took a box of Kleenex from the hospital and drove home.

When Good Things Go Bad

Being a parent is better than I ever thought. I craved that little boy, I wanted him in my arms and to just sit there and stare at him.

Daniel and I were sitting in the NICU on Wednesday when our birth mom came down and told us about texts that her ex (the birth father) was sending her. He was causing her all sorts of grief and threatening to get a lawyer. He lives several states away so we all figured he was just blowing steam and just being a jerk to her to mess with her. When they were dating and found out she was pregnant he told her abortion or adoption, preferably abortion because it’d be cheaper. So we thought why would he want the kid now? However, the adoption agency has to take this information seriously. They had been checking the register (something the birth father has to sign to register for his parental rights – or at least that is how I understand it). So far the birth father hadn’t registered, but he still can until she signs the adoption papers (the laws are different in each state).

So we all were a little worried, but our main focus was loving that baby, getting him well enough to be out of the NICU and making sure that the birth mom was healing and doing good. But she was just as anxious as us to get the papers signed before the birth father ruined everything. She was discharged from the hospital that night, but by then the agency was scared of a law suit from the father that they told us it would be better to have our birth mom sign the papers in front of a judge, if she wanted to. The agency told us to find a lawyer and do it privately. That sucked for us having to go hire a lawyer, but even more so for our birth mom because she would have been left on her own if she wasn’t friends with us. Some extended family told us they had a friend, who is a lawyer where we were at and we could hire him.

Thursday, the doctors told us that the baby needed to be under the Billy light for his jaundice and that we’d only be able to hold him during feedings. Of course we always wanted to be holding him, but we needed to be at the lawyers today anyways, and our birth mom would be there part of the time with him. So we met with the lawyer that morning after leaving the hospital. They were able to get us in court that day at 4:30 p.m. and they would draft the adoption papers to sign in front of the judge. Now we wait. We checked in at the hospital on the birth mom and baby, and told her what the plans were and talked about hiring a lawyer for her. Then we made plans to meet up at the courthouse later that afternoon.

We all met up early to go over the document before doing it in court so that the lawyer could explain things and answer questions. Tensions were running high. We all wanted this done and behind us before the birth father screwed everyone over.

I have never been in a courtroom before, and I really hated that our birth mom had to sit at the other table. I felt like we were all in this together and we should sit together like friends, but I guess that is one of the rules of court or something. Anyways, she answered all the questions in front of the judge, and then the judge wanted to ask some of his own questions. It was weird, he was kind of a creepy judge for one, but also I felt like the way he asked her certain questions he was trying to convince her not to choose adoption. And she kept answering the questions so strongly and resolutely, I was so proud of her because this is a hard enough decision that she has made and now she has to be drug through all of this. She wanted the best for her son, she loves him so much, and this is how she could give it to him. Then, literally seconds before she was about to sign, like had the pen on the paper, the judge told her to wait. The clerk had just found out the birth father had registered with a lawyer to file for his parental rights.

Stunned.

We were all stunned. Even our lawyer was speechless. The lawyer and judge recommended that she, at this point, not sign because that would be giving the birth father (or as I like to call him now, “the Jerk”) all rights.

We left the courtroom and her and I and Daniel were so angry, and that anger quickly turned into tears. We all embraced and cried together. Every thing changed in an instant. The lawyer told her that she now had to fight a custody battle with her ex. We all hugged for a while and then decided to all go to the hospital.

I couldn’t hardly even look at the baby because it just made me cry even harder, knowing that he might never be mine to raise. Our birth mom had called her case worker at the agency on the way to the hospital and they suggested that she meet with the birth father, since he had recently come into town, and talk to him and see what he wanted; maybe let him meet us so he could see the good home the baby would be going to.

You don’t even know the courage this girl has. She was able to face the man that got her pregnant, didn’t help her through the entire pregnancy, and is now screwing up the mature decision she made. We offered to go with her for support, but she decided it’d be best if she went alone at first, and then she’d call us if she wanted us to come over. This is probably best because Daniel was so emotional and so angry at the birth father that he may have done something he’d regret, well, maybe not regret, but maybe get him arrested.

So we stayed at the hospital with the baby while our birth mom went to deal with the birth father. We just love this baby so much. We had gotten to be his parents, along with his birth mom, for the last three days. The bond that is created in such a short time is amazing. He will forever have a place in our hearts. But as we held him that evening we were unsure of what our future together would be. It was heartbreaking.

Our birth mom returned to the hospital with a heavy heart. Her ex was unwilling to see a different view, he was stubborn and selfish and unrealistic. Daniel and I needed to process everything that had so quickly happened that day. We left the baby with his mom and walked across the street to the LDS temple. We had walked around the temple grounds many times during this week, just a beautiful spot to get outside and enjoy some fresh air. But this time we needed to walk off some frustration and talk, and plead with our Heavenly Father.

It was only a few minutes of being inside the temple visitor center before I crumbled with my sobbing. My heart ached.

Daniel found an elderly missionary to give us each a blessing for comfort. The missionary was a very sweet old man, who carried the comforting spirit of Christ with him. I was grateful for his words and the power of the priesthood. It still didn’t change the fact that we wouldn’t be parents yet, but we were blessed with peace in our heart. I kept thinking,

“I don’t want peace, I want a baby.”

It is hard when you don’t understand the path that you are on. Why did this feel so right the whole time and now it has come to this? I still don’t know the answer to that. Hopefully hind sight will someday solve that mystery. But I do trust the Lord and I am grateful for the peace that we had, it reminded me of the peace I felt when dealing with my sister’s death two years ago. It still hurts and it still sucks, but we’ll make it, we’ll be okay – probably stronger.

Still crying we continued to walk around the temple grounds, stopping along the way to sit and feel the warm night air and talk about our feelings and about what happened and about what to do next. I am an inadequate writer to express how we were feeling. I don’t think you will ever know how this feels. It is heartache, disappointment, anger, loneliness, bitter, confused, hurt, sad, longing, love, grief, peace, sorrow, and grace. It is exhausting feeling so many emotions all at once.

I paced around as I called my mom and told her the bad news. Daniel sat on a stone bench, hunched over with grief. Next I called his mom, he was in no state to be voicing the pain we felt and somehow I was in a lull of crying so I made calls while I still could. As I talked about the events that had unfolded I could hear Daniel cry, then sob with each word I said. It was one of the most gut-wrenching sights to look over at my husband, a strong, confident man who I have only seen cry like four times in the nine years we’ve been married, with his head in his hands sobbing uncontrollably. The emotion had finally boiled over, it would have been physically impossible to try to hold it together any long. And there was nothing I could do to relieve his suffering. I sat by him and rubbed his back and we mourned together.

Somehow we pulled it together enough to drive back to the house we were staying at (thank you to my sister-in-law who found us a house to stay in while we were there!). We knelt down and prayed. We were at a loss of what to do. Part of us was hopeful this could still happen, but inside we also felt that it was over. But then thinking of it being the end and having to go home we felt like we were abandoning the mother and baby. There wasn’t a good or easy choice. Finally exhaustion pulled us into a numb sleep. Hopefully there would be answers in the morning.  

 

Being Mom and Dad

I couldn’t sleep – and the reason wasn’t because I was on a fold out hospital chair. I just wanted to hold that beautiful baby in my arms.

The hospital staff set us up in a room in the post-delivery section, so that we could come down and feed and change diapers.

Finally, at 4 a.m. I woke Daniel up and we headed down to the NICU. It was a little intimidating trying to hold him because of all the wires and tubes that I didn’t want to pull out or mess up. A nurse helped Daniel get situated to do skin on skin contact with our little guy. There is no way to describe the joy and love expressed on Daniel’s face. He was instantly a proud, loving father. I started taking pictures and sent some out to our family and friends, introducing them to this new little guy. We had some great nurses who answered all the random questions we had.

About mid-morning our birth mom came down to the NICU. We chatted with her and she said she was doing better this morning, but still sore from delivery. We left to let her have time with the little guy. She was still very firm in her decision to place for adoption, but she also loved this baby so much, and we wanted to make sure she had as much time with him as she wanted and that we didn’t impose on her. The little guy looks so much like his mother, his nose, his ears, his stormy blue eyes.

While she was with the little guy we decided to go take a nap, we could sleep knowing that someone who loved him was holding him. This time also gave us a chance to go get showered, eat some food, and buy some flowers for her (we had already given her a “hospital survival kit,” but we wanted to get flowers to brighten up her room). She texted us when she was getting too tired to hold him and we headed back over to the NICU to switch places.

Between the three of us that little boy was never put down unless the nurses needed to do their check up on him. He never got real thrilled about eating, but Daniel was the best at getting him to eat. Sometimes I’d have to tickle his feet to keep him awake long enough to eat as much as the nurses wanted him too. And I wish that I had video of the first time that I changed his diaper, it was like a comedy routine. I was scrubbing his tar-like poop off his bum and then he started to poop some more. I was using so many wipes! And then he peed all over. I felt so incompetent. But in my defense it was hard because well, it’s true, I am an amateur, but also I was trying to do it in the incubator and with all his tubes and wires still attached and a nurse watching over my shoulder. I’ll admit it made me feel a little better when Daniel changed a diaper later that day and the same thing happened to him. We definitely use more wipes than the nurses needed to. J

After our birth mom got a nap and a chance to feel human again she came back down to see the little guy. Because of the complications during delivery she would need to stay in the hospital another day before being released. Her adoption case worker decided to wait and sign papers until the next night when she was released from the hospital. This was the worst decision ever…

 

The Stork has Landed

Monday morning, about 8:30 a text buzzed in.

It read, “I’ve just been admitted to the hospital. Still at a 1 cm.”

It is go time!

We quickly start getting ready, feed the animals, tell the family we are headed to the hospital and get in the car and drive.

It is a long days drive to get there, and we were trying to go as fast as we could without speeding. We really wanted to be there before she gave birth, but babies come on their own time. Especially this little guy because he was already four days over his due date. We had thought for sure she was going to go into labor early, but her due date rolled right past and all our guesses were wrong. But he was coming now and we couldn’t be more excited/nervous!

The drive felt like forever. We kept checking in with her and getting text updates on how she was doing. Our family and friends kept asking us for updates, but there wasn’t much to tell them because we were still in the car driving.

10 miles away from the hospital there was a sudden flash of lightening, a crack of thunder, and then the rain. Lots of rain. It poured so hard. People were sliding off the road, there were flash floods across the roads and then traffic stopped. We stopped! We can’t stop, we need to get to the hospital now! This poor girl had been in labor all day and we are ten minutes away and we can’t get there. After sitting in traffic for 20 mins the weather let up and car accidents moved to the side and we made our escape.

She was sitting in the delivery room, a little drugged up, but still so beautiful even after suffering labor for over eight hours. We got to sit down and chat with her and her mom. She had other family and friends stop by to see her; we got to meet her dad too. After an hour of hanging out we could tell she was getting worn out looking, so we left to give her space and also to go grab some food for her family that had been at the hospital all day.  When we got back to the hospital we had enough time to say hi and good luck just before the nurses decided to go get the doctor and get this thing moving along. We waited out in the lobby with some of her family, waiting to hear the news.

The baby was here!

Her family went in to spend some time all together with the new little guy. After a little while a nurse came out and told us that he is a beautiful baby boy. There were some complications during delivery, but mom and baby are going to be okay. The baby was taken to the NICU and given antibiotics and mom was being taken care of right now. Then she told us that since our birth mom had given me an access wristband that we were welcome to come to the NICU and see our baby. AAAHHHH!!!!!!

He was perfect, and beautiful! I just wanted to stare in disbelief and in awe. He was perfect and he is going to be ours! After getting an IV and wires all hooked up the nurses let us hold him for a little bit. We just loved on him, trying to take it all in.


Here are some pictures of baby things we got ready for the little guy.

 

Guarding Our Hearts and Getting Excited

That night we became expecting parents with a birth mom. Wow! Life is good!

We continued to email and text our expecting mother. We shared with her our excitement and our family and friends excitement for us.

I was trying to be cautious of getting too excited. I didn’t want to go all out on buying baby stuff, just in case there was a change of events. I guess I’ve heard too many failed adoption stories (when people find out we are trying to adopt they tell us stories of who they knew who adopted, whether it is good or bad. Some advice for people, don’t tell us those bad stories). I was trying to guard my heart. But how could I? We were so excited! So happy! Everyday just brought us closer to being parents. And everyone around us has seen us wait so long to have a baby that they were just as excited for us and wanted to buy us baby stuff too.

Before long I was clearing out our office to turn into a nursery. Then it filled with a crib, a rocking chair and a changing table. I didn’t plan on getting a nursery ready. We thought, we’ll just get a car seat for now and buy the rest when we bring the baby home. But our expecting mother was so firm in her decision to adopt, and everything about this felt right. This felt like our baby. And I love to plan, so I wanted to have stuff ready for when we brought him home. It didn’t help either that when we were at the store we’d walk past the baby aisle and we would both be drawn to it. I saw how excited Daniel got looking at baby stuff and finding things he wanted to get for our little guys. It melted my heart.

It was baby season in our families and with our friends. There was at least one baby born a month and for once our hearts didn’t break when we saw them. It was exciting because we were seeing the cousins that our little guys would grow up with. We were seeing what we would have in a short time, a baby, a family.

We were able to visit our expecting mother one more time. Daniel was missing getting to do all the parent/dad stuff, so he asked her if we could come to a doctor appointment with her and maybe see an ultra sound and hear the heartbeat. She is such a sweetie and said yes we could. Her appointment wasn’t until the afternoon, but we all wanted to spend time together as friends. She suggested we go to the lake, which was perfect. It was warm out, the lake wasn’t busy; we got to have a fun, relaxing time. At the doctor appointment we got to meet her doctor and talk with him. They even were able to do a quick ultra sound just for us. The baby’s head was down and he was being bashful so we didn’t get to see much besides the top of his skull and his spine. The doctor pointed out a fist too. It was really neat, getting to see that. The only ultra sounds I’ve seen are of my non-ovulating empty ovaries. So this was much better. You could see rib shadows and blood pumping through his arteries. She was so great to share this experience with us, we are just so grateful.

After the doctor appointment we were able to take her and her mom out for dinner and visit some more. We made sure to take some pics of her and us since we forgot to the first time we met. We talked about names and about everything she was going through.

Summer has a way of going past way too fast, but expecting this baby made it fly by. We did a lot of fun things this summer. It is nice having summers off. Daniel did some farming, but the rest of the time we were helping do projects at his mom or grandma’s house. And we watched bands and fireworks, went camping, boating and picked huckleberries. We took motorcycle trips with our cousins. The truth is we were trying to keep busy, waiting for the birth due date. We packed our travel and hospital bag and kept them in the car. We were ready and waiting for that phone call from her saying that she was in labor.



Here are a few pictures of us keeping busy this summer.






Playing with family and listening
to the band before the awesome
 fireworks show.



Out on the lake with the family.
Enjoying summer, wakeboarding,
tubing and swimming.

Hahahaha! This picture is so funny!
His head fits so perfect in there.
 Oh it is so weird/creepy/funny!
We love going to the fair with
family.





Camping - we left the rain fly off the
tent so we could look at the stars.
And that's our dog, Diesel.



Picking huckleberries. It was a good
year for them, we hit the jackpot.




Open road on the motorcycle.

Our cousins and motorcycle buddies.

Looking cool in our leathers and bandanas.








The Blind Date

Have you ever been on a blind date? Have you ever had an interview for your dream job? Have you ever had a dream about going to school without your clothes on? Have you ever been on a crazy rollercoaster? Or puked after a really long, hard run? Can you remember the excitement of Christmas morning as a kid? Well, add all those emotions together and you might get close to how we were feeling the day of our meeting.

The plan was to take her out for dinner. A good spot to chat and see each other in person. We told her to invite whoever she wanted, that way she’d be comfortable too. Well, as comfortable as anyone can be. And if things were going well we’d go miniature golfing after dinner.

We got to the restaurant at the same time as her. I was so nervous, I’m not good at selling myself, but luckily Daniel is a people person and can put anyone at ease. We knew who each other were from pictures. She had brought some family along. This also made me nervous because not only do we have to impress her, but we also have to win the family over, especially the ones who aren’t thrilled about her decision to adopt. Seriously, it was like a first date on steroids. I only had like five bites of food because my stomach was so knotted up from all my anxiety. But even with how awkward I felt, things were going good. It was fun to meet her in person. It was nice to chat and get to know each other more.

By the time we headed over to mini golf I was letting go and just enjoying myself. Danno was charming the pants off of everybody. We all were having a really fun night. Her family eventually headed home and it was just us and her. The conversation turned more personal after her family left and we talked about her plans for the baby, the birth father and how her family felt.

“We are going to be turning off the lights and locking the door,” the mini golf attendant told us, trying to nicely kick us out. It was late and the place was closing for the night. We had spent the whole night just talking. This night had gone very well.

Then it happened.

We were walking out to the cars and she said she had something for us. Then she handed us a gift basket full of baby stuff she had gotten for us. She was telling us…

…WE WERE GOING TO BE PARENTS!

She had chosen us! She loved how we had similar interests as her, but more importantly, that Daniel was involved.

Shock. Pure Shock. I squealed, Daniel stood like a statue. I hugged her and thanked her, then Daniel hugged her and I didn’t think he’d ever let go. How do you ever express the feeling that we had. Someone had just chosen us to raise their child. We would finally get to be a mommy and daddy. Daniel has wanted kids his whole life and tonight this beautiful, kind young women told us the best news in the world.

Never in a million years would we have guessed that our first meeting would have ended like this! We had been chosen for adoption. We would have a baby in less than two months. Happy, Happy, Happy! We were so happy! That night we texted our family and friends to share the good news; we were expecting parents with a birth mom!

These are the items that were in the
 gift basket she had given us telling us that she
had chosen us as the adoptive couple. Isn't it so adorable?

Happiest night ever!! So happy and
deleriuosly tired. Not the best picture, but
we wanted to document that night.

 

Popping the Big Question

Seven days. It had only been seven days since we had responded to the first email. But things had really progressed in a week, we had a new friend. We decided to pop the big question: Do you want to meet?
I know it seems fast to be offering to meet, but we felt like it was the right time. And since she lives in a different state and we were going to be in that area in a few weeks we thought we'd ask. And she said sure!
The plan was to meet up after we got back from vacation. We had standby plane tickets to Peru, but as luck would have it we never were able to get on the flight from Florida to Peru. We called up our prospective birth mom and asked if we could move the date up. She was cool with that. So instead of our ten days in Peru, we got a week vacation in Florida and meeting her sooner. Obviously we wanted to go to Peru, but we still had a great time in Florida. Our hotel was right on the beach and we got to go to Universal Studios and Harry Potter World. But the best part about our plan change was that we got to meet our prospective birth mom sooner. Honestly, she and adoption was all that we could focus on anyways.

Sunny Beautiful Florida

The beach by our hotel

Hogsmeade at Universal Studios

Hogwarts Castle

Waiting for a Reply

PURE AGONY: waiting for her reply. Luckily she didn't take as long as we did to respond. It was two days later.
I was at work and had been checking our email every hour, you know, just in case. I got back from lunch and, of course, I checked my email. There was one from her! I opened it up, but didn't finish reading before I grabbed the phone to call Daniel's classroom and tell him we got a second email.
I could tell he was very excited, but he couldn't read it until he finished working with some students. I was able to calm down enough to finish reading the whole email. I was ecstatic! I couldn't take it anymore; I went down to Daniel's class and pulled up the email on his computer so he could read it as soon as he was done.
He was just finishing up what he was teaching when I came in. He asked me if it'd be okay if he told the class. I said he could, the class knew we were trying to adopt. His class was so happy! Someone asked if it was a boy or girl, we told them it was a boy. All the boys were so happy and the girls were disappointed. They each hoped we'd name the baby after them if we got the baby. So cute.
It is a good thing we got the email towards the end of the day because neither of us could focus, we were just so giddy.
This second email had lots of info about herself. It felt very honest and open. All the questions we had wanted to ask her, but didn't feel we should yet (like age, location, how far along in the pregnancy she is), she answered in the email. We couldn't be more exited! She honestly could fit right into our family with all the thing she likes and does.
We made sure to write back that very night, we didn't want another pause or she might think we weren't interested.
We couldn't stop thinking about her and adoption. A few times when I was bored at work I'd sneak a peek at baby stuff online. We told a few family and a very few close friends about our good news.
From there we started to create a relationship with this prospective birth mom. We emailed back and forth every few days. She told us that there were other couples that she was getting to know besides us. This scared us because we didn't want any competition, but at the same time we were glad that she was because if we were her couple then she would never have to wonder who else is out there. If I were in her place of course I'd want to talk to multiple couples so I knew I had the right one in the end.
Every email got easier to write. Yes, we still agonized over everything we wrote and obsessively panicked as we waited for her reply and read each of her emails a hundred times. But we were creating a friendship with this girl. I was glad that there was a connection between us because we all wanted an open adoption and this bond would make that easy.

The Day Our Lives Changed

This is going to be a hard story to write. I will be opening my heart to you and making my heart break all over again.

Memorial Day, May 26, 2014

"Daniel! We got an email!"
"Umm...Okay."
"We got an email from a girl!"

This was the day our lives changed.

We had been camping for the holiday weekend with some friends and their kids up by the lake. It had been a fun weekend, but we got rained out the last day so we packed it up and went to our friend's house that Monday. I was on their couch checking email when I saw one from a girl through LDS services. I was so excited I screamed and shouted out to Daniel.
It was a short email, just saying she'd like to get to know us better, but we read it over and over. She had sent the email on Wednesday night. I was stressed that we hadn't seen it soon enough and had lost our chance. We needed to respond quickly and explain why it took us so long to respond. Luckily we had a good excuse - camping. Monday afternoon we went home and composed a letter.
That was probably one of the most stressful letters we've ever had to write. We wanted to sound interesting, not pushy or way too excited (like we felt), and really we had no idea what to say. This was the first girl to contact us about adoption.