What a long year it has been! I haven't written for quite some time as our adoption story was 1. complicated 2. contested after the birth parents signed and 3. painful. Two weeks ago, Dash's adoption was finalized. A bitter and sweet journey, it is far beyond an experience I ever imagined. As always, I like to share my life so that others can hopefully learn something to gain knowledge, peace or simply the hope and comfort that they are not alone.
Dash was born on a Tuesdayish. Noelle and Richard, his birth parents had been working with two couples. They took a total of $30,000 from us and another couple. This is fraud. This is a crime. Baby Dash was also born with a few additional health items that Noelle had omitted. They told so many lies in our interaction with them, it was hard to distinguish what was real and what was real to just them. I sat waiting for my delayed plane in Chicago to fly to Jacksonville with a blanket of friends and family comforting me. Texts of prayer, love and encouragement. I was at the beginning stages of exhaustion but just didn't know it. I had found myself and my husband in a tangled web of deceit, lies and thousands of dollars for one, new little life.
My father bought Jon and I next day plan tickets as we (not really) prepared to meet our 3 week early baby boy. I had an interview in Kalamazoo, which my dad drove me to, then drove me another almost two hours to the airport. I changed from a conservative, black suit to a pair of jeans I don't remember. My bag toppled over as I was trying to search for something and I sat down next to my dad. I was everything all at once: tired, angry, scared, hungry, not hungry, guarded, frightened to be hopeful. My dad told me I didn't have to leave right then. I could get another flight. If you don't know already, I have an amazing dad. As I grow older, I cherish each new moment where I feel 5 again and he is my hero, my safety and I believe he has the hidden power to make everything better. In between a sobbing mess, I asked my dad why all of this was happening to all of me. I tried my best to do everything right. I followed Catholic teaching, I didn't break any rules. Why does simply wanting to have a baby, hurt so very much? He cried too. Do you know why parents cry? It isn't because they hurt. My dad at that moment, couldn't be my hero and he knew it. He saw me in pain and couldn't take it away. He couldn't explain it, he couldn't fix it and while none of it was his to fix, he wanted those hidden magical powers.
With a puffy face and crumbled tissues, I approached the security line. A very nice guard, whipped out a box of Kleenex and told me she was going to pray for me. I should also mention that as I checked in, a question popped up on my screen, "Will an infant be traveling on your lap?" Not today. Not today. All the security guards that day were ungraciously kind to me. Another one handed me more Kleenex and asked if I was okay. They wanted to say something.
A rosary in my pocket and a People gossip laden magazine, I boarded the plane to the next dimension of my life.
We awoke to a 7 am text message that Noelle wanted breakfast. And a robe. I showered after 5 hours of sleep, called Cracker Barrel with a 2 page list of food and stumbled through WalMart trying to find a robe for the woman that just had my baby but I'm not sure if its my baby. We went to the hospital and waited two hours before I saw him for the first time. I watched Noelle and Richard eat their pancakes and sausage patties, talk about how awful the other parents were because the dad was singing Beautiful Boy by John Lennon and the mom didn't know how to change a diaper (but I don't really know how to change a diaper either) and Dash won't stop crying (because his off button is broken) and she just wants her methadone. Again. And they had to smoke another cigarette before they went back to the hospital room.
The nurse wheeled him into the room and he was sound asleep. I don't really know much about newborns so they kinda frighten me. I don't want to break them. Is he mine? Should I think about him being mine? She won't sign the papers until Tara (our adoption coordinator) arrives in four days. What if we get kicked out because we like Johnny Cash? I give Noelle a custom made necklace. She loves it and throws it around her neck. "That other mom, she gave me a bag from a nurse's convention. She didn't even bring me flowers or anything. Can you believe that? I mean, I was giving her a baby."
What I struggle with on some days is what to say. What to say to others when they ask about our adoption. What to say when they ask why Dash is so small or why his birth parents chose adoption. Do we have an open adoption? So everything is over, right? He is yours, right? What do I say to my son who wants to know about Noelle and Richard that gave him life, chose us as his parents and contested his adoption because they wanted more money? What do I say when Noelle wants to see him (she already asked)?
Adoption isn't perfect and most times, it breaks our hearts and fulfills them at the same time. Through all of this pain that came with this journey, I have great love from a little baby who looks up at me with joy as I turn the page in his Good Night Moon book. What do I say when I think of Noelle? She chose life. She chose us. She created a family.
The desires of our hearts are not always perfectly faceted when they become what they were meant to be. I cried on the phone to my priest and begged him to enlighten me, to say something, anything that would make me understand why our adoption had such a different face than I imagined. He said, "Heidi, Jesus calls you to His cross. It is all in His plan to love you."
"It is love alone that gives worth to all things," St. Therese of Avila.
So in five or ten or twenty years, when Dash asks his mama about his adoption, I will say anything that reflects love and kindness.
To every person, known and unknown that prayed for our little family, I offer all our suffering to you for whatever tugs at your hearts and will remain irrevocably in your debt. In our hearts you will always be!
