Luke: Part 4

  The 10 day wait.

Once we made it home to my parent's place with baby Luke, the dreaded 10 day waiting period would begin.  During this period it was possible for the birth mother or birth father to revoke the adoption.  They had up until midnight on the 10th day to do this.  

You might think that this would be extremely stressful, not knowing if the baby you are loving and caring for, and spending sleepless nights for, is going to be yours forever.  But actually, it wasn't too bad.  I had wondered ahead of time if I would feel a strong bond to an adopted child during the 10 day wait, or if I would feel like he wasn't really mine, or like I couldn't fully commit until I knew for sure.  Thankfully, I can say that for both Ben and I, our love for Luke came almost immediately.  The doubt was there too, but it was small.

There is something about being 100% depended upon for everything, and giving constant care that creates a strong relationship very quickly.  I know that for those who are adopting toddlers or older children this might not be as instant.

God also stepped in with this 10 day wait and provided us with the sweetest, most mildly mannered little guy.  Luke is so low key and calm, and this made him soooooo easy to love.  And I am so proud to say that we loved him almost right away.  It was easy to see it in my husband's eyes, and in Logan's too.  Logan was incredibly happy to have Luke as his brother and was eager to hold him and help feed him.

So, the not knowing.  That is what may have made the 10 day wait unbearable.  However, we actually felt like we did know.  You can never be 100% sure until midnight on the 10th day, but based on some things that were said when we were at the hospital with the family, we knew that there was no plan for this precious baby to go home with his birth parents.  As the 10 days went along I kept up correspondence with Luke's birth mother and went over everyone's expectations for the adoption.  We planned visitation and pictures and updates for the grandmothers.  While our birth mother did want to get some things figured out, she was consistently saying how happy she was with us as Luke's parents.

We would like to keep our birth mother's story private, as this would be beneficial for her and Luke in the long run.  All I will say, however, is this: there are some very good reasons why the best decision for your baby could be to place him for adoption.  As much as we would like to think that surely there should be a way for a birth mother to make it work (which more that one person said to me during our first weeks with Luke), some times there is not.  The decision for adoption completely puts the child first.  Knowing what she knew about her own life and the life of the baby's birth father, Luke's birth mother made the best choice she could for the future of her child, and we are so fortunate to be given the opportunity to raise him. 

It is humbling to accept the things that our birth mother feels about us, but we are going to try our whole lives to live up to her view of who we are!  She felt that she could not have dreamed up a better family for her son.  Unbelievable.  

Never once did she waver.  She shared her sorrows and I wept with her.  She struggled through the pain of engorged breasts and recovering from Luke's birth.  Never has something so joyful for us been full of so much sorrow for someone else.  She told me about her plans to start work soon, and her thoughts on school in the fall.  She was resolute in her belief that the best place for Luke was with our family.  We are so honoured.

By the seventh day we were feeling so strongly that nothing was going to change that we decided to head home and spend the last few days sleeping in our own beds!  We had to cocoon in our house because we hadn't told the world about Luke yet!  We had wanted to avoid having told the universe about our new son and then having to take it all back and announce that the adoption had been revoked.  So, though many of of friends and family were very surprised, we announced Luke's arrival on the morning 11.  

our announcement...typo and all, lol.

I would like to finish this post with a few photos.  I may not blog again in the near future.  I am finding it hard to keep up and would love to focus my attention on my three sweet boys!  Thank you for reading!

Luke: Part 3

Make sure you read Luke: Part 1 and Luke: Part 2 before reading this new post!

We had met our birth mom on a Wednesday.  The following Tuesday she was to have a stitch removed from her cervix, called a cerclage, that had kept her cervix from dilating.  Of course I had to Google what would happen when the stitch was removed!  One of two things, she would either go into labour, or she would not, haha.  Hmm.  The day of the removal was two and a half weeks before her due date.

She didn't even make it to the Tuesday appointment!  All day Monday the contractions were coming.  By Wednesday morning the cerclage was out and the baby was ready to come!  

Once Ben and I knew that most likely the baby would be born on Wednesday some time, we decided to head to the city as soon as Ben got off of work at 7pm.  That meant getting our whole family all ready to live at my mom and dad's place in Edmonton for up to 10 days!  I made lists and packed all day and loved every minute of it.  It was finally happening and I couldn't wait to hit the road!  We had spent so much time preparing, that when she went into labour it wasn't too tough to get everything together.

The baby was born at 7:47pm when we had just hit the road.  We got the call from our social worker when we were almost in Edmonton to tell us that he had arrived, two and a half weeks early.  7 pounds 1 ounce, and everyone was doing well.

The plan was for us to be ready to go to the hospital the next morning.  Our social worker would go there a few hours before us to meet with both birth parents and the lawyer.  Papers needed to be signed that would give consent for the adoption.  Once the papers were signed, the 10 day revocation period would begin.

We arrived at the hospital at 11:00am, and waited in the truck to be summoned.  We thought that we might be needed before noon already, but the time ended up dragging on and on.  Eventually I started watching Frozen on the little truck dvd player, and Ben went off to find food at a drug store.  Around 1:30pm we were told to come in and meet with our social worker in the lobby.

We had a chance to look over the signed consent forms and medical histories of the birth parents.  We were told by our social worker that, though this might be quite an uncomfortable situation for us, the birth parents' moms and about six other close friends and family members were in the hospital room!  Oh man!  When I had planned out this moment in my mind I had never pictured that many people in there, or what I would say to them.  We started to get nervous but we figured getting through a few uncomfortable was a pretty small thing when considered the greater goal!

Thankfully, when we got the hospital room we found that the extended family members had gone downstairs for lunch so that we could have some private time with the birth parents.  We hadn't met the birth dad yet, and we were very glad that he had chosen to be there.  He had a chance to look through our profile book during that time and ask us questions if he wanted to, which he didn't.  

When the extended family came back in there was a bit of awkwardness, but they were very welcoming of us.  The birth dad's mom said right away that the family was "only there to support the adoption, meet the baby and say goodbye."  They wanted to welcome us into the family!  It was so kind of them to say those things and put us at ease right away.  There had been a bit of worry in the back of my mind that they were there to try to change the birth parents' minds.  The birth mom's mom was fairly emotional, but hugged me very tightly and and said, "thank you."  We felt very good after meeting the family, and though it caused some anxiety initially, we feel like we may have set some of their minds at ease and helped them to feel more comfortable with the adoption.

After about two hours together, it was time for our birth mom to go home.  We gave her some time alone with the baby while we had some lunch downstairs.  

I don't know if there has ever been something more difficult to watch than a mother walking out of a hospital room without her baby.  She cried, and so did I.  I felt so much pain for her.  Even though she was very confident in her decision, she loved him and walking away was incredibly difficult.  She was so brave.  

Once our birth mom had left with our social worker we were alone in the hospital room with the baby!  "What do we do?"  "Should we dress him?"  "Is he ready to go?"  The nurses didn't say much to us at all, just told us we could go.

It is very strange to walk out of a hospital with a baby.  Strange in a good way.

We gave our birth mom this same giraffe.  It is something that they can both have in common, that she can hold as a reminded of her precious boy.

Opa was the first person to hold Luke when we got home.  It was such a great coincidence that he was in town on this day!

The smile says it all!

First snuggles with grandpa.

Grandma, just home from work.

And the 10 day waiting period begins.   Longest 10 days of our lives.

To be continued...

Luke: Part 2

Check out Luke: Part 1 before you read this one!

After receiving THE CALL on Good Friday, we knew that the next step would be to meet our expectant mother for a dinner meeting.  The goal of the meeting was mostly for her to ask us some questions and listen to us tell a bit of our life story.  By having this kind of interview and conversation she would be able to get a sense for what we are like, get answers to any pressing questions, and make sure that she is comfortable with us.  At this point she could decide that she doesn't like us and end it right there.

I don't think that I have ever been so nervous as I was before this meeting.  Ben, not so much.  Typical.  He figured since she had read our profile book and 18 page detailed home study, she knows everything there is to know about us already... and still picked us!

So, we drove down to the shopping area where we were meeting at an Earl's restaurant.  Much too early, of course.  We had about 30 minutes to kill.  All I could think about though was that our birth mom might also be in the shopping area killing time!  And she knew exactly what we looked like, and we had absolutely no clue what she looked like!  We didn't even know if she was a blonde or a brunette, so everywhere we looked we wondered if we would bump into her!  Solution?  Go into the store you figure no one ever really goes in and hang out there!  Danier Leather.  I tried on at least three tacky jackets.

Once the time had come to go to the restaurant my heart was racing pretty fast.  Was I wearing the right thing?  Did I look good enough?  Would she think that I looked like a mother should look?  What would I say that I would regret later?  Will I be at a loss for words?  

This is us about to leave for our dinner meeting!  Note the cute little boy trying to get a way so as not to be in the picture, lol.

Thankfully, we saw our social worker right away when we entered the restaurant.  I guess the host thought that a booth right in the front middle of the restaurant would qualify as "something quiet in the corner."  Anyways, the social worker was alone, so we had arrived first.  We had a chance to chat with her about everything and try to calm down a bit.  A few minutes later our birth mom arrived.

She looked nervous too.  Very nervous.  I had to remind myself that I had read several times that a birth mom is just as worried that you won't like her!  She thinks that you might think that she has poor morals, or bad decision making skills, or that she isn't taking care of herself.  None of which is the case of course, but everyone has their own insecurities.  

Once the conversation got going a little bit it was actually okay.  We were asked to tell a basic version of our life story.  I was nervous so I don't even remember what I said anymore, but I think it went okay.  Ben was way more relaxed than me and seemed to have an easy time getting some humour into the conversation, which I am sure everyone appreciated.

This was our chance to discuss with our birth mom what she was hoping for in terms of an open adoption relationship with us.  We thought that she would have a good idea of what she wanted, but it became pretty clear once our social worker started asking her questions that she just didn't know yet what she would want and what would be healthy.  We left this topic for a discussion at a later date.

In the end, after about an hour and a half together, we could tell that all of the questions had been asked and answered and that we should probably say goodbye.  Our social worker told us that she would discuss everything with our birth mom and give us a call the next day to let us know if she was still happy with her choice.  This would also be our opportunity to decide if we wanted to enter into an open adoption relationship with her.  

We were very worried when we didn't get a call the next day.

Half of the next day passed and I decided to send our social worker an email asking what was up.  The message I got back, much later in the day, said that she hadn't spoken to our birth mom yet because she was busy, but that she was happy after the meeting and liked us.  Hmm.  Okay.  We had to wait another day for the real answer, but at least it was a good answer!   

And by the way, we adore her.  



to be continued...