Lighter Hearts Than Last Night

Good news! We didn't have to wait until Friday after all. The birthmother was discharged today and both birthparents signed the paperwork to terminate their parental rights. For the first time in several days, we can both breathe easier. Our journey is a LONG WAY from over, but this is one of those milestones we didn't know if we'd ever see, and it's really here.

Another Week = Another Roller Coaster Ride

Dateline 8/18/2010 - In 2.5 hours, my daughter will be 1 day old, and I'm scared because Carrie and I can't be there with her. Her birthmother has asked us to give her the night with her baby and her husband to find closure. I'm only hoping that closure is really closure, and not a change of heart.



How did we get here? Two weeks ago, we got the first in a series of life-changing calls. A week ago, despite our social worker's advice, Carrie and I came to Orlando to be with our birthmother as she prepared to go into labor (or so she thought). Last Thursday, she came to our hotel, brought us sonogram pictures, and did everything she could to alleviate our fears. Throughout the hospital tour, all of her questions were about things the hospital would do to guarantee our access during labor and delivery, almost to the point of being pushy. We loved her for it! After dinner and a walk around the mall where we were able to really get acquainted with each other, we parted company until the next day. On Friday, the "belly mom" decided she actually wanted to take castor oil to speed the process along. She assured us that she'd done this with her other kids, and since Riley (our daughter) was already 37 weeks along, there wouldn't be any negative effects. I guess it just wasn't meant to be, as the 4oz. bottle of castor oil had no affect at all, other than to make her sick to her stomach.



The next day, we got a call to meet "belly mom" at the hospital, but in less than an hour, Triage determined that her contractions and discomfort were due to dehydration. We left the hospital disappointed and decided that Saturday and Sunday nights would be a good time for Carrie and me to explore the sights of Orlando without going crazy financially. Fortunately Downtown Disney and Universal's Citywalk were ready for us. Who knew the Pat O'Brien's in Orlando would look like an exact replica of the one in the French Quarter? I avoided the Hurricane, but fried shrimp, crawfish and catfish in front of the dueling copper-topped pianos made me feel strangely at home for a couple of hours. We also know that we're NEVER going to submit Riley to this in the heat of August, and that there's really not much at either one for kids to enjoy.



By Monday, we were driving to an FBI fingerprint appointment, trying to get information about "belly mom's" Doctors' appointment, and trying to plan whether we would go home or not. When we were told they would induce this week but needed to call her back with a date, we figured we'd end up staying for the induction. When Monday afternoon stretched into Tuesday afternoon and inducing this week turned into inducing next Thursday, we knew we had to pack up the car, go home for a week and come back fresh and ready. Boy were we ever wrong!



You know how they say life is what happens when you're busy making plans? We found out firsthand what that meant. Within the first hour, we'd already called both of our bosses, made plans to work on the nursery, made an appointment to update our home study with Brenda, and thought about the other chores that need done (getting the downed tree in our backyard chopped up and hauled away, getting our garage door fixed, and getting our air conditioning repaired). 5 hours and 350 miles north of Orlando, I was trying to decide when to turn the wheel over to Carrie when the phone rang. Carrie was occupied on the phone, but I knew what she meant as soon as she pointed me to the next off-ramp. We had already joked with my Mom that we would get a call to come back just as soon as we got home to Lexington. We got the call, but fortunately it didn't come that late. From that point on, we were in a mad dash back to Orlando. I didn't even want to stop long enough for Carrie to change into clean clothes and do her makeup, but our near-empty gas tank solved that problem for her. We saw a rainbow right away, but that turned into rain and lightning, which turned into a blocked left lane after someone else had an accident. We had no idea if we'd make it in time, and e-mails with the "belly mom" didn't do much to assure us.



What can I say? We made it, and the whole thing still feels like a dream. Within a half hour after we made it to the hospital, the doctor had broken her water, and ten minutes later, we had a beautiful 5lb 11oz baby girl in our arms. Her Grandaddy Gene (who was unfortunately recovering from an unscheduled surgery in another hospital back in Virginia) had been saying all along that she would be born on August the 18th, but Riley Beth showed how stubborn she's going to be, instead making sure to pop out 4 minutes before midnight just to prove him wrong. I got to cut the cord, but when they told me it would be tough, I had no idea it would take me 6 or 7 tries to get all the way through it! I think they gave me the dull scissors, and Carrie says she thought I'd never finish. After the obligatory counting of the fingers and toes and the remarks about her full head of black hair, we (Carrie, me, "belly mom" and the maternal grandmother) passed Riley around for another hour until they took us up to Recovery. We spent a great night learning to hold and feed her, talking to the "belly mom" about her hopes, and ignoring our bodies' need for sleep. Carrie never did lay down, and I only slept for an hour around 6am.



But now we're back to the present, and it's less than an hour until she's one day old. Carrie is asleep, and I hope Riley and her birth parents are getting some rest also. I'm going on 2 hours of sleep in the last 38 hours, but I'm too full of emotions - hopes and fears both - to be ready to sleep. Our friends, many of whom we've kept this whole thing from hoping to wait to tell them until after the parents have terminated their rights, have read between enough lines on Facebook statuses that I couldn't hold off telling them any more. And the best comfort I can find - other than our social workers' assurances that we're doing everything the best way we possibly can - is to tell myself that this is our story I'm writing. This is OUR journey to become a family, not the footnote in someone else's story.



I hope I'm right. We should know in another 36 hours...

"Ready! Set! Go!" only without the "Ready! Set!"

It's pretty crazy how life can turn around:

• 3 weeks ago, I had given up on anything happening this year, so much so that I decided I could try out for a show in Versailles (The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee) without worrying about schedule conflicts. I didn't get the part.


• 2 weeks ago, I took a spontaneous, last-minute roadtrip to Chicago with a good friend and fraternity brother. We saw a GREAT concert with Kid Rock and Bon Jovi at Soldier Field on Saturday night, then grabbed a deep dish Chicago-style pizza at Gino's East before heading back to Kentucky. While we were waiting for our pie, the conversation turned to adoption. I told Mike that I had pretty much given up on anything happening this year, even though there was still almost half a year left. He and I had a long philosophical discussion about the legality and ethics of Chinese adoptions, ate our pizza, and hit the road.


• 1 week ago I was on the road to Harrisburg PA, site of this year's Phi Sigma Pi convention, when the phone rang and everything changed.

Kelli, our social worker with American Adoptions, called and explained that there was a situation in Florida. A birthmother outside of Orlando was already matched with another family, but that family was not going to be able to travel for the birth. I feel really sorry for the other family's loss, but Kelli asked if they could show our profile in order to salvage the situation and assure the birthmother that she was making a good decision. To make matters more stressful, they were meeting with the birthmother in less than 30 minutes, so we needed to make a quick decision. Carrie surprised me less than an hour later when she called me and told me to pull over to the side of the road because we were now in a match and she didn't want me to wreck! Ten minutes later, we were on the phone with the birthmother and her social worker.

I'm going to respect the "belly mom's" privacy (her term, not ours) and not use her name, but I can say that Carrie and I couldn't have asked for a nicer, more open person to go into this situation with. She's communicated with us by phone and e-mail ever since Thursday, offering advice on where to find a crib and what rewards clubs to sign up for, telling us that she really feels like she's made the right decision in helping us become a family, and assuring us that the baby in her belly is our daughter Riley Beth! She seems like the kind of person that we both would love to maintain contact with as our daughter grows up so that she can know the complete story.

A lot can still go wrong, which is why Carrie and I haven't made a bunch of public announcements or said anything to most of our friends. But as I write this on August 11th, we've finished a 13-hour drive from Kentucky, Carrie is sleeping and I'm getting ready to crawl into a third hotel bed in as many weeks. We're preparing to meet our birthmother tomorrow morning in Orlando, and if all goes well, we'll be parents by the weekend.

Look out world, here she comes! Zero-to-60 in a week's time...