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.