Adoption Here We Come - Part 6

I am not anything if not tenacious; get it from my Father.  I again begin to research adoption alternatives. Husband and I discuss surrogacy, with Husband providing the necessary little bio cells to fertilize (via in vitro) the field but it seems out of our scope. By scope, I mean we discussed it and there are so many children of all ages, even newborns, that need a good home, for us we felt the right choice would be to find a baby that God had already created instead of creating one from scratch.

I decide if Husband wants a baby he needs to work for it, so I assign Husband an adoption agency to investigate, research, and meet with. The organization Husband met with had a great deal of success in placing children, young children, actually babies. Now after working for almost a year in adopting a new born, growing into an infant, we wanted a baby. Exactly what I wanted to avoid we were now willing to jump into, such as diaper changes, night-time feeds, potty training, etc…., oh well, the visions of soccer field parenting would have to wait. We decided we wanted a baby during the most critical year of development, year 1, we wanted to explore loving this child from birth if at all possible. I am utterly convinced I have lost my mind at this point for wanting a new born. Though if it had not been for the baby boy that we lost we never would have been open to an infant adoption, again, there are benefits to an older child, like helping with chores that the Husband doesn’t get done, such cleaning the kitty litter box, picking-up dog poop. Before Husband jumps in to say that I don't care to do those things either it falls to him, though I do dishes. It was never that we really limited the possibility of an older child, what we had limited was an older child that came through the state system because of our age and my job, we did not feel we could provide adequately for a child with emotional and/or physical challenges. We are now in the midst of a two-hour interview on a Saturday (the only time I had available) with this adoption agency, things are going well, I can get my boy but it could take a few months longer, its an open adoption process, the Birth Mother will select the adopted parents from a list of the agencies clients, its hugely expensive, we are putting the phone on mute to discuss what body parts we can sell to pay for this child.

Husband mouths to me, “you know that we could have a child much sooner if you don’t insist on a boy?’. I still insist on a boy.

During the call we are getting text messages from my Father (my parents love to text) can we come outside to the front yard? We can’t we are in the middle of this meeting. Then I start getting texts from my sister who had come over for brunch with her husband, there was some accident, a car had driven through our front yard. I text back, “anyone hurt?”. Nope, no one was hurt, no need to rush out. Was this accident in our front yard a sign from the Gods? Don’t know, but we did decide to wait and not sign any paperwork with this agency, we were starting to get anxious about the goings on outside and wanted time to talk quietly.  When we finally went outside we  find a BMW mangled in our front yard, driven by a 16 year old well after a sixteen year old should be out. Husband growls, “we will not raise our 16 year old to be driving an $85,000 car at 2:00am without parental consent going 85 miles an hour, particularly not totally sober and have grandfather attempt to bribe the tow truck driver to illegally remove the vehicle from private property before being discovered. Where is the social responsibility, why is this 16 year old not offering (or being made) to clean our front yard, replant trees, carry away the vehicle debris?” As you can see, now that we are going to adopt again we are parental experts! 

We wait.

We are in a holding pattern. The adoptions agency did not feel right, though they passed the sniff test in terms of success, experience, and credibility.

I’m beginning to think ‘we should not proceed with having a child’, I am happy with my life, I have a great Husband, great family, and wonderful nieces on both sides of the family. I have lots.

I quit pushing.

A few months go by, I am enjoying my home office. In December I begin to get little psychic nudges to contact our Attorney from yesteryear, Mirisa. I sit on it. Though I repeatedly tell Husband, “I should call Mirisa”.

Finally, in early January I call her, she was surprised but glad to hear from me, she was just going to call to share some important news. She knows of a couple that has chosen to place their unborn child for adoption and would like to select the adopting parents, Mirisa thought of us. Are we interested? Oh, and it’s a boy! A conference call is scheduled, with a potential in person meeting to meet the Birth Parents. Mirisa is our attorney once again. The Birth Parents had already lost a previous child to state custody, they had other children with other partners for which they could not care, drugs were an issue. This time they wanted to do the right thing by placing their child in a home of their choosing with an open adoption agreement.

We meet Birth Parents via conference call. What stands out in my memory is that she was primarily concerned with the day-to-day care of the child, and our spiritual belief systems. He was intelligent, a fast-talker. Sometimes she was hard to hear/understand, they were using a cell on speaker, when we would ask her to repeat, he firmly said she had issues with verbalizing her thoughts but he would be her voice. Later I came to learn that Birth Mother is quite smart, with a caring and loving personality. She had just made the wrong choices in her young life. After two other conference calls we were selected as the Adopted parents, yahoo. Generous of spirit Birth Mother even said not to make the trip to meet in person, we know you well enough, save your money. We organized to be there for the birth, she even asked if I would join her through labor and the birthing. Come to find out in a perfect situation Birth Mother has her room, Adopted parents are also assigned a hospital room, after the delivery the baby is with us in our room until he is discharged.

This is perfect, we want an open adoption, it is a newborn, and I get my BOY! Perfection.

Things are finally going smoothly.

We start planning names, the only option for this little bundle of boy is Benjamin Simon, Benjamin after my Father (who only has daughters) whose legal name is Benito,  a name he whole heartedly dislikes, and Simon for Husbands no-longer-living-unmarried-childless-older-cousin. I think it is Husbands way of giving him a child. I dusted off my list of necessary baby items, made some minor modifications and begin acquiring baby stuff. Shopping for a baby is quite entertaining.

I am busy researching the best bottles, the best swaddle blankets, the best stroller, etc....I keep busy. And, I buy three copies of the "What to Expect the First Year". I read the book quickly, make notes, and highlight all the critical information. Then I do the same for the two other copies, adding tab notes of what pages to what pages need to be read. This is for Husband, he is not a reader, so my choice is to do this or read out loud to him (which I end up doing at the end of every month of year one anyway). The third book is for my parental units, so they can know what is important to me as a New Mom and also important to the New Dad, because I said so. 

We are preparing. Actually I am preparing, and Husband is following my lead. We are excited. 

To be continued….

© Yvonne B. Pérez and The Life and Confessions of an Older Mother, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Yvonne B. Pérez and The Life and Confessions of an Older Mother with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.