This is the story of our adoption journey.
Our first family selfie. Taken at our hotel in Texas while waiting for approval to leave and take our son home.
There were two families: one family in Michigan and one family in Texas. Both families found out that they were pregnant, and both would soon find out that they were having boys. They were due 2 days apart.
Both families were unsure if they could handle another child in their lives, and both families reached out to an adoption agency to talk about their options. The family in Michigan decided to move forward with adoption and started looking at families they might feel comfortable raising their precious son. The family in Texas kept adoption in the back of their minds but only as a last resort.
Meanwhile back home, we had just been through an adoption disruption. We were matched on a Thursday with a woman that was due in several weeks with a baby boy, and we rejoiced in the first adoption opportunity that we said “yes” to. According to the agency, she had a pretty healthy pregnancy, was around my age, and just never wanted to be a mother. We were sure that this would be our son. We shared our excitement with family, friends, and coworkers since the baby would be coming so soon. The following Monday we heard from the agency that the woman was being admitted to the hospital where she delivered several hours later.
The mother tested positive for cocaine, delivered early due to withdrawal, and we had to make a decision of whether to move forward with the adoption or not based on this new information. We felt totally betrayed. Since cocaine only stays in your system for a short amount of time, that meant she knew we agreed to the match and then used over the weekend. And look... I’m not a judger. People’s lives are what they are for too many unfortunate reasons and addiction is a beast... but she was pregnant with “OUR” * baby, and she used drugs. She did that to the baby. She did that to us. And we no longer trusted any information that she had provided. We knew that this was not how we wanted to become parents. And we knew this was not the kind of relationship that we wanted with our child’s birth family.
But then we also felt like if we said “no”, that we were breaking our promise to what we thought was our baby. When we talked to the agency about our feelings, they assured us that there were many families that were open to all levels of drug exposure, all levels of openness with the birth mother, and that they would find this baby a home. So we cried. And we mourned. And we moved forward. This wasn’t our baby (to quote Charlotte from Sex and the City.)
Several weeks later we received a call that the family in Michigan had chosen us to be the parents to their son. He was due in almost 3 months. We said yes to the match, but kept the information much quieter than our previous match. We were cautiously optimistic. We guarded our hearts even though we wanted to be excited and connected.
And we started to email with the expectant mother. We got to know her a bit. She seemed sweet. But we had some concerns - she hadn’t shared her adoption plan with her immediate family. I stalked her Facebook page and she was showing off her baby bump. A couple of red flags, but we kept the faith. “Cautiously optimistic” we repeated over and over.
Then she told us that they weren’t going to name the baby. They couldn’t agree on a name. So she wanted us to give him his original name for his birth certificate. We told her that we would be honored to choose his name and emailed about potential names. We really connected, and it seemed like she was committed. And I let myself open up and feel excitement and love. “This would be our son,” we thought.
We already had a crib and rocking chair. (The agency advised us for emotional reasons to either buy those big items before a match or after the baby is yours.) We bought a car seat and pack-n-play. We started a pile of what we would need for our hotel stay in Michigan with a new baby. Family and close friends gave us hand-me-down clothes that we washed and added to the pile. Not sure if we were jinxing ourselves, we picked out a couple of brand new sleepers to help ourselves emotionally prepare. We convinced ourselves that it was okay to be excited.
About 3 weeks before the due date, we received a call on a Friday that the expectant mother was in labor and she wanted us to be on alert. I raced home from work knowing we needed to wash bottles, do laundry, stop the paper. We called and moved up our hotel reservation. And then we found out the baby was born! They told us not to travel until the family was ready for us, but that we should be ready. So we packed. And we waited.
Saturday morning they said they wanted a day to themselves. That had always been the plan, but we were starting to get nervous. We had tickets to see Ben Folds that evening so we went - needing the distraction. Both of us were clutching our phones throughout the drive and the performance in case the agency called. I remember bawling while he sang the lyrics “hope is a bastard in days like these.”
On Sunday late morning we found out the family left the hospital with their baby. Not our baby. They said they just couldn’t get 100% comfortable with adoption. And certainly we would never want to parent a child whose birth family could parent him. There was a sense of relief after waiting all weekend to finally have some finality to the situation. But mostly there was sadness. And anger.
We told the agency to make us inactive. We were so negative. We were questioning if we should continue down the path of adoption. I couldn’t deal with any kind of problem at work – everything else seemed to just not matter in comparison. I couldn’t stand to see the baby pile so we returned tubs of clothes to friends and took the car seat back to the store. I tried not to lose my shit while the cashier repeatedly asked me if there was anything wrong with the seat. I finally snapped, “Our adoption fell through” at her and was then immediately embarrassed with myself as I saw her face reflect sadness.
We quickly planned and went on a long weekend trip starting in Key Largo. We rented a muscle car, bar hopped, ate way too much key lime pie. We enjoyed the sunsets and live music. Then we made our way north to Cardinals spring training where we each caught a ball at batting practice and rubbed shoulders with Cardinal greats. By the end of the trip we felt refreshed and relaxed. And we told the agency to make us active again.
Sunset at the Hampton Inn in Key Largo
And then 12 days later, we got the call. A baby boy had been born to the family in Texas. They reached out earlier in their pregnancy but now it had become a reality that they would be placing their child with a family. And they had narrowed down potential adoptive parents to us and one other couple. They wanted to set up a call, and we said “of course! And we want to go first!” So again I raced home from work to meet the hubs. We gave each other a pep talk: “Relax. Be yourself. If it’s not a great fit that’s okay - we aren’t invested and we have nothing to lose.” So we talked to them, laughed and shared stories, and hung up. And 5 minutes later we got the REAL call – “They don’t want to talk to the other family. Start packing!”
So we packed up, notarized and scanned documents, went back to buy our car seat, picked up the clothes from our friends, and then drove overnight to Texas. To meet our son. OUR son. And we were immediately in love.
But I will tell you that along with the love and excitement that we felt with becoming parents, we felt overwhelming sadness and grief for his Texas family. So much so that we had a hard time showing any excitement at the hospital. And before meeting each other none of us thought we would want to stay closely in touch, but we immediately loved them so much that we knew that we never wanted to lose them from our lives. They gave us the world. They changed our lives. And they are salt-of-the-earth people. I know it can be difficult to understand if you haven’t been in our shoes, but they are our family now, and we are so blessed to have a relationship with them.
If our son’s Texas family had started looking for families earlier, they would not have found us. We were committed to the other family. For every 1 newborn in this country that gets placed, there are 36 hopeful, adoptive families waiting. The moon and stars had to be perfectly aligned for our son to become our son. Some people will tell you that it is a “God thing”, but I’m not so sure. When I look into my son’s eyes, it certainly doesn’t seem random. And yet it is hard for me to believe that God would make me infertile, and make another family suffer the loss of their child, just so we could have our son. Maybe someday it will make more sense to me.
Adoption is hard. Adoption is loss. And as adoptive parents, we have the easiest role of all of the adoption triad members (birth family/first family/family of origin, adoptee, and adoptive parents). Our son had absolutely zero choice in his adoption, and as he gets older, he will have to understand what it means that we are not his first parents. He won’t have people in his family that look like him. He may struggle with self-esteem and with his identity. And while our adoption is legally final, adoption is really a life-long process. An infertile couple will often be told, “Why don’t you just adopt?” As if it is that simple.
As I stated in a previous post, I tell this story to spread awareness, insight, and information. And to be here in case you are reading this story and are feeling alone about a similar situation. Please feel free to contact me or leave a comment below. And you can subscribe by entering your email either below on mobile or to the right on desktop.
* - A baby is not an adoptive parent’s baby until the mother has delivered and placed the child with the adoptive family. The term “OUR” is in quotes here for that reason.
