Baby Eve

On the morning of Monday, June 29th, Matt flew out to Orlando for a surprise branch visit to one of his branches in the area.  Normally, I take him to the airport so that I can run errands in town, but that particular flight was earlier than normal so I opted to sleep in and Matt drove himself to the airport. Thank goodness...

9:00 a.m.
I woke up that morning to a text from my neighbor:

Amy: Hey, I'm at swim lessons with Seth (her son - who also happens to be adopted) and there's another Mom who works with a local adoption agency and they have a birth mom due in three weeks that hasn't been matched with a family.  Are you interested?

Me: Yes, probably!  Does she have anymore information?  Can you give me her contact information and I'll give the case worker a call to find out more.

10:45 a.m.
Meanwhile, Matt was on a plane so I needed to wait until he landed for his lay over to see what he thought.  This mom was working with a different adoption agency that we had been working with and I wanted to make sure Matt was on board with the information I had been given about birth mom and baby.  We both decided that it was worth finding out more information about so we agreed it would be okay to call the case worker and inquire about more information and what it would look like to switch adoption agencies.

1:00 p.m.
I speak with the case worker and she confirms all the information about mom and baby that had been given to me.  She informs me that she will be visiting with birth mom in two days.  We decide that she should take our adoption portfolio to birth mom so that she can see a glimpse of our family and decide if we would be a family she'd consider for placement.  Case worker and I agree that I'd drop off the book the morning of the visit and that we'd go from there.  I update Matt of the plan and we are cautiously optimistic.

4:00 p.m.
Case worker calls and informs me that she has just gotten off the phone with birth mom (she was calling to confirm visit and also tell her about Matt and I) and that mom has been hospitalized due to high blood pressure.  Doctors were telling her not to eat so it was assume she might be delivering baby later that evening or following day via c-section if her blood pressure doesn't stabilize.  Case worker asks if I'd be willing to call birth mom later that evening to introduce myself and for the two of us to get to know each other a little better.  I tell her I'd be happy to do so.  I immediately get off the phone and tell Matt of the new plan.  I strongly encouraged him to get a flight home ASAP because it was very possible that a baby would be coming later that evening and he needed to be home for this.  We also came up with a list of questions we would like to ask the birth mom since this might be our only interaction with her.  Admittedly, this post makes the whole day sound very matter-of-fact and like a business transaction.  It was anything but that.  At this point we had been waiting years for a little baby and after awhile you still hold onto hope, but you don't allow yourself to get excited about anything.  However, when I was asked to talk to Ben's birth mom, it was kinda the tipping point for me.  I needed Matt home right at that moment because I felt an enormous amount of pressure and responsibility to articulate how we feel about her (utter, utter love, amazement and appreciation) while at the same time present ourselves honestly and hopefully in a way that she would want us to parent her child.  It had been such a whirlwind day and the gravity of what could come of this conversation overwhelming.  I made Matt pray for us before we got off the phone and I told him I'd call him once I had talked to birth mom.

6:00 p.m.
I organized my notes and set up an area in the office so that I have everything in front of me that I might need.  I wanted to eliminate any distractions so I put the dogs in the bedroom so that they wouldn't bark, whine, etc. and I could focus on the phone call.  I plugged my phone into its charger and called birth mom right at 6:00 p.m. She answered right away and we began talking.  It's so bizarre, but it was such an easy conversation.  It was truly like talking to someone I had known my whole life and we were just catching up with each other.  I began by telling her about Matt and I and how we came to the decision of wanting to adopt.  I told her about what life looked like for us, our families, what our plans were for children.  During this time she asked questions, I asked her questions and it was just a very free-flowing, easy conversation.  There were no awkward pauses.  No judgement.  Just two people working towards the same goal - to provide this baby with a future and family.  We spoke for about forty-five minutes and when I got off the phone with her, I knew with every ounce of my being that this was our birth mom and she would be having our baby.  I called Matt and told him that speaking with her confirmed it for me - we were getting this baby.  We talked about what the two of us had spoken about and Matt agree - we were on board.

7:00 p.m.
I left a voicemail for case worker telling her that I had spoken to birth mom and if she liked us we would want to move forward with this match.  I asked her to call us back to let me know what the next steps were.

7:00 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.
During this time we decided to let our families know that there was a good chance a baby would be coming our way in the next few days.  My family happened to all be together at my aunt and uncle's house because my cousin was in town so I had my brother put me on speaker phone and we were able to tell everyone at the same time.  It became so loud... no one could believe it!  When we told Matt's parents we were over Skype and they were just as shocked.  We told everyone we'd keep them posted as we heard news, but as far as we knew at that point Baby Boy would be born that night or the following day and we'd still go to the hospital on Wednesday as planned.

9:30 p.m.
Case worker calls and said that she spoke to birth mom about thirty minutes prior and she wanted us to be Baby Boy's adoptive parents.  She also informed me that she was having a c-section done that night and should be happening as we spoke (later I found out that was exactly true - he was born at 9:29 p.m.).  Birth mom originally wanted me there for the birth, but since it was an emergency c-section I was unable to make it to the hospital in time since it was an hour and a half drive.  Case worker said that since she was unable to go to the hospital the next time we would still plan on meeting her at the hospital on Wednesday to meet Baby Boy.

Matt and I stay on the phone for awhile, but I immediately move into full-on nesting mode.  I had 9 months of nesting to fit into 48 hours (or so I thought) and got busy doing laundry, vacuuming, and straightening up the kitchen.  I considered going to Wal-Mart that night to get things, but I decided to get the house clean and organized first and get some sleep and would run all my errands the next time.  Yeah, like I was going to sleep a wink that night...