The furniture will be here when?....(Jman's story Part 1)

At some point during the summer of 1998, we became pregnant.....

not in the sense that you are thinking, and in the way many of you have experienced.

Our pregnancy was one of the heart and began when we decided to 'let go and let God' lead us to Buckner Adoption and Maternity Services. (This journey would not be easy, we'd have one 'emotional miscarriage' before our first child was born however, that is another story as well. This story is of the joy of Jman!)

The 6,000 pages of paperwork were complete, the interviews, the background checks, the physical exams, the home study, the finances in order......all done! (Can't you think of some parents that should have gone through all of this to be 'approved' to parent!!) Finally, our "Dear Birth Parents" letter was in 'the book', waiting to be seen by those considering adoption as a loving alternative for their child. We were finally expecting!

How I wish our 'pregnancy' had lasted but a mere 9 months or less!! I don't know what it feels like to wait for a baby to grow in my womb but......it was so hard waiting for the one that was growing in my heart!!! (All things considered, that child had already been 'in there' for nearly 8 years as it was!! But, that is another story for another time!)

Friday, October 22, 1999.....Steve and I were sitting in a Burger King...I think it was.....having just left the title company. We had just closed on a brand new home that we had built in the Frisco area! We were so excited, talking and planning about the house when our cell phone rang. We had bought new furniture for the living room and reading/sitting area and wanted it delivered that afternoon. Boy, they were on the ball! Calling to tell us they were on their way!

Wrong thought! It was not the furniture store! It was a stork, um, Social Worker from the agency calling. I think I may have dropped the phone in my fries! She calmly asked what we were doing and where we'd be, and how we could be reached in the next couple of days....as they may need to get back in touch with us!! They had a birth mother who was reading and considering our profile letter! That is all we knew at that point.

OH MY GOSH!!! You expect a couch and loveseat and you get a call about a baby.......that could possibly be 'yours'! I'm not sure that we slept that night in the tiny apartment that was all packed up, all of our belongings anxiously awaiting the friends who would come the next morning to help us move. I'm sure that we couldn't have slept for the excitement and wondering that was building inside of us!

Saturday, October 23, 1999...Early morning, by 9:00, we were all beginning the hefty job of moving things down a flight of stairs from the apartment to the trucks waiting below.

The phone rings....the home phone...that hadn't been disconnected yet.

It was our stork....the SW that we were personally working with. With both of us on an extension, she began telling us about a baby boy that had been born 3 days before, on Wednesday, to a birth mother who had ALREADY SIGNED to place him for adoption. (No 48 hr. waiting period to endure!) She had chosen us to be his parents!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Jman's birth mother didn't contact the agency until after he was born. Many open adoptions begin with the birth mother choosing and meeting/matching with the potential parents some time period before the baby is born.)

I'm sure I didn't know how long that phone call lasted; my mind was reeling, my heart felt as though it would explode! She went on to tell us about his medical condition, and the concerns of his prenatal care. Tears streamed down my face as she asked, "Are you willing to consider adopting this baby? I can come meet with you tomorrow and tell you more."

I yelled, screamed, cried, jumped up and down for I don't know how long after we hung up! I already knew in my heart and spirit that we had just been hearing about and talking about 'our' baby! The one that we had prayed for and desperately cried out to God for for over 7 years! After the initial celebration was over, time to get back to the work of getting us moved!

Would we consider?!!! Praise God! We knew immediately the answer was yes and we wanted to know more. He was born in San Antonio and our SW had been there counseling with the birth mother, having papers signed, etc. She flew back in to Dallas and drove out to our new home Sunday evening.

There in our new living room, seated on our brand new furniture, among all the boxes and the partially assembled crib, she pulled out her file and this picture:
This was the first time we 'saw' this precious child! She told us about J, his birth mother, and about H, his birth father. How they were no longer together. They also had another child together, his sister H, who they were not parenting. She had been adopted by his paternal birth grandparents. They both had some problems and even legal issues and could not parent this child either. The grandparents did not feel that they could take on another child, nor would it be fair to either this baby or his sister they already had.

She told us to think, talk, and pray. To be sure and considered all that we knew about them and about this baby. And, to let her know if we felt this was our child. He would be in the hospital for a yet undetermined amount of time because he had been exposed to and born with salmonella bacterial poisoning in his little bloodstream. He was receiving IV antibiotic therapy.

I don't remember exactly what we did that night after our stork left. I know that we talked, and prayed, and probably cried some more! I'd be willing to bet that I eventually fell asleep with that baby's picture clung to my chest! We woke knowing that we needed to hurry and go get our baby! He needed us! But, even more so, we needed him!!!

I was teaching 3rd grade at the time. Monday morning, all my closest friends on campus had seen that picture and cried and prayed over it with me! I went to my principal and my best friend/co-teacher and told them both that I would be taking my leave within days!! Unlike a 'normal' pregnancy, you never known when a pregnancy of the heart will deliver. There is no way of knowing exactly in an open adoption when your water will break, when contractions will start, and when it's time to grab the bag and head out the door! My principal knew that I was expecting and.....that's all I could tell her at the beginning of the year!

The next couple of days were SOOOOO hard! Living so far away, not knowing when he would be discharged from the hospital, we waited for word from our stork that it was time to go! (I'll note here that apart from some close friends, not even our family knew this was going on. I'll explain why we chose not to tell them yet later.)
I busied myself with cleaning and unpacking. We didn't have much for a new baby as I never let myself buy or prepare much during the wait. We did get the crib back together and I packed a diaper bag with the essentials. After all we'd been through to get to this point, this time was so excruciating!!! I'd have moved a 1,000 mountains and crawled through hot lava to hurry and get to that baby!!!! Imagine, you didn't physically carry your child, physically deliver your child yet, you know that he is there.....only you can't touch him, hold him, feed him, love on him yet!!!

Well, by Wednesday, October 27, 1999, when that tiny angel was a week old, we were on our way to San Antonio to meet him and bring him home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Roughly an 18 month pregnancy....all well worth it in the end.......!!!)

(The rest of the story soon.............it's late........and I'm pooped! And, a little emotional, in a very good way, from reliving my 'labor'!! Let's see, up to now, we'd been in labor for 6 days!!!!)