(Read Part 1 & Part 2)
We thought that our rollercoaster ride was over and it was-- for a while. We had an AMAZING year with our daughter. She was our complete focus every single day. I'm sure that I was a bit overprotective, but I suppose that is expected with your first. Especially as hard as we had worked for her!
As her first birthday approached, I started an approach, too. I began working on my husband for our second child. I know that sounds crazy-- but with adoption, you don't know how long it may take. It's not like it is for some families, in that they decide to "go for another one," and a month or two later they are pregnant. We could update our homestudy and get back on the list with our agency once our daughter turned one-- and that's what I intended to do.
My husband was a little hesitant. "Let's wait a while," was his response.
I was not game, "It could take two years or more! I don't want them to be too far apart."
I finally convinced him and a few months after her birthday, (which happened to be completely over the top) we were updating our homestudy. A homestudy expires after a year, so you have to go through all of the paperwork and home visits again. We finished that around the summer/fall of 2010 and we were on the list again.
I'm sure that our social worker was so thankful that this was our second child, because I didn't have quite so much time to call her to ask for birthmother updates! My nephew was also born in the fall, so that took some of my attention as well. Christmas came and went, and at the beginning of 2011, we got a phone call.
*A Little Backstory*
Nick's parents had some long-time friends who had a daughter not much older than us. She and her family had moved back to her husband's hometown in Illinois. She and I had met a few times because she would visit Nick's parents when she came home and she had 4 boys fairly close in age. So we were acquaintances, but had not had much time to become close.
SO-- we get a phone call at home and I answer, and it's her. She explains that she knows of a birthmother that may want to give her baby up for adoption, and asks if we are interested.
ABSOLUTELY!
She explained that she was in a Bible study with a lady that owned a store, and this birthmother worked there. The lady had asked for prayer for her employee, as she needed direction as to what to do. She instantly thought of us, but wanted to see if we were interested.
WOW!
I am going to tell you right now that I would never have guessed the ways in which our babies came to us. It is completely and totally the work of God's hand. It is too crazy to be anything else.
I told her that we were absolutely interested and she confessed that she didn't know the next step. I told her that I would email her our profile and to see if she would get it to the birthmother. If the birthmother was interested, we would go from there. This began a crazy time of texts and phone calls. Information came fourth hand-- all correspondance would go from me to her to the lady in her Bible study, to the birthmother... and then in reverse.
The birthmother finally got our profile and wasn't sure what to do-- she had been talking to an agency in California, but didn't feel good about it. Then she was questioning going with us because her parents told her that the South was racist, and her baby boy was biracial.
My heart sank.
What can I do to assure her that it is not that way? We spent a lot of time praying and hoping, all the while knowing that it could fall through. Finally, I heard that she thought that she wanted to go with us, and could she call me?
PLEASE!!!
I will never forget that phone call. "Are you interested in adopting my baby?"
Once again, it was awkward, yet comfortable. She told me any details that she could, and shared that she hadn't been sure what to do, when her five-year-old daughter brought our profile book to her and said, "These are going to be the parents of the baby."
Out of the mouths of babes, right?
I found out that he was due in April, and she promised to keep me posted with doctor's visits. We contacted an attorney there and had the birthmother meet with her. The meeting went well, so we were on our way. The birthfather was known, but not well. Since we couldn't contact him to terminate his birth rights, we would have to run an ad in the paper for a week after the birth to see if he came forward.
I was texting with the birthmother every other day or so to check in on her, and now we were just planning, hoping, praying, and waiting.
It was a Saturday in February, and our daughter was spending the weekend with her grandparents. It was a normal day, when all of a sudden it hit me that I hadn't had a period in a while. After years of intense tracking, I kept up with it loosely, but we hadn't been on birth control in almost eight years. And for six of those years we had been actively trying to get pregnant.
I looked at my chart and realized that I was a week late but didn't think much of it. I remember rinsing dishes in the sink as Nick was leaving to do some Saturday work at the office. I said casually, "I'm a week late."
He kept walking, "Call me back when you are two weeks late."
It was that nonchalant.
And that was that-- I went on about my day, running errands and having some "me" time. I bought a cheap pregnancy test at Big Lots, just to get it over with-- I mean, I knew I wasn't pregnant, and I wasn't about to spend a lot of money on a test. I just wanted to get the test, get the negative sign, and move on with life.
I finished my errands and came home. I cleaned the house a little bit, and then remembered the test. I took it and went on about my cleaning. I ran back into the bathroom and glanced at the test and "CHIT!" as my friend Robin says.
It had two lines.
I quickly opened another one and took it.
Two lines.
I cannot even tell you what went through my mind at this point because it was blank. I was in a complete state of shock. I crawled in the bed and turned on the television, and that's where I was when Nick got home.
He came back to the bedroom and snidely remarked, "Looks like you did a lot today..."
"I'm pregnant."
*blank stare* "No, you're not."
"Yes, I am."
"How do you know?"
"I took a test."
"Where did you get it?"
Now was not the time to tell him that I had purchased it at Big Lots.
"Does it matter?" I asked.
*Husband exits stage left*
I found him in the living room blankly staring at the television. I grabbed my keys, walked out the door, and headed to Starbucks. I returned home, brought our coffee in and set it on the table next to him and asked, "Are you ready to talk now?"
It took a while for this to sink in-- for both of us. I made an appointment with the doctor. We told our immediate families-- and I finally got the "surprise factor" that I had wanted! We asked them to keep things quiet for a while, as we had a lot on our plate, and we had no idea what we would find out at the doctor. We went to the doctor and I remember saying, "Please tell me that there is only one heartbeat." I had always wanted twins, but now the thought made me a tad nauseous.
And there it was... one little teeny tiny heartbeat. I cannot even begin to tell you all of the emotions that flooded over me: excitement, anxiety, love, fear, amazement, uncertainty. All at once.
We met with the doctor and she said that we would follow the pregnancy as normal until about 18 weeks, where we would start a weekly progesterone shot to relax my uterus to hopefully prevent early labor. Now we had a plan... sort of.
I looked at Nick and asked, "What are we going to do now?"
"I guess we're going to have two babies."
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