Home Invasion

An intruder came into our home a couple of weeks ago! We have been trying to put things in order every since. He took our money, clothes, furniture and even our food! Really? Who takes food? We just can’t get it together. Our privacy has been compromised. Our home is not our own anymore. We are no longer the same freewheeling Ted and Cher. We are much more cautious now and we don’t leave the house much.

It’s not just the material things he stole. But the intangibles. He stole our peace, we can no longer sleep! It has affected us physically and mentally. We think about him all of the time. We can barely remember what life was like before this happened because he also stole, our hearts :-)

On March 22, we brought home the most beautiful baby boy ever! Ever!

Introducing Theodore Fredrick “Shadding”. Born March 2. He was 7 lbs. 13 oz. Now he’s a whopping 10 lbs. and some change. We went to court today and we finalize in 6 months!

 

Yes, we have had a home invasion.  Of the best kind.

⁹ Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. - Galatians 6:9

Family court after our hearing

We're your parents now!

My First Easter!

Mommy had to change my outfit because I got wet in 5 minutes :)

I'm on my way to my new home!

Welcome to the world! Little Teddy at one day old.

I'm cute

I'm chillin with my daddy. My second day home

It’s Already Alright

I just wanted to let you all know that we are ok. We are healing. After my last post, "Mixed Signals" I wrote another post, “Wacky Weekend” detailing the events leading up to our failed adoption.  But it was so painful to recount, that I just couldn’t post it. After that I just shut down for a minute. I have had days where I didn’t want to get out of bed and engage with the world. Some days I didn’t, but most days I pulled myself up and went on with life. Ted and I experienced a grief that’s hard to define and very few people can relate to it. There’s no script for this kind of grief. No Hallmark card, no special flower arrangements or fruit baskets for “I’m sorry your adoption fell through”. The funny thing about grief, at least for me, is that once it begins it becomes bigger and about every loss. I grieved because we “lost” the baby, then I grieved because I couldn’t go to my mom for comfort. The hardest deaths I have ever experienced were those of my parents, my dear friend Monica and a very close cousin. Each time I had to minister to myself with the scripture from Job; “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, Blessed be the name of the Lord”. Although not a death, I comforted myself again with these words. I realized I had to step back and let God’s sovereignty reign, which unwittingly I had not been doing in this adoption process. I was so blind and had set my heart on “this” baby that the thought of it not working out was unfathomable.

Now I know better. And I feel so much better. It’s more than the spiritual things that have helped get me over the hump, but also the practical parts of the grieving process. I finally put up the gifts from my baby shower and sent out the thank you cards. It’s not the easiest thing in the world to say, “Thank you for the gift. The baby we thought we had is not ours, but we will use your gift. We promise.” It was certainly more heartfelt, but it was very difficult.  Nevertheless, we have had very good support from friends and family. I’m certainly not suggesting that all of my feelings have been resolved. Because if I can keep it real for just one moment; if I were to see the birthmom on the street, I can’t promise that I would be civilized. I’d have to take off my earrings and reach for the Vaseline (seriously, I’ve never had a fight so I don’t really know what that means, I’ve just seen it on TV. Lol!). Honestly speaking though, I’m still very angry, because quite frankly I feel she knew her decision and just took us along for the ride. So I do take it personally. Ted just wants our gift back so we can give it to the next birthmom. Lol!

The bottom line is we’re doing well, individually and collectively. Ted never lets me wallow too long. We got right back on the horse, in spite of my tears and protesting, we’re back on the waiting list. We’re just going to sit back and let God lead us and do His thing. We can’t express how grateful we are for our family, friends and our OHD readers for walking this process out with us.

Mixed Signals

Through most of this journey since we were chosen by the birthmom, we had some anxiety and nervousness but it was always followed by peace. The most peace I felt was right after meeting her and ironically, when we went to the hospital to meet the baby. We went to see the birthmom first and spoke with her and prayed with her. It was indescribable. Looking back I wonder if we should have jumped ship when our peace left. But we couldn’t take the chance of this baby not having a home, so we remained.

Lana went on vacation right after our birthmom meeting. After the New Year I began to get a little antsy. Since she was gone, we really hadn’t heard anything about how the birthmom was doing, etc. I wanted to check to makes sure things were on track; mostly that she wasn’t having second thoughts. I also imagined a few times, what if she had the baby and didn’t tell anybody. She just kept it and left everyone out of the loop. I emailed Lana’s “stand-in”. She talked about potential interim care because of the issues with not knowing the identity of the baby’s father. Also she talked about them being a little antsy themselves about the birthmom. Apparently during her meetings with her caseworker, the birthmom seemed to talk a lot about what the agency could do for her. In this case it was housing. I was getting tidbits of information at a time.  I began to think that she could use their promised benefits against the agency and us, if they didn’t follow through. I never said this to Ted but I even thought well we could pay for her housing as long as we get the baby. It was a fleeting thought. But I found out that she would get the benefits regardless of placement as long as she demonstrated to the agency that she could pay the bills. This was a big relief to me. The agency still felt that she could have been planning to make a better life for her and the baby. I thought that she just wanted a fresh start. My thoughts were getting the best of me so I decided to begin a fast, a week earlier than my church. I knew that whatever happened, I was going to have to be spiritually prepared and I wanted to have more faith and less doubt.

In spite of all these different signals from the birthmom, one thing that threw everyone off was that she was consistent about going through with her placement plan. She attended most of her meetings. She expressed to her caseworker, that she wanted Ted and I to be the main caretakers of the baby in the hospital. To me this meant that we would have our time with him, alone and would see to his needs. To our knowledge, even though she was sketchy on providing information about the birthfather and her own life, she maintained that she was going through with the adoption.

Lana finally returned to work and reiterated that the baby was to be placed in interim care. I had in my mind that I would convince her that we were willing to take the risk. So glad I was unsuccessful. She also tried to firm things up with the hospital plan. She asked for the name we had decided on so she could pass this information along to the birthmom’s caseworker and to the hospital. Since we were still being asked information, it appeared everything was going as planned. Also what allayed my fears was that when the birthmom went into labor, she contacted our worker and gave her updates in the process and Lana sent us the updates.

Lana texted us saying, “She’s 5 centimeters!”

I texted back “Yeah! I’m so excited!”
I yelled downstairs to Ted “She’s 5 centimeters!”
“Ok! What does that mean?” he yelled back
“I don’t know! But I think that’s good!” We were clueless

I texted my friends and family. We were all so excited. Finally Lana texted me later that night to tell me that the baby was born and that he was healthy.

Whew! What a relief. To me that was the first hurdle crossed. To know that he was here and healthy. I figured everything else from here would be challenging but something we could get through. I had know idea what was really in store for us.

 

 

The Deal Breaker

Last weekend we were on cloud nine as we finally saw the precious baby we had been waiting for. The thrill of being chosen by a birthmom, then meeting her and seeing her baby bump and the ultrasound pictures, had come to fruition. Although the baby had to be placed in “interim” care we were allowed to visit. Our visits were so wonderful! We fed him, changed him, and even went with him to his first doctor’s visit. I was having the time of my life! I had finally entered a world that I thought at one point would escape me.

On Tuesday afternoon, around 3 or so, we got a call from our caseworker. We were at the house of the foster family visiting with the baby. She called to see how our visits were going but also to give me information to prepare for our meeting with our lawyer, which was to be on that Thursday. Our agency had some “baby daddy” issues with some recent adoptions where the fathers came back to contest their rights being taken without their knowledge. This happens when a birthmom states that she doesn’t know whom the father is and she sticks with that story. Our birthmom said she didn’t know but even in our meeting she let it slip that she did know. Because of that Lana, our worker said that it would be in our best interest that they find the birthfather. Which would mean that it would take longer before we could have custody of  “Teddy Grahams”.

Ted was playing with the baby. I came back and sat on the couch. Ted said, “What did she say?” I told him. He reassured that everything would be okay.

Ted gave me the baby and I looked in the baby’s eyes, which he seemed to open when we were around. I said to him “It’s ok. We’re going to fight for you sweetie.” All the while not realizing we had brought a stick to a knife fight.

We explained to the foster parents what happened and they prayed with us. We also told them that the birthmom was to sign consents that day. By law in Missouri, the birthparents can’t sign consents until 48 hours after the birth of the baby. Since the 48 hour period was at night on a weekend that meant we had to wait. The birthmom’s caseworker was also to press her for more information about the birthfather at the time of their meeting. This made me nervous, but we tried to think best-case scenario. If she would just give the information and they found the birthfather and he consented, then that would cut down on our wait time and it would be a done deal. Case closed.

Not so fast. I was not prepared for what was to come. On our drive home we got another phone call from Lana.

“Hi Cherilynn”

“Hi Lana”

“Are you sitting down?  Are you driving?” she asked in a sympathetic voice.

This couldn’t be good. I didn’t tell her that Ted was driving. “Yes Lana, What’s up? What’s going on?”

“I’m so sorry to have to tell you this,  but the birthmom changed her mind…She told her worker she wants the baby back. She feels she can handle it.”

I felt like I was going into a state of shock. Like all of my blood was leaving my body. If I didn’t know better I would swear that I had died that very moment.
 

I uttered some sounds and Lana continued, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. We can meet this week when you’re ready. I can let you process this and you let me know what you want to do. I’m so sorry. I really hate this.”

I said goodbye and hung up. We were getting fairly close to our house. But since Ted knew who I was talking to there was no way I could get away with waiting to tell him the news until we got home. So I just blurted it out.

“She changed her mind!”

He hit his hand on the steering wheel “If I knew this was the last time I would see him… DAMN IT!”

We were in shock and disbelief the rest of the evening and the next day. We were concerned about the birthfather, but not her. She convinced us that she wanted to get her life together. Did she get it together in two days? She told us this is your baby. She wanted him to have the life that she couldn’t provide. We knew she loved him. We knew it would be difficult for her. We saw the pain in her face when we met her and when she said “goodbye” or should I say “goodbye for now” at the hospital. We tried to be respectful of that. But the one thing we were convinced of is that she would not change her mind.

Yet she did.

Arrival

I couldn’t decide how to craft this post. I was going to go for long and drawn out. Then I was going to do a humorous post. Then I thought about suspense (my favorite). But since I’m exhausted both physically and emotionally, I’ll just spit it out.

HE’S HERE! HE’S HERE! HE’S FINALLY HERE! 

Hands down, the most beautiful baby ever! I mean EVER! Am I biased? Just a tad. Even his cries are cute :)

Our precious baby was born friday night. Just a few days ahead of schedule but he’s healthy.

There are lots more details. We have been through so much this weekend, that if I could prepare a writing this moment, it would be Pulitzer Prize worthy.  Here’s the long and short of it. Our baby is here. But we have some legal hurdles to go through that arose in the process. As a result, our precious Teddy Grahams is in interim care. It’s like foster care, but for private agencies. We do get to visit him while everything is being worked out. Since there are legal things to be hashed out I won’t say a lot and I won’t post pictures publicly until we have him in our custody. I want you all to know that Ted and I are in peace. We believe that things will be resolved quickly. Our baby’s “foster” family is a strong, loving Christian home. We ask for your prayers and to stand in belief with us that when our baby does come home that our time will be restored and that it will be as if we had him the whole time.

Beware and be prepared to fall in love when I do post his pics. In the meantime, we will enjoy our visit with our son tomorrow.

 Is it tomorrow yet?

Just Checking In

Yes it has been too long! I took a holiday break ☺ I usually write by inspiration but she needed a rest and I’ve just been way too emotional. Over the past weeks we have tried to stay calm and just enjoy each other. I believe we officially entered the nesting phase during the holidays. We did more decorating and bought baby apparel. I’ve been trying to get things together at work in preparation for my parental leave. Even with all of the excitement and preparation, we still keep getting, I’ll call them “reminders” that this is a faith journey. These past weeks and have been nothing short of an emotional rollercoaster. But we have CHOSEN to believe and to stay positive.

So this post will be very light. I’m going to share pictures of the baby’s room (before and after shots) per the request of my Aunt Jean. I also want to give a shout out to Mike at the Ferguson Fire Dept, who showed us how put the car seats in our car. He was awesome. He told us we could come back and he would clean the car seat for us because sooner or later it’s going to smell like a foot because of the spilled milk. LOL! He also told us that they have the car seat we need once the baby is one (or 24lbs). It's only 20 bucks. Who knew? He was a blessing today. Enjoy the pics!


Thanks Mike!

The Baby's Room - Before

Our friends Greg and Kiota came over to help us paint the baby's room before the holidays. This is Greg and Ted hard at work. Greg worked his sock off. lol!

I was ready to work with my painting clothes. Greg let me paint maybe enough to get one full rotation on the paint roll. That's it!

Here is Kiota. Showing her painting skills. Not really. It was just for show :)

The Baby's Room - After

Can't wait to see our little Teddy Grahams in his room.

And my baby. My grown baby. Put all of this furniture together.

We're still working on this wall. Thinking of saving it for keepsakes or a hutch.

“It’s the end of OUR world as we know it” – Part 2

It’s the day of the meeting. I had in my mind what I wanted to wear. Of course it was in the hamper. Dang it! On to plan B, but I actually wore plan C. We were planning to be at the office at 9:30 even though Lana was not going to be there, we just wanted to get there so we would be calm. Because of my wardrobe issues, we got there around 9:50. But Ted didn’t fuss. This happens every time we go somewhere and he fusses or walks around shaking his head. He didn’t do that this time. That made me feel good.

We arrived at Bethany. Before we got out of the car, we prayed again. We got inside and they took our coats, offered us beverages and escorted us to a sitting area. Bethany is really a house. I had only been there once, but in the reception area. We went into what would be the equivalent of a dining/family room. It was very cozy. There was a Christmas tree. The unique thing about this tree was that the ornaments were Christmas cards of adoptive families and their children. It was beautiful. We saw a couple that we met at our training workshop. They were speakers who shared their story of adopting their two daughters and they were preparing to adopt a third. The ornament had all three girls. I told Ted, “Next year, we’ll be on this tree”. What was really interesting is that there were lots of black kids on the tree, but no black families. We could be making some history here.

All the time leading up to this, I kept thinking that if she, the birthmom, just shows up, then everything will be fine. I was concerned about her being M-I-A. Ted and I were sitting on the couch. Staff members came in to check on us. Then we heard the door open, and we heard Lana’s voice. I think I told Ted, “this is it” or at least I thought it. Lana entered the room and then the birthmom. She was tall and very pregnant. I could see her belly button poking out. She was bundled up. We later found out that she couldn’t button her coat; because of her stomach :-) We all exchanged pleasantries. We stood up when she entered like she was Queen Elizabeth. Ted offered to take off her coat and she said she was fine. I wanted to just stare at her, but I didn’t want to be rude or seem weird. I watched as she took off each layer; her gloves, her hat, her coat. She was a decent looking woman. She wore a ponytail, which was always one of my favorite hairstyles.

We officially began the meeting. Lana was there as well as the director of the agency. The birthmom’s caseworker was there briefly, but she had another family to deal with. Lana began by asking Ted and I to share our story. I wasn’t sure what she wanted us to share. But I spoke first. Yes me. I told the birthmom how we met, the straight version. I told her we’ve been married for 7 years.

She said, “Wow. That’s good. That’s a long time”.

Lana really wanted us to talk about our journey of how we decided on adoption. Oh! That story! So I shared some more.

The birthmom reacted with appropriate sounds “awww’s” and “um hmm’s”.

Within 10 minutes of the meeting though, we were both crying. I don’t remember if it was after I told our story or right before, but the birthmom said to us that she felt God led her to us. Shut the front door! I was no more good.

She began to share her story. She wept and poured herself out, like a “drink offering”. I just laid my hand on her knee to comfort her. She answered questions that we had, without us even asking. She just talked and gave us some missing details. I think everyone was in shock. It was very heavy. I don’t know if she didn’t trust the agency staff the reason why she didn’t share with them or if she just needed to see us. I don’t know the “why” it happened, but I for sure, know “who” made it happen. I’m not saying that we know everything, but she provided enough information that made the concerns of the night before, a memory.

I don’t recall what was said that led the agency director to start asking about names. I was thinking ‘Things were going so well. Now the sticky issue’. The birthmom spoke up, “They can pick the names. It’s gonna be their baby”. Go ‘head God!

To cover our excitement we just joked about how we were still deciding but we were pretty sure that it would be Theodore. I told them what Theodore meant and how I checked Ted’s reference on the name. We all laughed. But once I told them, everyone was amazed. I told the birthmom “he is a gift from God and he is a gift from you, so I think the name is very appropriate”.

I also tried to express to her at some point in the meeting that we are good people. I said those exact words “we are good people” and I began to weep again. She said, “I know, I believe that”.

Days leading up to the meeting I had hoped that the birthmom would bring pictures, especially from the ultrasound. However, I wasn’t sure if I could request that she bring those items. But guess what? In her sharing, she pulled out of her purse ultrasound pictures. Please understand! I wanted to shout all around Bethany! I thought I was going to have to do the Shirley Caesar and say “hold my mule”. Mind you we had no idea what we were looking at. I know it was a picture of a foot only because that’s what it said  And there was a note on one of the pictures that said “I’m a boy!” If that wasn’t a precious moment, then I don’t think they exist.

Ted was fairly quiet. And I mean that in reference to the typical Ted, so not really quiet. I think he didn’t say as much because he would have choked up too. He was trying to be macho but I know that he was very emotional. Every time I cried he just rubbed my back. He expressed to her how he just wanted her to know that we will be great parents, largely because of his wife. He pumped me up. He also of course teased me and all but spelled out that I’m a little OCD. It’s all good. I told the birthmom that we laugh a lot. I talked about how Ted likes to look at himself in the mirror and say “You’re a handsome somebody”. We all cracked up.

I asked her about her pregnancy. Right now she’s very tired. She has frequent visits to the doctor. She has “dropped” (I had to ask what that meant, although I could figure that out). Everyone that was in the room believes that she will have the baby before Jan. 16. We’re taking “Coca-cola” bets on guessing the real due date.

We discussed openness. I’m not sure that she is positive about what she wants. She does want pictures. She wants reassurances that he’s ok. I wanted to tell her, ‘Girl I will send you all the pictures you want, if this is all the openness you want’. We were prepared to agree to more but we dared not express that. She certainly has time to change her mind and the director told her that. I wanted to tell the director, ‘Will you be quiet! We got her where we want her!’ The birthmom honestly has time to change her mind about everything! She was tortured about this decision and she loves her baby. She made it clear though that she loves him enough to give him the life that she can’t. She wants to do what’s best for him and she thinks the best for him, is us. She said she has peace about us.

We gave her our gift. Not sure if she liked it. I put the gifts in a yellow bag and I told her I chose that color because that’s the color of the baby’s room. “Awww”, she said. I told her we had furniture. Lana prompted me to tell her of our plans after the birth. I told her I had 12 weeks of leave. She said, “Wow that’s good”. I also told her that we’ve checked out daycares and that the baby would only be in daycare 3-4 days a week. He would be with Ted on his day off and I’m planning to adjust my schedule to a 4 day work week (I haven’t’ told my boss this yet :-)). All of this information was comforting to her.

I find it so ironic that the predicted end of the world was on the day of our meeting with our birthmom. If the world had ended yesterday, I would have been really ticked. We would have missed out on this beautiful opportunity that only a handful of people get to experience. The truth is our world, the small world of Ted and Cherilynn did end. It is changing, it’s getting bigger we are having to expand to get ready to be parents. We’re expanding our hearts to let this birthmom in. Not physically, per se but there is no way we could as humans and as Christians listen to her give the not so pretty details of her life and not make her a part of our prayers and hopes that life will get better for her. We can now share with our son (we’re just calling those things...) what a gut-wrenching decision she made for his health and happiness. She’s making the ultimate sacrifice for her son but also for us. She said several times that she just wanted to bless us. She saw that we didn’t have kids and she wanted to bless us. It’s as if all of the things that she had been through she wanted to provide the ultimate act of charity to a couple she doesn’t know, but a couple who will love her son as if he was their own.

We were informed by the director that this period is the hardest part, the period between the meeting and the birth. There are lots of emotion and lots of second guessing on the part of the birthmom so we ask that you all hang in there with us. She doesn’t sign consents until after the baby is born so there is still a lot at stake. I know we’ve taken you on an emotional roller coaster but hang on just a little while longer.

“Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” – James 1:4