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.