I have now been in Seattle
for almost three weeks, living under circumstances of incredible stress. There
was the stress of finalizing the adoption, stress to make sure Benecia is well,
stress of being at the hospital all day, but all of that was manageable when
compared to the stress my job was causing.
I was still working while Beny was hospitalized, I would wake around
4:00 am, get ready and work from 5:00 am to 11:00 am at the hotel, race to the
hospital and be with Benecia until 9:00 to 10:00 at night. I worked some more
while she was sleeping, my sister the consummate nurse warned me that NICU
nurses are very particular and don’t think that parents should do anything
other than focus on their child. She further warned that the first time they
walk in to Beny’s room wanting to talk to me and I indicate that I can’t talk
because I am on a conference call, she said ‘its going to get ugly’. I figured
if the worse thing I did was piss off a few nurses, then I am still good. My
sis recommends too feed the nurses, they always respond to food! Actually, I
did discuss my work situation with all of the care-takers, they were great,
they understood and watched for when I was on a conference call when entering
the room. I am running on exhaustion,
adrenaline fumes are the only thing keeping me going in addition to caring for
the little one. My first error regarding
the baby while under stress is that I spell her name wrong on the Birth
Certificate, we had agreed that she would be named “Benicia”, I submitted it as
“Benecia”, oh well maybe the extra ‘e’ will bring her good luck.
Here is the first concern,
I have a new boss, someone I don’t know, someone who never has time to talk,
someone that doesn’t make time to meet any of his direct reports until 90 days
into the job. Lets call him Mr.
Self-Serving. The irony of the situation
is that three months prior to Beny’s birth, two different people who had worked
with him for over five and ten years shared his personality traits as they knew
them with me without any of us knowing that in the near future I would be
reporting to him. As they recounted their experiences and observations it came
down to ‘he will always look for someone to blame to make himself look better,
he will sacrifice a member of his team to solidify his position and illustrate
that he takes action, if you agree with him and do what he wants without any
opposition then he considers you part of his team, in a nutshell his loyalty
does not extend past his own personal objectives’. Obviously, I am in a great
situation. Further illustrated by our first conversation lasting a total of
five minutes, at which he made me sound like I walked on water, the savior of
the company, a workforce not to be lived without. That conversation raised tremendous
red-flags to me, how can anyone give seemingly endless flattery to someone they
do not know nor have seen operate. I know I am in a bad situation. I think my
work will speak for itself, as long as I perform I should be okay as we work
through the professional-relationship bonding experience. I was wrong! So now I
am operating under the tremendous stress of work.
The second concern revolves
around FBI finger-prints. Everyone over the age of fourteen that will be
spending a significant amount of time with the child requires an FBI background
check, as the Mexican Ewing’s this includes my parents. Beny is doing well,
getting ready for discharge, the problem is without FBI approval the state of
Washington will not allow us to return to Texas with the baby until my parents
have been cleared. Panic sets in, I am exhausted, worried about my job, about
parents finger prints and my nerves have literally been torn away from my body,
exposed to the elements and scraped back with a blunt instrument, I am so not
in a good place. I am trying to be at peace for Benecia’s sake, I don’t want
her picking-up on my stress, though I know that she does. We have my parents
fingerprints taken over six times by different governmental agencies, who knew
that fingerprints wear out when a person ages. I am pretty much ranting to
anyone that will listen, including Husband and parents. Though I do manage to
be calm during work hours and through conversations with governmental agencies.
Which is critical, cause now I have to convince the FBI to run their background checks
without valid prints. In a hotel room I sit and wait with baby and Husband
until cleared to go home, after a few days of walking an emotional tightrope we
are finally released to take our daughter home.
We are so excited, we are
finally taking her home. I dress her in a cute outfit, with matching blanket
and cap. When we get to the airport awaiting to board, my cute dainty baby has
a blowout, her first, dirtying her entire outfit. Because I am a planner, I am
prepared, I have two additional cute outfits for her to wear on her first plane
ride.
This entire adoption
process holds vast lessons for me to learn, God has to hit me over the head
with greater force each time he wants me to learn something. I pray that I can
teach my daughter to not only have faith (of which I have endless amounts) but
to also trust in that faith, the right path will always open up when it is
God’s time. Though God and I are still in negotiation regarding his time and my
time, I am still young, I have lots of time to learn.
Benecia is a delight, she
is our blessing, she has brought joy and greater love to our home and family. I
can’t imagine my life without her. Her every smile is a reward in my day, in
our day. She is my daughter. (I still think its funny that I have a daughter.)
