When we
left Friday night, we had such an amazing peace. Our time with C was so special and she and
the staff continued to comfort us that she was confident in her adoption
plan. As we drove home from the
hospital, we cried and praised the Lord for blessing us with such a wonderful
birth mom and a beautiful baby girl. I
was able to easily fall asleep feeling like it was all in His hands and that He
would bring this process to completion.
After
waking up, we impatiently waited for our case worker to text to tell us to come
to the hospital. At 9:30, she texted and
said she was waiting to hear back from C’s case worker about how much time C
would like to spend with baby girl before signing. An hour later we hadn’t heard anything and
the devil really started to work on us.
I finally texted our case worker again, and she responded 40 minutes
later. In that 40 minutes, the devil’s
lies were becoming stronger and stronger and we both began to wonder if
something had changed or gone wrong. We
prayed and prayed and paced and paced in our hotel room. Finally, our case worker called and said that
C wanted to spend the day with Haven before signing and that we didn’t need to
come to the hospital until 2:30. She
assured us that this was very normal and that she would be completely honest
with us had there been any “red flags.” Those
next several hours were the longest hours of my life. After a few hours at the hotel, I finally
told Ben we HAD to get out of the hotel before I went nuts. So, we drove around, and roamed around target
and other stores and got some lunch. One
sweet friend texted and suggested we spend the next few hours before our lives
officially changed forever spending time reflecting on our relationship and why
we loved each other. So, at lunch, we
spent time reminiscing about our relationship, favorite memories, and qualities
we loved about each other. It wasn’t
without some distraction and lots of anxiousness about the next couple hours to
come, but it was such a great way to celebrate everywhere the Lord has taken us
and to build one another up.
After what seemed to be a century, we
arrived at the hospital and went to our private room to wait on our social
worker. We were both so nervous. We totally understood and appreciated that C
wanted to love on Haven as much as she could before saying good bye. But, what if she was changing her mind? How could we go from being so confident the
night before, to an anxious ball of emotions?
Our social worker came in and started the paperwork process with
us. To be honest, I didn’t hear a single
word she said of the very important paperwork she was reviewing with us. She told us C’s social worker would text her
once the relinquishment documents were signed.
So instead of listening, I fixated on her phone waiting for that
text. A few minutes in, she received the
text and we got the wonderful news that Haven was ours! It was such a huge relief, then followed by
such heartache as we thought about what C must be going through.
After signing, C wanted us to come to the
room and spend the evening all 4 of us together. We brought her a “thank you” present and a
thank you note. I can’t tell you how
hard it is to adequately express how deeply grateful you are to a woman for
trusting us to raise and love her baby.
Some tears were shed and we hugged her and promised to take care and
love Haven forever. We then all ate
dinner together, swapped stories, and watched some of a movie, all while
passing sweet Haven around. It was
again, such a wonderful time to bond with our birth mom and to love on her. We couldn’t have asked for a better
experience and are so thankful that the Lord matched us together.
C was
exhausted and so we took Haven for the night.
It was our first night together and Haven did wonderfully. She woke up to feed every 3 hours and slept
when she wasn’t eating. We, on the other
hand, had a rough nights sleep. The room
had one hospital bed, that was more like a rock with a sheet and then a
reclining chair… which felt like a lawn chair.
Ben and I switched “beds” in the night and both slept very little. I spent most of the night holding Haven and
just staring at her in her little crib. It was a long night...
