It was time for me to take control
of the situation; I needed to talk to Birth-Mom right away. The situation was
dire, it is Thursday mid-day, if Birth Mom does not agree to have us adopt the
baby, the state takes control by Monday at 9:00 am, which means we will have
lost the baby permanently, the Caseworker will not allow her to be adopted out
of state and he has already promised the baby to someone else. Thankfully, her Grandmother
and I had exchanged telephone numbers. In order to meet the 9:00 am deadline,
our attorney needs to submit the paperwork on Friday. Mirisa is scrambling, I
am panicking, and Husband is on a plane with no knowledge of what is going to
face him upon landing.
I call the Grandmother, I present
the situation to her calmly but urgently, Birth-Mom needs to make a decision, I
will not be left hanging with my heart in my hands walking around wounded, I
refuse that scenario. Birth-Mom comes to the phone, she says it is a
misunderstanding, she has not stopped the proceedings she just wanted the
paperwork stopped because she had never met Husband, and what if he is a
pedophile. I very calmly - using what some have called my psycho voice, also
known as my client voice, the calm gentle even tone, with no modulation voice –
explain to Birth-Mom the background checks and investigations we were submitted
to, from Texas Department of Family criminal and sex-offenders for every
location we have ever lived, to FBI national background check to a local
State/County criminal check, ending with a Texas state Caseworker interview,
checking out our home and interviewing our references in some detail – we
passed muster, what is the deal? She wants to meet Husband, to make sure they
‘click’, I get it – she has bonded with baby and it is hard to let go, the
problem is she is almost two hours away now. I offer to take Husband to where
she is staying, we will gladly drive the two hours each way, nope she says not
the best option, she will try to come to us, the target date for the meeting is
Friday at 3:00 pm, tomorrow. Nope, it is not an option for me, too close to the
state deadline if something goes wrong there is no more work time to fix the
issue. Her attorney needs to get things
rolling on his side again, another problem, he is on his anniversary trip
celebrating 25 years of marriage, he was sure all the paperwork would be
submitted that morning and felt it was safe to leave, he was a plane ride away,
technically unavailable for a week. Deep breathe.
As I am back and forth on the
phone with Grandma Mj and Birth Mom it is concluded that she will gladly take
the advice of an Aunt and her Grandmother, if they like Husband she will allow
the paperwork to be executed. Husband is going to be evaluated and he doesn’t
know it yet. Grandmother and Auntie agree to meet with us in the hospital lobby
at 4:00 pm.
I leave to pick up Husband at the
airport way too early, I guess I was hoping my spiritual panic would land the
plane faster. I ended up parking at a McDonalds to calm down and wait for his
plane. I learned that sitting and watching the seconds go by on a clock makes
time slow down, I should have been doing this along to slow the aging process. After
sitting for 45 min at McDonalds I am ready to explode. Husband arrives, I greet
him with a “We have a problem”, I fill him in on the torrid events of the past
few hours.
I explain to him without adding
any pressure that is no entirely up to him to save this child for us.
Me: “An Aunt and
her Grandmother are coming to meet you, if they like you and approve you we she
will sign proceed with the adoption, if they don’t well – significant pause for
effect and my panic – we lose the baby.”
Husband: “But what are they
going to do”
Me: “Make
sure you aren’t a pedophile.”
Husband: “What?”
Me: “Yep,
you heard right.”
Husband: “But”
Me: “I
know”
Husband: “So how will they determine that they like me?”
Me: “I imagine look you up and down, ask you a
series of personal questions to delve into the locked recesses of your mind
ultimately to evaluate how much useless information you retain in that mind of
yours and its inherent value if any.”
Husband: “What type of
questions?”
Me: “Don’t know,
but I want you to clean up, I want you to wash your face, brush your teeth and
change into ironed clothes. Would you like to go to the hotel to do that or go
straight to the hospital?” See, I am considerate I offer Husband a choice.
Husband: “Hospital”
Me: “I don’t want
you to look like what you think an architect should look like, I want you
cleaned-up.” Husband is good, doesn’t even take offense, he comprehends what I
mean, ok, so what I mean is what I actually did say, regardless he doesn’t take
offense.
He is excited to meet the baby for
the first time, and is thrilled when he gets to hold her. When my mind wonders
back to that moment, I question if his excitement was muted by fear though I
don’t think so, his focus is solely on her. I give him a few minutes with the
baby before I impress upon the need for him to change and wash-up.
We decide to go to the lobby
early, it is getting closer to liftoff. We wait and we wait, we were 45 min
early and they were 30 min late due to traffic, though they do finally arrive. We
had scoped out an area that offered a modicum of privacy with seats configured
into a sofa-seating with a head-chair. I position Husband at the head of the
seating arrangement, the position of power, allowing them room to sit next to
each other when they do arrive, I sit with my back to a wall, a wall of glass
but nonetheless a wall, which is what I always prefer. Husband looks nervous, very nervous, I have
never seen him nervous over the 25 years I have known him, not once. I want to
laugh, its really kind of funny, I feel bad for him, so I work on setting his
mind at ease.
Me: “Are you nervous?”
Husband: “yeah”
Me: “hmmmm, why do you think you will screw this up?”
Husband: “No”
Me: “Good,
cause it is all riding on you now. Though don’t feel pressured. I am sure that if we lose her I will never
mention it again for the rest of my life.” I gently squeeze his hands until his
knuckles are white and he has to extract his hand from my grip so as not have
any bones broken. We smile at each other and both practice breathing.
Grandmother Mj and Aunt
arrive, introductions are made, we sit. Grandmother is nice, gentle, she and I
have already met and I know she is all for this adoption believing it to be the
best for the baby and the Birth-Mom, she loves the idea of an open adoption
with the opportunity to have a relationship with her great-granddaughter.
Auntie is a different story, she is all business, she is firm and on a mission,
she is representing her niece and wants to make sure that she represents
Birth-Mom well. Aunt has several adopted
children herself, owns daycare centers and is smart, she understands the
situation well having adopted children under very similar circumstances. Auntie
who is probably close to my age, begins to grill Husband, question after
question, she is relentless. Husband is gripping the arms of his chair so tight
his hands are literally bone white from the tips to the wrist. She asks
questions ranging from future child-care plans to why we chose an open
adoption, do we plan to allow visitation rights to Birth-Mom, do we have other
children, details of our relationship. She never smiled through the interview,
she was focused her back ridged taking in all of the information. I am sitting
on the side-lines of this game, watching eagerly, wanting to be taken off the
bench, boundless energy spiraling through my veins, and I have to sit there
until invited to play. Thank the good Lord I have infinite patience as I chewed
through my tongue biting it desperately trying not to jump in waiting until the
invisible coach put me in. Finally, after an agonizing 20 minutes she turns to
me and asks me a question, “Will Birth-Moms visitations be supervised?”,
really? Couldn’t I have gotten an easy question like ‘Why an open adoption’? I
respond eloquently, using my psycho voice – we don’t know, it depends on the
situation at the time, it depends if Birth-Mom is using, it depends on baby’s
age, it depends on the location, it depends on baby’s emotional maturity, it
depends – there really is no answer. She is satisfied, she relaxes a bit, a
very little bit and goes on to tell us why it is important to only have
supervised visitations when dealing with a drug user.
At last I am able to relax
she really comprehends. Finally, the interview is completed, they want to go
upstairs to see baby. The four of us head to the NICU. While they are loving on
baby, we are told they approve and will be sharing their opinion with
Birth-Mom.
In the interim of that
afternoon Birth-Moms attorney called her from his vacation and basically laid
down the law of the consequences if she did not proceed with the adoption, he
revisited her future rights within the constraints of the open-adoption
contract and the benefits were incomparably better than if the baby was lost to
the state system. Mirisa and Birth-Moms attorney had been in contact, his
partner would be handling the paper-work however, the partner is also a
University Professor and has a limited window to submit the paperwork when she
gives the green-light because it is finals, his law students are in finals. I’m
thinking to myself when Mirisa gives me this bit of news, well it shouldn’t be a
problem, they are future attorneys, once given the students are given the test
he can leave, attorney’s never cheat, no issue there.
I am stressed, for the
first time ever I didn’t even want Husband in the same bed with me, I sent him
to the other bed in the hotel room under the pretense that I would keep him
awake because I would be thrashing around too much from nervousness, anxiety
and a general feeling of panic. Sometimes Husband is angelic, not often, but,
certainly when it counts. After leaving me alone for a little bit, he finally
came on over saying, ‘might as well be together since neither of us will get
any sleep.’ It is now Friday morning, we didn’t sleep all night, it is 6:30 am,
is it too early to call Birth-Mom? In my infinite consideration for others I
wait until the decent hour of 6:48 am. Grandmother Mj is awake, she tells me
Birth-Mom has agreed to the adoption, though I need to hear it from her, she
has to call her attorney’s partner, the gears have to be put in motion.
Birth-Mom won’t wake up, I am told she will call me later. So I call back every
30 minutes until she comes to the phone, Grandmother Mj was really patient with
me, she fully comprehends the risks involved. I don’t want to go to the
hospital until we have an answer, I don’t want the baby feeling our stress, she
is busy weaning off the morphine that is being administered for the
withdrawals. On that day our visit to the baby will be either ‘welcome home’ or
‘have a blessed life, goodbye’, I want to know before we see her again.
At last Birth-Mom is awake
and willing to talk to me. She is contrite, she didn’t mean to put a stop to
the adoption, she just wanted to know Husband was going to be a good father.
The only thing she needs now is a copy of the open-adoption paperwork, she
says she had never received it. What? Impossible. I call my attorney, who calls
her attorney, come to find out she has received the paperwork three times. We
have to get it to her again some way, ethically it is the right thing to do.
Mirisa emails it to me, so it is not coming form my attorney, we mean no intent
of coercion so it is better that the copy comes from me, at the last minute
Mirisa did locate her attorney who has the contract sent to her once again. It is now 11:00 am,
the clock is ticking, her attorney needs to file the paperwork before noon or
it won’t get done – its Finals week at the law school. I get Birth-Mom on the
phone again, she says she will call her attorney and give him the go ahead. She
will call but, how will I know that she did call, she will call me and tell
me, hah but where will my proof be? Not
good enough, I need verification, absolute verification, so I tell her I will
call her attorney and conference him in, I want to hear it for myself. So I do.
I introduce myself to him and state the purpose of the call, due diligence out
of the way, and hand it over to Birth-Mom. It’s done, he has her approval, he
asks her twice just to make sure, his due diligence is complete. I thank her
and tell her I will be in touch when paperwork is submitted. I call Mirisa, she
calls him, we are on track. We go to the hospital to await confirmation that
the paperwork has been submitted.
Three hours later at 1:00
pm we get our confirmation, Law School Professor Attorney came up to bat, he
did step out of the finals to get to courthouse. We are done… she is ours… we
have our daughter…. Except there is one more hitch to attach to this wagon, one
more item that has to be done or we can’t leave the state with her in tow… we
have custody but……
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
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