Thursday, February 20, 2014

Our Adoption Story: Placement Day

Rich and I stayed at the hospital most of the day on Feb 9, 2013. We left long enough to get dinner and to check into our hotel.

There was a lot of talking with Dana, being her emotional support. There were feedings, and spit ups, dirty diapers and cuddling of the baby. I asked Dana if she wanted me to stay in the room with her. She said she was going to send the baby to the nursery for the night so she could get some rest, but I could stay if I wanted to. As hard as it was, I decided to go to the hotel. I wanted to make sure she had the time and space she needed without feeling pressure from us. So we left around 10:00p telling Dana we would be back around 8:00a the next morning.

We got to the hotel and off loaded our luggage and pretty much CRASHED into bed. To say it had been a long day was an understatement. We set the alarm for 7:00a and quickly fell asleep.

I woke in a PANIC when I looked at the clock and saw it was after 8:00a.  Our alarm hadn't gone off (later we realized it was set wrong, it was reading 8p, not 8a).  I flew out of bed yelling at Rich. I have never showered so fast in my life. I called Dana to tell her we had over slept but were on our way.

We stopped to get her breakfast, and us too, on the way in. Gotta love McD's breakfast...its one of champions! :)  We got to the hospital a little after 9:00a and went straight to her room.  She was itching to get out, had already called her lawyer to see when he would be there so she could sign the papers and leave. Again, my job was to be there for her. There were special moments for us. Moments where it was just her and I outside under a tree talking. Moments with her and I and the baby. Moments of tears, hugs and back rubs. Moments of heart ache, from both of us.  There is no way to express the selfless act of love this woman was able to show us and her son, now our son. The unwavering courage to give us the child we had longed for. I cannot express my thanks to her enough.

Soon enough her lawyer arrived. He introduced himself to Rich and I, Dana had stepped outside. I explained some of the things Dana had stated to me, just so he would get a sense of what she was feeling in that moment. When she came back into the room, we were asked to leave. Before we left, we got a few pictures of Dana with the baby, and some of all 4 of us together. We were then shown to the waiting room and told the lawyer would join us soon.

As we passed the nurses station, we were given a moment with our son. Since we were not given hospital bands, we could not be alone with him. We talked with the nurse for a little while and then headed to the waiting room.

So we waited. As the court reporter, witness and lawyer were with Dana, we waited. While Rich and I were talking, he looked up and said "there she goes". WHAT? What was he talking about? "Dana, she just got wheeled by". And just like that she was gone. We didn't know, we didn't know that we wouldn't see her again. We didn't know that we wouldn't be able to tell her face to face THANK YOU, thank you for making our dream of being parents become a reality. We didn't know we wouldn't see her after we left the room. Things we wanted to say, didn't get said. No one told us this is how it was going to happen.  I didn't know what to make of it, or how to feel about it. But I do know we were both very sad we didn't get a proper good bye with her!

Not long after, the lawyer came in and we signed the paper work. It was official. We were now the legal guardians of Baby Boy _____, aka Mitchell Anton Rupanovic. In Florida the paperwork is irrevocable upon signing, meaning the birth family could not change their mind, so he was OURS. What a bitter sweet moment! 

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