“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

“It’s the end of OUR world as we know it” – Part 1

“Wow! Wow! Wow!” That’s all I could say yesterday as we left Bethany. I was in awe with how God moved on our behalf. The meeting was a mix of emotions; it was moving, it was tense, it was humorous. We did not know what to expect. As you saw in my last post I was pretty freaked out. There were other things that happened that added to my anxiety.

As I mentioned we have been visiting pediatricians. One of the pediatricians asked a lot of questions about the birthmom’s background. This made me wonder and I wanted to look at the profile more closely. Here is an example of how information is displayed on our portal when a new birthmom is ready to view families:
Due Date
Gender
Race
Prenatal Care
Drug Exposure
Medical History
Mental Illness


After each category, information provided by the birthmom appears. There is also a summary that contains more information or expounds on the information in the categories. For our situation, everything looked pretty clear and we were comfortable with what we saw. I decided however to look at it again with more analytical eyes. My thoughts were that there could be some history she just opted not to tell. I emailed “Lana” with more questions. I didn’t hear from her for several days. I was frantic. It turned out she was out of town. Whew! Ted and I talked to her on Thursday night. The original plan was to meet her about 30 minutes ahead of our planned meeting for 10 am on Friday. But there was a change of plans so we planned a phone meeting. We asked about things in the birthmom’s history and she said would investigate to see if the birthmom had given more information to her case worker (with our agency, the birthmom has a case worker and the adoptive couple has a case worker and the two communicate about their clients). She had told us that the birthmom had been pretty tight lipped and this made her caseworker a little uneasy. What? Why the hell didn’t you all tell us this before now! I remained calm. Lana promised to try to get our answers for us. She also told us that if this is too uncertain that we don’t have to go with this birthmom. She could put us back on the market so to speak. She texted us back about 15 minutes later to say that the birthmom’s caseworker, didn’t have the information we asked for. She had asked the birthmom, but she was unwilling to share.

After we ended our call, I was approaching wreck status. I knew that being chosen by a birthmom didn’t mean that everything was a done deal. But it’s rare, with our agency, that once a mom chooses a family that things don’t go through. So this was terrible news to me. I even thought maybe we should not have told people. This was just too much. My husband came to the rescue once again. He’s turning out to be quite the faith warrior. Ted said to me “Baby, we’ve done all we can do. Just pray for the best and let it go. No need to get all upset.” I didn’t want to listen to him, but he was right. As we sat and ate dinner, we continued to discuss it. We came up with plausible explanations as to why the birthmom had been so secretive. We also wondered if some of the things we did know were actually untrue or at least not the full story. After all of our figuring and discussion, we just came to the conclusion that it is what it is and that things would work out. As difficult as it was, I made a silent plea, Lord if this isn’t our baby then let us make peace with it and I believe you will bring the right one to us.

That night I fell asleep early and woke up around 2 am. I struggled to go back to sleep. I was anxious, but not the bad kind of anxious, like waiting on medical test results. I was ready to do this. The morning of the meeting I got up cleaned the house a little bit, and cooked breakfast as if we didn’t have the biggest meeting of our life in a few minutes. Our mood was light. We even joked around. I asked Ted, “I hate to be superficial, but have you thought about, what if the mom is ugly?”

He said, “Yeah!” as if he were saying of course I have, it’s natural to wonder. He continued, “That’s why I wish we could have seen a picture!” We both cracked up and shook our heads. Hey we keep it real here at OHD. LOL!

This story is too long for one post so part 2 is coming right up!

Preparing the Way

Over the past week and a half we have been in prep mode. We have painted the room bright golden yellow (will post pics). A major change for our very beige house. Now we’re ready to decorate with our Peeking Pooh accents. We have interviewed 3 pediatricians. We are still deciding whom to choose, although we’re pretty confident it’s not the third person. We have been busy for sure and it’s only the beginning. I have to make guest lists for the baby shower(s) that friends and family want to have. I need to add more items to our registries. And the big one is that we meet the birthmom this Friday! Two weeks ago this meeting seemed so far off and I felt like a kid during Christmas time. Just anxiously awaiting and hoping the day would hurry up and get here. I didn’t think I would be able to function, but I have managed.

There are some many things I want to ask and things I want to know. We plan to arrive early so we can be calm and get there before her we hope. I’m trying to figure out what to wear. Dress up or dress down? Do I go for the diva mom look or plain Jane look? Shake hands or hug her? We can bring her a gift, but I don’t know what to bring. Our worker suggested a gift basket with cozy socks and foot lotions or something. Sounds good but will she think we’re suggesting she has bad feet? I have some beautiful Avon jewelry but is that too cheap? Ugh! Who knows? We have an article to read before Friday to help us prepare. I haven’t read it yet, but I hope it will help. It will at least guide our questions.

Our main goal is not to blow it. Nothing is final at this point, which adds to my nervousness. I don’t always make the best first impressions with women and I’m impatient and at times my thoughts show on my face. On second thought, maybe Ted should go by himself ☺ This is more than a meeting it’s also a negotiation. We will talk about the level of openness we’re all comfortable with e.g., visits, phone calls, pictures, etc. We’ll discuss a hospital plan, whether we can be in the room at birth or simply at the hospital (which we will likely insist at least on being at the hospital). How do we smooth the edges if she wants something that we don’t want and vice versa? The big thorn in our side is the name.

We just assumed that we would be able to name him ourselves. This may be true. However the birthmom at least gets to voice her opinion or make a suggestion, if she wants. Our worker, “Lana” suggests that we listen to what she has to say. Lana and I, had a rather heated, at least on my part, email exchange last week about naming the baby. As the adoptive parents, we can change the name on the birth certificate later on, but Lana says that could damage the relationship we have with the birthmom, after all she is giving us her most precious gift and ideally our relationship with her will be lifelong. I was livid when I got this message. We don’t know what our birthmom has in mind; she may not want anything to do with naming the baby so this is all hypothetical. But after my exchange with Lana, the reality of private adoption via an agency really hit me in the face. They definitely cater to the birthmom. My thoughts are who caters to us? I sympathize with the birthmom and I couldn’t imagine placing a child for adoption. But what about us couples who wish they could at least have a baby in the first place. What about the sacrifices we have made? They have dug through our history, checked every state in which we’ve resided, called our friends and our church. I would say they’ve done everything but ask for blood, but we had to do that to! Not to mention the finances! Yes, adoption is our choice, but it ain’t cheap (poor grammar intended). The least we can do is name the child without interference. After all we’re going to be calling his name everyday, to say “I love you” or “pick up that toy” or “did you do your homework?”, not the birthmom. Ok. I feel better now. I had to get that off of my chest. This is how Ted and I both feel, but we have to settle down and play nice on Friday. It’s worth stating here that Ted and I are having difficulty on our own deciding on a name, although I have waved the white flag and have reluctantly accepted the name “Theodore”, the middle name is still up in the air. Ted told me that Theodore means “gift of God”. I laughed because I thought surely that couldn’t be right. But that is what it means. So what name could be more appropriate than this?

Continue to pray for us. Pray for me especially that God’s countenance show on my face and not my real one and that Ted’s jokes aren’t too inappropriate. Maybe we’ll just grin and nod the whole time. Yeah, that’s the ticket.


(Note: The birthmom meeting will be held at the adoption agency and will be mediated by Lana, just in case you were wondering)

Bittersweet

On Wednesday of this week, I was with my husband as we attended the homegoing services of aunt Augusta, Ted’s aunt. She was a firecracker. Ted admired her greatly, as did I. She never made me feel like an in-law. She treated Ted more like a son and me like a daughter. So there was really no question as to whether or not we would attend her services, that was a given. No matter what we had to do. I was even more sad because I was concerned for my husband. Since she was the last of his mom’s siblings I was concerned that it would be like losing his mom all over again. He seems to be ok, but one can never tell with a man. But the services were beautiful and befitting and it was a homegoing indeed and that helped ease the pain. I couldn’t help but think of my own mom and her services, but seeing Aunt Augusta’s children and her husband of 68 years gave me strength.

I usually take my phone wherever I go, but I realized that I had left it in the car once we got into the church. Instead of going to the car to get it, I tried to forget about it and concentrate on why we were there and to make sure my husband was ok. Something kept nagging at me about my phone though and I kept thinking I was missing something very important.

After the service was over, we hugged a few people and approached our car to prepare for the procession to the cemetery. I got into the car and the first thing I did was grab my phone. I saw a missed call from Bethany and a text from our worker that said “Call me ASAP”. I think I began to shake a little bit, I yelled to Ted, “We got a call from Bethany!” He got all excited asking me, “What did they say, what is it?” I was trying to think. I told him to check the portal while I called them back. His niece was in the car with us so she witnessed this whole drama unfold.

I called Bethany back and asked for our worker, I’ll call her Lana. She answered the phone very sheepishly. We exchanged pleasantries. Then she asked “are you sitting down?” By this time she was getting on my nerves because I just wanted the message. Plus Ted was in the back seat asking me a thousand questions. So I responded, “Lana! Will you just tell me! I can’t stand this!” She says, “Well…you have been chosen by a birthmom”. What? I think I remained conscious but I can’t be certain. I was trying to be calm. I don’t really know what I said. And of course Ted was in the background. She proceeded to tell me that this birthmom loved our profile. She really connected with us and she wanted to give us a Christmas present by choosing us. We are scheduled to meet her on Dec. 21.

Although Ted figured some of it out, I got off the phone and told him the hold conversation. Tiffany, our niece was smiling from ear to ear by this time. Ted jumped out of the car. “Baby this is great!” He gave me a big kiss. He gave Tiffany a kiss. We were in shock and great awe. Of course we looked very odd celebrating in the parking lot right after a funeral.

There was so much going on at the moment it’s hard for me to capture it all. But I needed to call someone. I was both happy and sad because my instinct was to call my mom. I lost her over 2 years ago, but when I get news I still fight the urge to dial her number. So I had Tiffany, text Kiota because I had to start driving at that point. I said “Text her ‘We’ve been chosen’ and put lots of exclamation points”. Less than than a minute later, Kiota called me back. What a conversation! She had to whisper her excitement because she was at work. Lol!

Ted sent texts to people. I started sending texts once we finally made it to the cemetery. I wanted to tell the family after the repast. However, Ted couldn’t hold it in. Before we left the cemetery several people knew. He told his dad, his sister, cousins, including one of Aunt Augusta’s daughters, Esther who could barely contain her excitement and started to cry. OMG! I was a wreck. Ted said that he just had to tell people, he wanted to shout it to the world.

While we figured our chances were improving because of the latest birthmoms that were in the Bethany system. Ted has a different take on why we have been chosen. He thinks it’s Aunt Augusta. Aunt Augusta teamed up with my mama and said “Look Lord, give our babies a baby. They’ve been waiting long enough”. It’s comforting to think of them as our angels working on our behalf. But really this is a testament that God can turn mourning into joy, pain into happiness and more importantly that life does go on.

There is so much to talk about that I will have a part two to this post. But the baby is due Jan. 16 and…. It’s a boy!

Circles

Here we go again. Three more expectant moms are in the system since our Black Friday heartbreak. Again we have requested to be shown to all three. We have made the short list of at least one mom. One mom’s profile was just posted today and we will learn more about her late this afternoon. She is a bit of rush case because she is due Christmas Eve! So a decision will be made relatively quickly. What’s the difference with these moms versus most of the others? Well, all of these moms are African American, so we believe are chances are better with situations. Prior to this writing we have been viewed by one other African American mom, but she decided to parent. And we later found out that if she did decide on adoption, we would have been her first choice. That was comforting.

Ok people. Let’s pray! I insist on keeping my cool about all of this but when I saw the message today about the Christmas Eve baby, I was just a little excited. I was in the airport too so I’m sure I got a few strange looks. Ted and I are traveling to North Carolina to say goodbye to his dear Aunt Augusta. On the plane this morning, as we held hands and prayed, Ted also threw into the prayer “and God it would be nice if you had a baby waiting for us when we got home”. LOL! When we got to Charlotte for a layover we had a message and a text about the new mom. Does my hubby have God’s ear? I don’t know. Again patience is the key. We still need to see the full profile of the mother to indicate if we want to be considered. After all, it is a two-way street.

(Note: This was written yesterday. We gave our final ok to be considered by the Christmas Eve mom ☺)