Tuesday night was a fury of activity getting ready to go. Laney called me and offered to take off of work to drive down with me. I was so relieved. I hate driving long distances by myself! And I'm so thankful she did. I only got about 3 hours of sleep and by the time I drove a couple of hours, I was completely spent. Laney took the wheel from that point on, and its a good thing since I was on the phone quite a bit. I talked back and forth with the adoption agencies involved. The birth mom was to sign that morning, but later found out it wouldn't happen until after lunch. When we arrived, they had literally just finished all the paperwork and that it would be an hour or so until we were cleared to visit her in the hospital. So, Laney, H & I drove to a nearby shopping mall and met J and his dad. A couple of hours later, we started making phone calls because we still had not heard anything. They told us they should be in touch shortly. We decided to go check-in to our hotel and wait there.
At this point, I was beginning to get anxious. It was nearing 5 pm and I was afraid everything would be put on hold till the next morning. I finally spoke with Courtney, our adoption consultant and she said to try them one more time and she would call the agency as well. I called one last time and she said that the hospital had not confirmed that everything was in place, but it should be, so we could head on over if we wanted to. Um.... why yes we would! She instructed us to go to the nursery and tell them we were adopting the baby girl born on 10/31. "What?, did you say Oct 31?" She assured me that was the birth date. Well what a surprise because we had been told it was Nov 1!
It took about 30 minutes to arrive. Just inside we asked the volunteers at the information desk how to get to the nursery. "We don't have a nursery." She replied. What? OK, maybe they have separate women's center somewhere. Or maybe she is teasing me. I really couldn't tell. The gentleman asked "Are you here to see a newborn?" "Yes Sir." "Well what's the name?" as he starts to check his patient roster. I almost replied, 'I can give you a name but you won't find it on that list'. Now was not the time for sarcasm, so I explained our situation. To which the woman replies, "Oh, well then we will show you to the nursery", as she points to a teen age volunteer. Um, excuse me, didn't you just say you don't have a nursery? Anyway, the young girls escorts us to the elevator and explains to us where to go. Let's just say it was a very secure area. You don't just walk into this hospital and visit a newborn. You must call the nurse's station and tell them why you are there and then you can be buzzed in.
So we explain on the phone why we are there and they buzz us in. I felt very awkward. The nursing secretary was just staring at us. We had to present ID and have copies made and wait for verification that it was ok for us to see her. It really only took a few minutes, but it did feel like forever.
As we waited I kept wondering what did she look like, was she really ok? etc.... At this point, we had no information about physical characteristics of the birth parents. Now I really didn't care what she looked like, but naturally I wondered. They took us just around the corner to a small nursery. She was the only baby there with her nurse. We spoke to the nurse, but I couldn't help but stare in her direction trying to get a glimpse. And when I did, I was in awe. She was perfectly beautiful in every way. It literally took my breath away because I didn't expect it! And boy was she tiny!
Going in to see her for the first time!
The cameras were going off like crazy. Her nurse was so sweet and filled us in on how she was doing. Within about 10 minutes she asked if we would like to be placed in a room and spend the night with her as long as the DR gave the ok! Well, sure! Within about 20 minutes we were set up in our very own private hospital room.
What I learned is that the hospital doesn't operate a standard nursery. When we took her to the room, they "Closed" the nursery. It is only used as needed with babies that need monitoring. Thus the incident at the information desk.
Her sweet nurse, Mona
We didn't get any sleep that night to speak of. She had an IV in and that was hard to deal with . Around 3 am I was second guessing myself. Maybe we should have gone to the hotel for one last good sleep! When the day shift nurses came in they started talking about discharge. We didn't expect it at all and told them we had no idea. Well by 10 am, the doctor made her rounds and said there was no reason she shouldn't be discharged! We had to leave her at the hospital to go sign all of our paper work just after lunch. There was some confusion between hospital personnel and the agency, but we finally got it all worked out and the case worker came out and signed the discharge documents and carried her out of the hospital where she was then handed over to us.
Finally, our start as a family of 4 was beginning!
2 comments:
OK, now I'm all in tears over here. What a beautiful story and congratulations! If you want to commiserate about lack of sleep just call me.
God always had a plan (the perfect plan) to grow your family.
Thank you for sharing. I cannot wait to see more pictures of your family of 4!!!
Post a Comment