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...
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