Adoption Here We Come - Part 7

Birth Parents haven’t been in communication, but, how often should we be communicating? Should we be developing a friendship? How close do we really want to be? I know myself, if we start a friendship instead of being grateful from afar for the wonderful gift of allowing us to adopt their child, I will feel like I owe them, and my actions will express my sense of obligation to them. We continue to communicate with our attorney, paperwork is completed. Birth Mother is to sign a release with her Obstetrician so we can talk to him about the health of the child, it hasn't been executed, this makes me uncomfortable. We are in a total state of the unknown with the health of the child, what we know is what Birth Mom has told us to date. 

Birth Parents have 72 hours to change their mind before the adoption is finalized after the birth of the child. Mirisa warned us, those are 72 very long hours. We are hopeful, Birth Parents were quite sure of their decision, we are conservatively optimistic that this adoption will proceed as planned. Mirisa continues to prepare us, if we want to back out we can, if the baby is born with a serious physical ailment we can back out, it is up to us.

The baby is due April 15^th according to Birth Mom, its late February; we have time to prepare more for this child. During this time I am literally in a state of panic, is this what I really want, do I want to give up my Time. My time, is important to me - I am the sole owner of my own time -  I do what I want, even though married Husband doesn’t require a great deal of hand-holding (thankfully), I have lots of freedom, I go play with friends when I want, I work when I want, I do what I want, and we have our together time, it is good. I can plan my time, my day, my week, and it will go accordingly, with a child that is not so easily accomplished, I am well aware of this. 

I never question if I can be a good mother and raise a healthy child, I am supremely confident in those abilities. I love children; I can do this with my eyes closed. But, can I no longer have MY TIME, be MY TIME. My time will become baby’s time. Throughout my panics Husband is very calm, it was quite agitating, I wanted him to be concerned for me, for us, I wanted him to recognize I (ME) was giving up my freedom, he never comprehended that far into my psyche - maybe he did but had reached his max word limit so opted to back burner the subject. I was being completely selfish of course, I can give away MY TIME, but, really why do I want to? Fear is actually coursing through my veins. Deep breath, I can do this.

I don't think this fear is unique for an Older Mom at least an Older Mom with a stressful-time-consuming-all-aborsbing-career that is.

We are prepared for little Benjamin, we have all of the essentials, and I have started to put aside what we would need to transport baby home from half way across the country.

I begin to practice breathing, a lot!

But, there is a hiccup, we can’t locate the Birth Parents, no return calls. Our attorney is looking for the Birth Mom she is MIA. We are on an emotional roller-coaster, it has been an eternity since we had heard from either Birth Parent (as Husband says “its good you never exaggerate”), well, it felt like an eternity.  Actually, I am pretty sure I am going to heaven just because I handled the stresses for the past year incredibly well – I remained calm. Finally, the second week of March Mirisa calls, Birth Mom has been found, there is good news and there is bad news. The good news is Birth Mom is well, baby is well, and she still wants us to adopt the baby. The bad news, well, here is the kicker, the to-be-born baby is a girl not a boy!

Do we still want the baby, she asks. Silence. Do I want a girl? My mind which usually works at warp speed, particularly when processing information, slows to a snails pace, a very very small snail. I finally respond with “A girl? Really?”  I start taking a mental inventory of all the boy items we have purchased; trying to determine what has been unwrapped and washed to know what is returnable.  I keep hearing the following phrase in my mind, “So there is no little Benjamin?”, my mind states it as a question, not a fact.  Mirisa proceeds to inform me of why Birth-Mom was MIA. It seems that drugs and alcohol were negatively impacting the Birth-Parents lives again. Birth-Mom had been severely beaten putting her and the baby at risk. The police had been called whisking her away to safety, the state determined that to keep Birth-Mom and fetus safe she needed to be moved to another city. She was admitted into in a hospital rehab unit,  both she and the baby are monitored. Birth-Mom requested her hospital caseworker to contact our attorney to let us know she was proceeding with the adoption which is how Mirisa was contacted. Birth-Mom signed the necessary paperwork to allow us to speak with her caseworker and her ob/gyn.  Birth-Mom tells me she is due in another three weeks, and that she has been sober the past 30 days, rehab is working and the baby is fine.

I go home to discuss the situation with Husband. It’s a girl not a boy.  The conversation in its entirety is….

Me:           “Mirisa called, Birth-Mom is in rehab, she is safe, baby is well, due to domestic violence the state placed her in another city to keep her and the baby safe. But, it’s a girl not a boy, we need to make a decision tonight.”

Husband:   “Decision about what?”

Me:           “Do we want a girl, will we take a girl?”

Husband:   “Its never mattered to me.”

Me:           “Yes, I know I want a boy.”

Husband:   “Can you live with a girl?”

Do I want a baby girl? I start to take stock of the reasons why I want a boy not a girl, and none of them are emotionally mature reasons. I want a boy because I have never had a brother, because boys are adorable and they grow into men, because I won’t have to worry about hair and clothing, because I truly appreciate the physicality of men, because I think boys are easier to raise (my sisters and I were pains), I already have nieces, we need a boy in the family, I don’t want to worry about raising and preparing a girl in how to maneuver in a mans world (which it still obnoxiously is), I don’t want her in my make-up when she is 12 years old. It occurs to me that only one of my reasons can be crossed off, the last one, she won’t be in my make-up, why would a 12 year old want to be in an old-lady’s makeup? She will instead be in the make-up of my nieces. In addition to all of my reasons, I don’t care for the color ‘pink’, yes, I know that girls don’t have to wear pink or their favorite color is not always pink, but, it is a societal identifier for gender recognition. I am very cognizant that none of my reasons for wanting a boy are emotionally mature nonetheless I have always wanted a boy, since I was 17 years old!!! There it is God placing me on a different path from the one for which I planned, proof once again that God and I don’t always want the same thing.

Deep Breath in hopes of slowing my heart rate.

Me:           “Yes, I can live with a girl, besides if we were having this child physically the gender selection is random, it would be solely in God’s hands, so that is what the plan must be, a girl.”

The next few days were spent talking to Birth-Mom and her caseworker. On Saturday, March 16 in the late afternoon, her doctor called, Birth-Mom is healthy, baby is healthy, it should be another week to two weeks. There should be nothing to worry about. Labor cannot be induced as originally planned, the rehab hospital will not allow it, but we will be notified as soon as she goes into labor. All is well in baby land.

I begin to plan the exchange of purchased baby boy items for baby girl items. 

During that week we talk to our attorney several times. She reminds us that we can back out, but we need to be prepared in case there were any physical or developmental issues with the baby. What action would we take, will we back out or are we a 100% committed?  She wants us to know what we will do under that circumstance, and she also wants to know. This topic was certainly one of our longer discussions, what will we do if the baby is born with a serious health issue? We had previously decided not to actively pursue adoption of a child with health needs. Would we proceed? Would we stop the adoption? I had already researched extensively the risks of physical and mental disabilities from drug abuse, we knew there was a risk but it is a game of chance. Though how many women are going to place their baby for adoption if the Birth-mom is perfectly healthy, not so many – it is the nature of adoption.  

This decision was truly an easy one for us, we are committed 100%, no one ever knows with a 100% certainty that a baby will be born in perfect health. We are committed. We are committed to the Birth-Mom and we are committed heart and soul to this unborn baby.  Now we had two tasks, to find a girls name, obviously we can’t name her Benjamin Simon and exchange the undeniably male baby items.  Exchanging the baby items was the easy part, the name search not so much. We could not find a name for this child. One night while on travel, unable to sleep, I searched for female derivatives of Benjamin. And there it is...

Benecia \b(e)-ne-cia\ as a girl's name is a variant of Benicia (Spanish), and the meaning of Benecia is "blessed one"

Husband loved it, and added the middle name of Simone for Simon. My sister thinks this is odd since I named all my dolls Simone as a kid. Part of the original plan still exists our daughter is named after my dad and Husbands cousin, just in a female form. We have a great name that fits us. When we told my Dad about the name Benecia, he didn’t like it, he said not to saddle this child with that name just for him, of course, now he loves it. His daily mantra to Beny as an infant is, "Me Ben, You Beny".

Oh my, I am going to have a daughter, me! A girl. I’m still in shock. Wow, I am going to have to do make-up, hair, and clothing conversations and arguments with a daughter. I literally can spend thirty minutes on the phone with my nieces discussing topics of their choosing, with one discussing hair styles and the other discussing make-up. Girl-Power.

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.