This is not a feel good story. It does in fact have a happy ending, however it just isn't written yet. It will though, soon rather than later.
When we decided to do this bog in conjunction with the adoption we agreed that we would share everything about our process. Partially because its a confusing thing that most people simply just don't understand but also to help others out who might be considering taking a journey down this road. With this decision comes a lot of happy and exciting tales but unfortunately also comes with a lot of potential heartache, for all kinds of different reasons.
We both felt that this was an important story to tell even if its a hard one to tell. The day the baby was born was going to be bitter sweet no matter what the outcome. Either we were going to be taking a child away from their mother and she would have to live with that the rest of her life, or she would decide to keep her baby with her and we would be left on the outside looking in. Unfortunately the latter would hold true this time around.
On December 10th, my phone rang in the afternoon. It was Erin, the agency had just called her and told her our birth mother was headed to the hospital, she was having some contractions. At this point she didn't think the baby was actually on the way so we were told to just hang out and wait to see if the hospital admitted her and then it would be determined if we should grab our stuff and head to Dayton. Once I got home we decided that we would get everything packed up and ready to go in case we received word that she would be staying in the hospital and that this was all about to go down.
All evening and into the night we were in contact with the agency and with our birth mother, we had really formed a good relationship with her and usually talked to her a couple times a week via text messages, so at no point did we really feel out of the loop. She told us that she didn't think it was actually happening that night and to just stay home. We will never really know if that was actually the case or just step one in her reconsideration. Frankly it doesn't really even matter. So we went to bed wondering what was going to happen and if we would get a phone call in the middle of the night that would send us on a 3.5 hour drive down to Dayton.
The next morning we still had received no further word so we just went on as normal. We actually didn't even know if they had admitted her or not, they still had not as of about 11:30 the night before.
While on the way into work my phone rang again. It was Erin and she said that she just heard from Denise and that she had had the baby in the night, but had not contacted the agency yet, she told us that is usually not a good sign. I sat around in a daze for the next half hour or so at work until Erin called back.
The agency had talked to her and she was going to keep the baby. I'm not really sure what emotions I felt at that moment; mostly shock, disappointment and sadness I think, but not anger.
The agency gave Erin our birth mother's direct line at the hospital and encouraged her to call her, they do a pretty good job at holding the mothers accountable for their choices. This is how I know that Erin is a stronger person than I am, because there is no way I could have made that call.
It was a pretty short phone call. There were tears on both sides. She reassured Erin that this was never her plan but that it had all happened so fast and that once it did she just couldn't go through with it. Before anyone can judge her actions, just ask yourself if you could have a baby then immediately give it away to someone else and potentially never see them again. Neither of us ever could no matter what, so we understood. It hurt, bad, but we got it. She had been a large part of our life for three months and we had formed a pretty good bond so Erin also just wanted to say goodbye to her as well.
We'll never know what actually went on in her mind at the hospital that night or through her mind in the days before or after, but there also isn't anything we can do about it. When we decided to do this the secondary motivation was to be able to help out someone who was going through a rough patch in life.
Our friend Rob sent Erin a text a few days after and said that our actions have lasting results, it might be years down the road and we may never even know about it, but everything we do has a lingering effect, it was maybe the most comforting thing that we heard. And he's right we may never know the results, but we may have been the only people in her life telling her we were proud of her,that she was a good mother and that she can be successful. Maybe those simple encouragements will give her the confidence she needs to get on a successful path through life. Maybe we were put in her life to help her through her darkest times. We will never know, but if it is the case hopefully we will be rewarded for the struggles that we had to go through as a result.
Its been a rough couple of weeks, for me it sunk in right away, for Erin it took a week to really hit her. We decided that we just needed to get away and not be home for Christmas, mostly just because it was not going to be the Christmas it was supposed to be. Our families supported us, even though we know they didn't like it. We just got home from a nice 4 days in Canada. It was good to be with each other and having some fun without our phones even being on. No matter what happens we still have each other and we still live a great life. One day, hopefully soon, we will be able to share that life with our child.
That's it for now, hopefully more updates soon.
Hopefully only happy ones. I'm tired or writing sad stories. Thanks to everyone who has supported us all along the way and especially in the past couple weeks. 2013 can take a hike, on to better things in 2014!
Love wins,
Adam & Erin
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