Cupcakes and Meatballs?! Part 2

When I left off, we had received a call from an agency that a woman had chosen us to be the parents of her baby girl due to be born in a week. At the time, we knew the ethnicity of each first parent and some vague health information. All in all, that wasn't much more than we knew about Cupcake's 'background' either. We quickly started telling our close friends, family members and co-workers. We bough my mom a plane ticket to Philly so that she could entertain Cupcake in a hotel while we stayed at the hospital with baby girl, we got loaded up on all kinds of baby equipment, including an infant carseat from our good friends Amy and Josh (thanks, guys!), and we secured a spot at daycare for our new little bundle. 

The 'funny' thing about adopting a newborn this time around was that we had NOTHING, and a week to get it all. We had no newborn clothes leftover from big-sister, because she came home at 10 months wearing 9-12 month clothes. We didn't have a carseat, swing, bouncer seat, swaddles, newborn bottles, rattles, pacifiers, baby bathtub, spit-up rags, bassinet... We had nada for a wee one. So, when I say Amy and Josh saved our rear-ends by unpacking Andrew's baby stuff (including newborn clothes) into our car, I mean it! 

We headed out on our 900 mile drive to Philly, and we drove through the night (blech). It was nice that Cupcake slept fairly well on the drive, normally she sleeps a maximum of 45 minutes on super long car trips and that is only if she is abnormally exhausted. We got to Philly about 16.5 hours later, unpacked a bit at the hotel, and took a quick nap and headed out to pick Nana up at the airport. 

The next day, October 25th, we woke early, showered and got Cupcake and Nana set up for a day o' fun while we headed to the hospital to await word that our new daughter was born and that her first mother was ready for us to meet her. We waited what felt like an ETERNITY. The hospital social worker was not overly fond of us being at the hospital and stashed us in an out of the way waiting room. She was a nervous lady, and her nerves were sending my already through the roof anxiety even farther off the charts. A few hours went by, and the social worker came to tell us that we should go, the baby had been born, but it was requested that no visitors be allowed in to see her. Gut-punch. We knew this was a possibility, but if you know me, and someone tells me there is a plan... WE NEED TO STICK TO THE PLAN, MMMMK? 

There was quite a bit back-and-forth throughout the rest of that day. I was certain this meant that she was not our daughter, I just needed someone to say the words, but I didn't want to give up hope. The next day, we FINALLY got word that we could meet the baby and mother. We were so excited. It seemed that she just needed time to spend with her daughter before officially meeting us. We were excited and what's the word I'm looking for? Oh yeah, TERRIFIED.  I took a deep breath before being escorted into her hospital room where she let me hug her, she looked me in the eyes and said, "I'm so sorry, I don't know if I can do this." For a second and a half I had a flash of anger. A really selfish moment where I thought, "How can you do this to me?" 

It might have been longer than 1.5 seconds, but I don't think it was terribly long before my rational side took over and I realized, of course. Of course this is difficult. Of course she doesn't know if she can do this. She loves this beautiful baby girl radiating such a glow of love from the hospital bassinet. You should have seen her perfect little nose and her perfect little lips and her perfect skin. She was breathtaking. I was offered the chance to hold her and I didn't think that I should, because I already knew that I loved her. She sucked me in from the very first second I saw her perfect little baby eyelashes, and I knew that I might not get to call her daughter, and that would be painful, but before I knew it, I had scooped her up and I just held her and stared, and listened to the deep, deep pain of the woman who gave her life. We listened and we spoke for a few hours. She was a momma in the midst of turmoil and trauma, and I didn't know how to help. We assured her that we certainly didn't hate her. We assured her that if given the chance, we would love her daughter, our daughter with everything we've got. We left, and I knew deep-down inside that her momma was not going to complete her adoption plan, but was going to take her baby girl home instead to be love her with everything she had, but I didn't want to admit that to myself. I also, really wanted to be happy for them, but I was selfishly sad... for me, and us. 

The call came the next morning, and she had indeed decided that she was going to take her baby home and raise her. She is one determined lady with a heart of gold. That momma has seen a lot of pain and struggle in her life, but she is nothing if not a fighter. Amidst many racking sobs, we packed up our stuff, finagled my mom an early flight out of Philly just as Super Storm Sandy was about to hit, and as soon as we dropped her off at the airport, we drove the 900 miles back home. 

I really just wanted to see the Liberty Bell. I had imagined this would be one of our first outings as a family of 4, but instead it ended up being something we did to kill time after checking out a week early from our hotel and waiting to drop Nana off at the airport.

When we walked in the door, I asked K to round up all things newborn and throw them in the basement where I wouldn't have to look at them each second. He dutifully did as I asked, though I know it wasn't any easier for him. We spent the next few days just getting things back in order and playing with Cupcake, who thankfully had no real idea of what was happening. I'm pretty sure in her mind, it was just a long car trip so she could swim in a hotel pool with Nana and go out to eat a few times. 

We picked up, celebrated Halloween with our Cupcake who went as an adorable piggy, went back to work, tried to pretend that our hearts weren't completely broken. It is so weird. We were not expecting to be picked, but we were in love with the idea. Then, we fell in love with the baby girl who we had only seen for a short time. We were sad to feel the loss of this special little girl, but prayed that they were doing well together. In the meantime, we asked our agency to not show our information to any other women contemplating an adoption plan, because we just weren't quite ready to brave the journey yet.

I'm going to take off and find ALL the candy!!!!

After a couple of weeks, we started talking about, "How will we know when we ARE ready?" Neither of us had a very good answer, but we were feeling okay. We were still sad, but we were okay, and we thought that we could be ready again. Gone were the days of thinking that it could be a year before we were chosen. We started approaching it as if we could get picked at any moment, which is understandable based on what we had just been through. We had decided that after Thanksgiving, we would call our caseworker and let her know that we would be willing to have our family profile made active once again.

There is MORE to this saga...

Cupcakes and Meatballs? Part 1

Cupcake had been home for a year in July 2012. We had 're-finalized' her adoption, and were settling into being parents in a joyful and comfortable way. We knew that we wanted Cupcake to have sibling(s) someday. We both have siblings, and we love them all dearly. It helps that they are all pretty fantastic people, but we want Cupcake to have those relationships growing up. Also, we had a suspicion that she would THRIVE as a big sister, because her other nickname? Bosslady. She loves to both be of service, and 'direct' people. 

So, last June and July, we were researching and praying about our 'options' for growing our family. We would LOVE to adopt from Ethiopia again, and maybe someday we will, but it just wasn't the time. We looked at adopting a 'special needs' child from China, but you are required to be 30 before starting the process. We weren't 30 then, and felt like we didn't want to WAIT so long to start (we are 30 now!). We researched Korea, Uganda, the Congo, etc, and we were about a nano-second from starting a Congolese adoption when we just kept coming across domestic adoption. It wasn't really something we had researched a ton, but we definitely weren't against it. You know what turned me off the most from a domestic process? The fact that a first mother could potentially commit to letting us adopt her unborn child and then change her mind. Cognitively, I totally understand this is COMPLETELY her choice, and if she decides she CAN parent, she should go for it... it's HER child. Emotionally, I was scared of having my heart broken. Stay with me here, that my friends is called irony and foreshadowing.

August 2012, we began a homestudy for a domestic adoption. There really is no way to have an accurate timeline in domestic adoption, because once you are 'paper ready' it's all about a first family feeling a connection with you and choosing you. We were really okay with this. We were using both an agency, and our homestudy provider was sort of a facilitator working with private adoption attorneys. Our agency was 'quoting' that families like ours were in general adding to their family about 12 months after being paper-ready. That was the 'perfect' timeline in our minds, as Cupcake and the new child would be about 3 years apart at that time. HAHAHAHAHA. 

We mostly finished up our homestudy in September, but we were waiting on our FBI fingerprints/criminal checks to come back from our home state and previous states for it to be completely finalized. We hadn't paid any of our agency fees, we did submit some photos and narratives to be presented to first families to help them 'get to know us,' but we were also asked to make a little video, and we hadn't even started that. In general, we weren't in a huge rush (completely opposite from Cupcake's adoption where we were kind of rushing EVERYTHING). 

So, October 17th rolls around and a few days prior to that, we had been talking around that time about how we should really finish up the last few details so we could become 'active' and having our profile shown to women who were potentially considering and adoption plan. I had just returned to work in August and it was busy, busy, busy adjusting back to both of us working full-time, but also trying to figure out how to spend lots of time with Cupcake. On October 17th, things got just a little bit crazier! I was dealing with an honest-to-goodness crisis at work. I'm a school counselor, so I can't go into detail other than to say... it was a rough morning. My cell had rung a couple of times, but I just kept hitting 'ignore,' because I had zero time to talk. Call #3 came from the Mister, and he NEVER calls me at work unless it is important. He will text me here and there throughout the day, but a phone call means business. So, I answered figuring that daycare had called him to tell him Cupcake was sick and needed to be picked up, but he was stuck in meetings (this became a theme this year... someone was ALWAYS sick). Nope, instead he blurted into the phone, "Why haven't you been answering your phone?! Me: "I'm in the middle of a problem that I can't just walk away from!" Him: "Well, the agency has been trying to get a hold of you." Me: "Yeah, I saw that, but I figured Kathy (our caseworker) was just calling to see how we were doing and if we were EVER going to pay our fees." Him: "No, we've been chosen as a family for a baby." Me: "No, that's not possible, we aren't even 'active' yet." Him: "Well, apparently there was a woman they thought we would be a good match for, so they went ahead and showed her the info they had without telling us, and she ended up choosing us." Me: *silence* after about a minute... "Is this a joke?" Him:" No! We need to call them back to find out the details and they want us to call them this morning." Me: "I reeeeaaaaaaalllllllllyyyyyyy hate to do this to you, but I have to call you back when I get this work thing sorted out." 

It took about another 45 minutes for me to get things squared away at work, and then I flew out of the building and drove to the K's office where there were ABSOLUTELY NO PARKING SPACES AND IT WAS RAINING OUTSIDE, AND OHMYGOSH I AM FREAKING OUT WHY CAN'T I JUST PARK MY CAR?! Finally, I made it inside, and security didn't question the deranged look in my eyes and let me be escorted in. We called the agency back and heard all of the details. The baby was due to be born in 8 days via c-section, the mother had taken a look at MANY profiles and said no to all of them, so they took a chance on our family knowing that we matched a number of criteria she was looking for and she said yes the same day she saw our info, the baby was going to be born 900-ish miles away in Philly and could we be there in a week? Us: *silence*  "Can we call you back?" 

We hung up the phone and K had a blank stare. This was pretty reminiscent of when we got Cupcake's referral, so really... that's a good sign. I took about 5 minutes to pray and then knew that there was no freaking way I would say no. I was SCARED out of my mind, but I knew in my heart of hearts that this was our next child. We knew it was a girl. I knew exactly what we would name her if her first mother agreed to let us choose a first name. I knew we wanted her to choose a middle name. The only part I couldn't quite figure out was, how we were going to tell co-workers, friends and some of our family members... we had only told a small handful of people that we were starting an adoption process. We were planning to tell more people once our homestudy was done and we were 'active,' because it would just be SILLY to not tell people and then have this weird conversation with people where you are like, "Oh, by the way, I will be gone from work for the next 6 weeks because we are adopting again, oh didn't I mention it was possible that I would need to take maternity leave after already taking a year off of work with my first child and only being back from 2.5 months?" Yeah, that would have been AWKWARD. Wait...

This is already a novel. I've no idea how to edit myself, so let's just make this a series... Part 2 up next!