Our Adoption Story - Part Two

This is Part Two of our story. Part One is here. How we ended up at part one of the adoption story is here.

We respect the privacy of our birth mother - her story is not ours to tell. Our circumstances did not allow us to meet our birth mother, so we cannot speak for her. Her decision to set up an adoption plan was hers and one that we will spend our lifetime being grateful for. This blog post is a continuation of our story. There are certain pieces of the story omitted due to privacy. I apologize in advance for the jumping around in the story, that's just how I roll. :)

We thought the "in-the-pool-waiting-game" was a roller coaster ride, but obviously we were in for a much more intense ride. Intense, as in..."holy smokes, we have a newborn, what is going on around here?!" and jumping when the phone rings, terrified that it will be a "change of heart" call. You have long conversations with your social worker about the feelings of everyone involved.  You worry about this precious baby every second of the day. Is she breathing? Why didn't she poop today? Where are my pants? That kind of thing - normal parent worries.

After spending the night in the hospital with baby, we were exhausted and smitten. We were also ready to go home. In our haste to jump on the plane and get to the hospital, we had packed only a day's worth of "stuff". Even funnier, we didn't have any newborn clothing for our wrinkled little scowler. The previous "false alarm" calls had prepared us a little bit, which meant that we had a couple pieces of clothing and the best we could do on such short notice was a 3 month boy outfit.  Our nurses were so helpful, they raided the "nursery bin" for an outfit and hat to fit baby. I'm not sure if we expressed our gratitude to our nurses during our stay, but they were amazing. I remember commenting to el husbando that they treated us as if we were parents who had just given birth. I wonder if (at the time) we didn't see ourselves as "parents" yet. And honestly, I was in a daze.

Around noon, a lady came in with a vehicle seat on wheels to show us how to put the baby (a doll) in the car seat. Thank goodness for her, because we would've touched down in Anchorage even more clueless than when we'd left the day before. We took her lesson seriously. Did I mention that we had no idea what we're in for? Somewhere in the ginormous application process, there was a list of "parenting" classes. Judging from el husbando's diaper changing skills, we should have taken those. But that's another story.

We were booked for a five pm flight to head home - we just needed the okay from the doctor and social worker. It was kind of a humorous meeting with the social worker - she handed us a stack of papers (yes, more paperwork) to review and sign. We discussed and  signed everything...then I looked at them and asked, "that's it...we just sign and you let us take her home?" She laughed and made the comment that they knew where to find us. We also had the discussion regarding a "change of heart" and what would be required of us in that situation. In our CSS workshop we learned several things about relinquishment and changes of heart in Alaska. Here is a super-brief-non-official synopsis:

• Relinquishment of birth rights can be signed at birth (or before - or after) but there is a ten day "change of heart" period after the relinquishment is signed. This means that the birth parent(s) can change their mind at any time during this period.
• In the case of a child of American Indian and/or Alaska Native descent, ICWA laws dictate that relinquishment cannot be signed for AT LEAST ten days after the birth of the child and it must be signed in front of a judge. Then there are TEN MORE DAYS for the "change of heart" period.

And so it began...we were in the latter group. In our minds, we were counting twenty days. Twenty days before we knew whether this would be "our child". Again, we were optimistic - our job was to bond with this child - to make sure she was safe and loved. Did I mention that we named her? So technically, we were already bonding. She wasn't actually given a name at birth and we happened to have a wonderful name (with a fabulous acronym - BAMR) for her.  However, I'm fairly certain that we've called her Pickle since the beginning. :)

How long did it take us to form a bond? About 20 seconds, maybe? (On our first post-placement visit with our Anchorage social worker she told me that our baby knew our heartbeats within four hours of meeting. Pretty powerful stuff, these little miracles are.)


But I digress...we were ready to leave the hospital on Day Two. We had baby bundled up and ready to fly home. We were nervous as heck, it's a good thing all of the "aunties" were just waiting to get their hands on her. Here's the precious cargo en route to Anchorage - she slept the entire flight in my arms.

My Mom had called on Day One and asked if she should come up to help us. I wasn't sure she should...I didn't want her falling in love with this little girl, while the possibility of her not staying with us permanently was hovering over our heads. El Husbando demanded that I let her come up, probably because he knows me pretty well. He probably figured that I was going to "need my Mommy" too. He's pretty smart, that one...I should probably give him more credit.

We had some ups and downs in the first two weeks. I can only describe it as "waiting for the ball to drop". We had zero control over the process and tried not to dwell on the fact that we didn't know if we would be her forever home or if circumstances would change. It was a scary time in our little world. We were in constant communication with our social worker, giving her daily updates on baby's progress and receiving her updates on birth mom*.  The first few weeks were a blur of sleep, eat, poop, repeat...I remember at one point I was in the middle of trying to eat a hunter stick and she was crying for food, so I stuck the hunter stick in my sports and fed her. Classy, I know. That's pretty much how our first few weeks went.

When Pickle was two weeks old, I discovered an amazing photographer - I walked by her booth at a show and was entranced with her dreamy photos. I told her our story and that we weren't sure if she would be our forever home, but I wanted to do a newborn photo shoot anyway. It was such limbo, but I figured that I would wish I had them done either way... Photo by Hanna of Relic Photographic.

Then we decided that we couldn't be cooped up in the middle of winter with a new baby...waiting to find out if we would be her forever home.I did what any Alaskan with some time off does...I called Alaska Airlines and asked if we could change our tickets from the week before (yep, we were scheduled to be in AZ golfing and "not thinking about adoption" the week of our placement). I explained the story to the agent and she was so sweet and had adopted her daughter...we chatted for a half hour while she changed our tickets. When she told me the change fee was only $7, I'm pretty sure I cried. We had to let our social worker know of our plans and she reiterated the "you know, if there's a change of heart, you have to come right back". Oh yes, let me tell you...you are FULLY aware of this period of time. I look back now and realize that she must have had a lot of faith in us.

Off to Arizona we went...the two week old Pickle slept in this amazing shirt through all of the flights and barely made a peep. We spent a sunny week in Arizona...el husbando golfed to his heart's content and Mommy read books in the pool while Pickle slept. Luckily, Grandma was there to take extra special care of all three of us. On the day...the day that birth mom would arrive in court to sign relinquishment, we held our breath. The call came in at 6PM - relinquishment had been signed and was now awaiting the judge's signature. At the time, we didn't realize that it may take a while for the judge to get around to our file...six weeks to be exact. It took six weeks before we knew if we could begin the process to be her forever home - we could breathe again...for awhile. The process would take a minimum of six months from placement to finalization.

After placement, there are three required post-placement visits with your social worker: at one, three, and six months. The first week we were home, the ladies from CSS stopped by informally to snuggle the baby. I was mortified when they arrived - I hadn't showered recently and I was kinda loopy, but it was so sweet to see the ladies with baby. At each visit, we discussed everything from eating to pooping...by then we were very comfortable with our social worker, so the conversations were pretty candid. I distinctly remember feeling like I had to "impress" her with Pickle's new milestones. At the six month visit, we became "officially" approved to move forward with the adoption. Shortly thereafter, they set a date for finalization. On October 1, 2013, we visited the courthouse, where we finalized our adoption. It was an amazingly calm day and we were lucky enough to have some of our Alaska "family" in attendance. Our favorite social workers were there supporting us too.

Finalization Day!

Did I ever mention that el husbando and I just left our jobs that day with an unknown return time? When I received the first phone call about showing our portfolio, I ran into my bosses office to spread the news. Then a few hours later, I ran back in there hyperventilating and said "oh, sh*t...I'm leaving! I'll be back in a few days, ten days, a couple weeks, I don't know...". They were amazing and supportive.

We will forever be grateful for everyone who was along for the "ride" on this journey. The love and support from our family, friends, social workers, and even some strangers made it all possible. Thank you!

xo,
Dee

*We had no contact with birth mom, so we can't discuss what her feelings were/are.