Monday, August 11, 2008
Already Typing
This is Dave and Carson working at the computer, pretending that they are writing this blog - ha ha!
The beginning
We had been trying for 8 years to become parents, and all our failures have been mine. Our first pregnancy was a burst ectopic that almost killed me, and our 6th and last pregnancy and miscarriage in October finished our hopes (or so I thought) of ever becoming parents. And then a miracle happened. It started with a dream. One morning in early April, the 10th to be exact, I woke up with a very vivid dream which was also funny, and I shared it with my husband. After sharing it, I forgot it until that night my husband reminded me.
My dream was about a girl we both know. When we first moved into our house eleven years ago, she was four years old, and almost every day since that first day she knocked on our door to see if anyone could come out and play, she visited us. She was like our adopted niece and shadow. Now, she is a teenager, and we hardly ever see her. In my dream, she had a baby and was not ready to be a parent, so she wanted us to adopt this baby. At one point in my dream, she complained about the baby being a hyper child, and all of a sudden, he was a rambunctious 8-year old boy, jumping on top of a table (my dreams are weird that way sometimes, like a play with no transitions between scenes). I reminded her that she was no picnic at that age either, and then all of a sudden Dave and I were driving on a path in a golf cart next to a lake to go and visit our baby. It was a completely silly and funny dream, and it gave us both a good laugh, until later that night as we were talking about the most important decision in our lives, and the dream became an indication of the future.
Later that day, I was teaching my second math class. The kids were working together on a project, and I was walking around the room like a waitress with 23 customers, helping, observing, reminding, motivating, and pushing them to learn when the phone rang. The phone ringing during class is not unusual, so I had no inkling about the impact this call would have as I picked up the phone. I said hello, and in response I heard Marilyn’s voice. She said, "Alice? Hold on. Your doctor is on the other line, just a minute." In the split second that it took for her to transfer the call, I felt a flash of confusion. I hadn’t been to see the doctor since last October. My doctor greeted me and then said, "Are you sitting down?" So I sat down with a little twinge of fear. The fleeting thought occurred to me that maybe she discovered that our miscarriage in October really was due to cancer, and she had recently found new evidence; and so when she told me about the baby who was born yesterday, I was understandably slow to comprehend. She explained further. "The birth mother wants him to be adopted. He’s healthy. He’s beautiful. She didn’t have prenatal care before last week because I think the birth mother just didn’t want to face the fact that she was pregnant, but she wants him to have a good home. She asked me to help her with this, because she wants a completely closed adoption. I thought of you immediately."
"Wow, I’d better sit down," I thought. Oh, I was already sitting down. I wanted to say yes, what’s next. I wanted to say, no, we’re not ready. We were in the pre-beginning stages of this complicated process called adoption. She must have heard my thoughts because she explained how she would help us find a lawyer to help us through the process, so I thanked her for calling and told her I would call her back after I had spoken to my husband. Wow! The rest of the day was a blur, but I do remember that I did manage to reach Dave by phone at work to tell him of this miracle. My husband, more cautious than I, told me we would talk about it that evening when we got home. So we talked when we both got home that night, and in our conversation he reminded me of my dream. We recalled our last pregnancy and figured that this baby was born right around the time our baby would have been born had he survived. We decided to call and tell my doctor that, yes, we were 100% sure that we wanted this baby. And then the phone rang, right then. Just like it would happen in a movie, it was our lawyer calling to give us more information about how we would begin this wonderful journey - another sign that this was meant to be.
Since then we have spent a handful of hours with our son, Carson, who is right now in foster care with a very nice family an hour drive away. Every time we visit, it gets harder and harder to leave. The foster mother is very strict about her time, and I have been fighting my feelings of jealousy; but it isn’t easy when she tells me things like he smiled at her, even though she adds it might have just been gas. I just have to keep telling myself that this was meant to be, and that God has a reason for answering our prayers in ways we least expect, and then I think back to one more mystical detail of our experience so far that solidifies my feelings that everything is going to happen like it should.
The detail is from the first trip we took to the foster home to see Carson. We had already spent time with him in the hospital that weekend and had met the foster parents when they picked him up the day before at the hospital, but this was the first day that we were visiting him in the foster home. We were driving into Manitowoc past this impressive, modern-looking complex. We were speculating about what it might be when my husband commented that they had a nice wide path on the grounds, and it looked like it was made for golf carts. Just then, I looked to my right and we were passing a small lake called Silver Lake, and that last, seemingly meaningless part of my dream came rushing back to me. "It’s my dream!" I shouted. My husband looked at me startled and concerned that I had finally completely lost my mind, and then I explained it to him because I had not told him the golf cart and lake part of my dream before. He accepted it as a matter of fact, another sign that this baby was meant to be.
Now our home study is done, and our court hearing is scheduled for the 23rd of May. After that date, the birth parents can no longer change their minds, and even though for 6 months after that we are considered a temporary placement before there is a finalization hearing, May 23rd will be the day we can begin truly rejoicing that he is ours. We have the option of having him come home sooner, and that is an opportunity that I am taking. I start my leave on May 16th, and ironically, now that we have a set date, it is harder to wait. I am more antsy for our lives to begin. It’s only 6 days away, but this wait seems longer than any I have ever endured. What will be nice about having him come home the week before our hearing, because it is before the hearing, we will have a week with our baby that will be just ours before the flood of well-wishing friends and relatives begins.
We have been cautioned that if the birth parents change their minds that it is harder to accept once the baby has been home, and for that reason, most people wait until the hearing. However, either way with him home or still in foster care, I would be devastated if that happened. If we didn‘t bring him home before the hearing, the difference would be that I would never have had the chance to hold him for more than 2 hours, to sing to him, to comfort and care for him throughout the night, or to rock him gently to sleep as I told him this story of the miracle of his journey to us and ours to him.
My dream was about a girl we both know. When we first moved into our house eleven years ago, she was four years old, and almost every day since that first day she knocked on our door to see if anyone could come out and play, she visited us. She was like our adopted niece and shadow. Now, she is a teenager, and we hardly ever see her. In my dream, she had a baby and was not ready to be a parent, so she wanted us to adopt this baby. At one point in my dream, she complained about the baby being a hyper child, and all of a sudden, he was a rambunctious 8-year old boy, jumping on top of a table (my dreams are weird that way sometimes, like a play with no transitions between scenes). I reminded her that she was no picnic at that age either, and then all of a sudden Dave and I were driving on a path in a golf cart next to a lake to go and visit our baby. It was a completely silly and funny dream, and it gave us both a good laugh, until later that night as we were talking about the most important decision in our lives, and the dream became an indication of the future.
Later that day, I was teaching my second math class. The kids were working together on a project, and I was walking around the room like a waitress with 23 customers, helping, observing, reminding, motivating, and pushing them to learn when the phone rang. The phone ringing during class is not unusual, so I had no inkling about the impact this call would have as I picked up the phone. I said hello, and in response I heard Marilyn’s voice. She said, "Alice? Hold on. Your doctor is on the other line, just a minute." In the split second that it took for her to transfer the call, I felt a flash of confusion. I hadn’t been to see the doctor since last October. My doctor greeted me and then said, "Are you sitting down?" So I sat down with a little twinge of fear. The fleeting thought occurred to me that maybe she discovered that our miscarriage in October really was due to cancer, and she had recently found new evidence; and so when she told me about the baby who was born yesterday, I was understandably slow to comprehend. She explained further. "The birth mother wants him to be adopted. He’s healthy. He’s beautiful. She didn’t have prenatal care before last week because I think the birth mother just didn’t want to face the fact that she was pregnant, but she wants him to have a good home. She asked me to help her with this, because she wants a completely closed adoption. I thought of you immediately."
"Wow, I’d better sit down," I thought. Oh, I was already sitting down. I wanted to say yes, what’s next. I wanted to say, no, we’re not ready. We were in the pre-beginning stages of this complicated process called adoption. She must have heard my thoughts because she explained how she would help us find a lawyer to help us through the process, so I thanked her for calling and told her I would call her back after I had spoken to my husband. Wow! The rest of the day was a blur, but I do remember that I did manage to reach Dave by phone at work to tell him of this miracle. My husband, more cautious than I, told me we would talk about it that evening when we got home. So we talked when we both got home that night, and in our conversation he reminded me of my dream. We recalled our last pregnancy and figured that this baby was born right around the time our baby would have been born had he survived. We decided to call and tell my doctor that, yes, we were 100% sure that we wanted this baby. And then the phone rang, right then. Just like it would happen in a movie, it was our lawyer calling to give us more information about how we would begin this wonderful journey - another sign that this was meant to be.
Since then we have spent a handful of hours with our son, Carson, who is right now in foster care with a very nice family an hour drive away. Every time we visit, it gets harder and harder to leave. The foster mother is very strict about her time, and I have been fighting my feelings of jealousy; but it isn’t easy when she tells me things like he smiled at her, even though she adds it might have just been gas. I just have to keep telling myself that this was meant to be, and that God has a reason for answering our prayers in ways we least expect, and then I think back to one more mystical detail of our experience so far that solidifies my feelings that everything is going to happen like it should.
The detail is from the first trip we took to the foster home to see Carson. We had already spent time with him in the hospital that weekend and had met the foster parents when they picked him up the day before at the hospital, but this was the first day that we were visiting him in the foster home. We were driving into Manitowoc past this impressive, modern-looking complex. We were speculating about what it might be when my husband commented that they had a nice wide path on the grounds, and it looked like it was made for golf carts. Just then, I looked to my right and we were passing a small lake called Silver Lake, and that last, seemingly meaningless part of my dream came rushing back to me. "It’s my dream!" I shouted. My husband looked at me startled and concerned that I had finally completely lost my mind, and then I explained it to him because I had not told him the golf cart and lake part of my dream before. He accepted it as a matter of fact, another sign that this baby was meant to be.
Now our home study is done, and our court hearing is scheduled for the 23rd of May. After that date, the birth parents can no longer change their minds, and even though for 6 months after that we are considered a temporary placement before there is a finalization hearing, May 23rd will be the day we can begin truly rejoicing that he is ours. We have the option of having him come home sooner, and that is an opportunity that I am taking. I start my leave on May 16th, and ironically, now that we have a set date, it is harder to wait. I am more antsy for our lives to begin. It’s only 6 days away, but this wait seems longer than any I have ever endured. What will be nice about having him come home the week before our hearing, because it is before the hearing, we will have a week with our baby that will be just ours before the flood of well-wishing friends and relatives begins.
We have been cautioned that if the birth parents change their minds that it is harder to accept once the baby has been home, and for that reason, most people wait until the hearing. However, either way with him home or still in foster care, I would be devastated if that happened. If we didn‘t bring him home before the hearing, the difference would be that I would never have had the chance to hold him for more than 2 hours, to sing to him, to comfort and care for him throughout the night, or to rock him gently to sleep as I told him this story of the miracle of his journey to us and ours to him.
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