Danielle's Story: All About Adoption

I'm not really sure where to start. We have been married for almost 11 years. I've never been very sentimental or sappy. Not that it's bad to be, I'm just not. I also have a hard time writing about emotion, since I don't have a good emotional memory, and mostly I just lack the right words. But I guess I can start from when we started our successful adoption process. I tried writing about everything leading up to it, but a lot of it is personal and would take a book to explain. Also, sorry if this is disjointed. There's a little guy distracting me as I try to write.

We always knew we wanted a family, but for lots of reasons knew it would be difficult to have children biologically. After having little success through one "affordable" adoption agency and deciding against (at least at this time in our lives) the foster to adopt option, we decided to meet with an adoption attorney who came highly recommended to us. She worked often with an attorney in Arizona, which has favorable adoption laws.

Upon our first meeting, she told us we were in luck because she had a baby who was already born and we were the perfect couple because of where we lived. The baby was 29 weeks old, had an older sibling who had been adopted and lived nearby, and the birth mother wanted her second child to be near the first. Long story short, there were too many unknowns and too many other people involved so it just didn't work out.

Adoption can be tricky and take a very long time. There are may options, some more expensive than others. It takes time to sift through, and try out many of different options, discover that it doesn't work for you, then research and try the next. So needless to say, unless you're rolling in the dough, it's not always easy if you want to adopt an infant.

Then, in early June, I had a call asking if we would be interested in a Navajo baby boy that was due in September. I got really excited! "Yes!" I thought right away, but I needed to check with my husband. I called him right up and we decided we wanted to be considered. I suddenly really wanted this baby. All of the other potential babies we had been presented with would have all been fine, but this one really interested me. I don't know why, it just felt good.

In just a few days we received notification that the birth mother had picked us!! We were surprised, excited and nervous. Past experience taught us not to count your eggs before they hatch, so we were hesitant to get excited. It would be a long time before he was born, and the birth mother could change her mind for any reason, at any time.

So we waited. Every two weeks or so we'd talk with the birth mom on the phone. She had 2 older children from previous relationships and was just not in a position to take care of another child at that time. She wanted to meet us before the baby was born, and rightly so! I cannot imagine how difficult it would be to try to choose someone to raise your child. She clearly loved this baby very much, and wanted the best for it.

We traveled to Phoenix to meet her for the first time. Getting there was an adventure. We were to fly out the evening before our meeting and of course the flight was cancelled. They loaded us all onto a hot plane for 2 hours, only to tell us it was broken so we all got off. Luckily they flew in a plane (4 hours later) to get us to Atlanta (where we spent more time trying to get a hotel than we actually slept in it), and finally made it to Phoenix with only 10 minutes until the meeting.

It was really nice. We spent the morning having breakfast with her and her social worker (all birth moms have one through this agency) and her sister and son. We then were able to go to one of her doctor's appointments and hear the baby's heartbeat. She was insistent that we feel involved in her experience and we were grateful that she wanted us to be a part of it. Many situations you just fly in for the birth and fly out, so it was nice to get to know her and see that she wanted us to feel included. We spent the next day exploring a museum with her and her son. It was a lot of fun and a good way to get to know her.

Then it was back to New Hampshire for more waiting. We felt our meeting with the birth mother went well. She was very kind and beautiful. Her kids were adorable so we knew this baby would be! Not that it really matters, but trust me, when you're working with a ton of unknowns on a thing that's entirely out of your control, anything "known" is good.

We knew the baby was due on September 7, and the birth mother really waned us to be there for it. All signs pointed to an early delivery so we returned to Phoenix on August 31 to wait some more. We waited and waited and nothing. So another meeting was arranged to spend some tine with the birth mother. On the day of the 4th of September we had lunch together and joked about ways to start labor.

Well, that night we had a call from the social worker around 7:30pm telling us to stay tuned, as she was heading to the hospital soon. Mexican food must have worked ;). We waited for confirmation and around 10:30pm, we got the call to head in--she was in labor!!!

Now I'm personally not a fan of hospitals and medical things, (they creep me out!) so going to witness a delivery, I wasn't quite sure what to think. I could barely watch "A Baby Story" on TLC. But I sucked it up and made it through.

Our mom made having a baby look easy. When we arrived she was definitely uncomfortable and her contractions were giving her a lot of pain. Enter the epidural. She got one and immediately went to sleep. We crowded together on a little bench to wait. By 5am, she was at 8 cm. They gave her some Pitocin to move things along and by 6am she was ready to go. Since she couldn't feel anything they did a test push and the baby almost came right out then! The delivery crew was called in and at the next contraction, out he came!! One push!!! Amazing! The whole thing was just amazing, I can't describe it. Even if she changed her mind and decided to keep him, I couldn't blame her and was glad that, not only did I not pass out, I found the whole experience marvelous to see.

As soon as he was out, they called my husband over to cut the cord, another experience we never thought he'd have. It was so wonderful that she was willing to be so open with us, and make this our experience. I was torn between being with the baby and staying with his mother. Tears were shed by all.

Graham came into the world with a full head of hair and full lungs! He didn't waste anytime screaming at the top of them. He weighed 8 pounds 4 ounces and was 19.5 inches long. He was also born with a club foot.

While we didn't know about this congenital defect, it didn't make us love him any less, and in fact, we believe it helped the birth mother solidify her decision to give him to us, since it was one more thing she was not currently equipped to deal with. And with club feet it's important to have regular, consistent treatment, which can be expensive.

We then got the spend the next 2 nights and days in the room with the baby and the birth mother. We got to know her more and spend precious time together. We also got to meet some more of her family members. Many of them did not understand her choice, but she did not allow anyone to chide her for it. She was determined to give her son a life that she could not herself. And for that we will be eternally grateful.

Leaving the hospital was quite emotional. Our happiest day, probably her worst. Tears were, once again, shed by all.

AZ adoption laws allow termination of parental rights to be signed 72 hours after birth. But because he was a Native American, we had to wait 10 days and have an ICWA hearing!! Include the weekend, and we had to wait 12 days before he was officially ours, during which time the birth mom could pull out.

It sounds like this story is perfect, and everything just fell into place. In hindsight, it really did. Even leading up to it, we felt things "working out", but we still couldn't get our hopes up. Due to the distance of travel (to and from AZ twice) and the time needed to try to be there for the birth, then to wait for papers to be signed we spent about a month total in Arizona. We had an awesome support in our social worker as well. She held us all together.

Everything leading up to it was an emotional roller coaster. We were invested in this emotionally and financially and if it failed, we would lose on both. The birthmother, while ultimately sincere, was also trying to benefit from the arrangement, and a few times her motives were questionable and a lot of worry was caused.

In almost any other part of the country this would have been difficult. This is how the Lord works wonders. My husband just happened to have a cousin that he knew well, who lived just outside of Phoenix. He and his wife were due with their baby in November and had just purchased a house not far from their apartment, and their lease was not up until November. So not only did we have an empty apartment (with washer/dryer- essential with a baby) to stay in, we also had some baby stuff to borrow (car seat, bassinet) while we were there. And Target and Walmart were just down the road for the other bare essentials. My mother-in-law also lives just a short flight away and had just received a ton of unexpected vacation days from work, so she was able to come down and help out. So not only were our already high expenses reduced, we had family nearby for help and support. I forgot to mention I have 2 sisters who had baby boys just 3 weeks before- so he has 2 cousins the same age!

It is amazing how many things had to fall into place for this to work. Sure, we had to wait 5 years from when we started hoping for adoption, but it allowed us to save the funds we needed to make it happen. We had to go through a lot of trial and error before we had success. But through that trial we learned a lot, and got to know a lot of people who were able to give us advice and guide us in this direction. It also was time which created the situation for this baby to be placed with us. All of it is so amazing.

Through this experience I hope I learned a little bit of trust and patience. It did strengthen my testimony of prayer. We literally felt the love and support of friends and family who were praying and fasting for us. It was indescribable.

And now we have this beautiful boy to love and protect. We will do our best to make sure he knows how much his birth mother loved him. We want him to know about his culture and his family in Arizona. But the most wonderful thing will be when the adoption is finalized by the state of NH (6 months after placement) and he can be sealed to us for time and all eternity! It will be the best day ever!

Such a happy boy!

Danielle did not ask us to post this, but I'm going to in case there are people out there with giving hearts. Adoption (and having children in general) is a huge financial toll on any family. If you have $5 or $10 to spare, please consider donating to Danielle's family via this link to help them out. Just think about how fast they would reach their goal if everyone gave just $5 or $10. Think about it! And ask yourself if you've done any good in the world today yet. If not, here is a prime opportunity!

If you have any questions for Danielle about adoption or something else, please comment or let us know!