The Waiting Is Over

Well, the wait is finally at an end...for now anyway:)

It was quite the climactic ending to this part of the story. As is true in any, good, captivating story, after adversity, ups and downs, the grand finale blows you away with the excitement, danger and suspense finally concluding in a glorious finish. Except, this is just the beginning!

It all began on Friday morning, the 14th of October. It was around 11:15 a.m. and I was just getting out of the shower. All of a sudden, the phone began to ring. Rather grudingly, I trotted down the stairs, wondering "Who is it now??" It was Dan. He asked me how it was going...he sounded strangely happy. I say strangely because it had been a very stressful week at work, and every day that I had spoken to him at work he was, to put it bluntly, a bit grumpy. He asked me if I was sitting down, and my first thought was "Yay, the adoption loan went through!" But that wasn't it. After obliging him and sitting down, he uttered words that I will never forget. "You're going to be a mommy again." "What?" "What?" "Are you kidding?" I was shocked! Well, who is this baby? He is 6 weeks old, a preemie, in Texas, waiting for us to come get him! We exchanged shocked reactions and then he emailed the sparse details of this little baby boy.

He had been born at 28 weeks gestation. Just released from the hospital, he was now in foster care. They wanted us down there asap. The birth mom had chosen us!!! The birth father had not yet signed but had agreed to do so that afternoon. The next thing we had to focus on was making sure we had all the funding we needed. This adoption would cost $20,000 plus travel costs. We had two grants, some cash in savings, but still had a deficit. I was feeling panicked...what if now that we're chosen the funds don't come through? But then peace flooded in as the Lord reminded me that this was not too difficult for Him, He was in control. The next 44 hours were frantic, ceaseless activity.

Dan called the loan company. We would get the loan, but it would not go through till Tuesday and there was a bunch of paperwork to do. So for that day my focus was to get three things done 1. Get paperwork done 2. Book a flight, rent a car 3. Choose a name. We learned that because they wanted to start the ICPC paperwork right away that the caseworker in TX would need a name. We had no name!

The day flew by with the kids tearing the house apart, getting in trouble and breaking down in tears. Apparently they were feeling a bit stressed:) The phone calls from our caseworker, family members and working out details with Dan were unending. The emails were flying too. They detailed what airport to fly into, whom to call when, where to stay and provided documentation needed by the credit union. I juggled everything, but didn't have time to eat, do my hair or put on any make up. There was a revolving door at our house that day. Grandparents, siblings and in-laws...the usual for our house. And everyone wanted to know about this next leg of the journey.

By the time Dan got home, I had gotten the house in some semblance of order and dinner was actually cooking. I had snatched moments here and there to frantically search for affordable airfare and check for new developments in our story. The birth father signed the papers. A necklace would be a good gift for the birth mom. A picture was finally sent, not a great likeness but something to look at, a balm to remind us why we were enduring this unbelievable amount of pressure. At around 8 p.m. I was sitting down to do paperwork. We hadn't decided on a name yet, hadn't really even gotten a chance to thik about it. Our laptop kept shutting down, it couldn't handle the stress either, so Dan's mom graciously went home to bring her actually-from-this-decade laptop so we had something reliable to work on while searching for airfare. We hadn't decided yet if we were going to do round-trip or not. We didn't know for sure when ICPC would go through, so we thought about just driving home. The idea of this with a newborn was not appealing, however, and we thought it would end up costing just as much as the flight home, once all was said and done.

By now, it was around 9:30. Still no name. Dan worked on booking the flight. We were trying to compare, but by then, we just needed to jump on something. So we booked the flight and the car. This done by a man who had never flown, and a woman who had not flown in 5 years. We were fish out of water:)

Now it's getting close to 10 p.m. The name had to be in by midnight. Dan gets distracted easily, especially when his brother is around, which he was at that time:) So, at 10:30, we were still deciding. Eventually, everyone had made their way home and it was just Dan and I. I went outside to take the dog out. I thought "Harrison is a nice name...Harrison Daniel?" When I came in I presented it to Dan, who was going through lists of names, one letter of the alphabet at a time. He put the name on his list. I think he liked the fact that we would be naming the child after him! I went upstairs to the bathroom and when I came down, we were in agreement...Harrison Daniel it was, just like that!

Finally, it was time for bed, but the list for the next day was daunting. I don't think either of us slept much. The night before we were waiting. As I took my shower that morning, I was praying for patience. Now, we were suddenly the mom and dad of a little boy we had never met or even heard about that morning. So strange. So awesome!

That morning, Saturday, I got up and cleaned my kitchen. I knew I couldn't function properly with a disaster in the heart of the house. And then I made pancakes. I wasn't sure if I would have time to sleep that night before our early morning flight, but we were going to have breakfast!! By around 9 a.m. I was online and making phone calls. I think I must have made about 8 or 10 calls, to airport, caseworker, family members etc. One big thing that I was working on was getting a hold of one of our granting agencies. The rule was the money to be matched had to be in their hands before placement. Placement, we had just learned, would be as soon as we could get to the agency office upon landing and getting our car. We didn't have much time, and as the hours ticked by, and still I heard nothing from them, the tension in me rose. I knew we could take out more for the loan, but I believed that God would come through for us on this one. We hadn't been awarded this grant for no reason!

By mid-afternoon I needed to start running errands, so I packed up the dog and my list and LuLu and I headed out. My mom and I met my sister at the mall. I had requested help in picking out a gift for Harrison's birth mom. I knew what I wanted and after searching a few different stores, I found something perfect. It was on sale, so it was within our price range. At this point, we were under the impression that we would be meeting her. I had nervous thoughts and feelings about this, but at the same time, knew it would be good for my son! During our shopping trip I got a call from Dan. He had talked to someone from the grant agency. We could drop the check off that day!! Praise the Lord. Everything seemed like a miracle that day, because there were so many unknowns!

We all had lunch together. Then, my sister traded me my nephew's hand-me-downs for my dog:) I came out ahead on that one:) Another thing off my mind...I knew our little doggy was now in good hands!

I headed to Target then home. It was surreal picking out the needed baby items. I couldn't believe our family was going to have a baby again...formula, diapers, tiny, soft blankets.

When I got home the house and garage was buzzing with activity. Dan had a side job that had to be finished that day, so he had a support team with him...his dad and brother. I unloaded the car and headed out again with the check. I left the $2,000 check in the hands of a teenage girl I had never met before. Ok!

Then I went home. More family members had arrived, ready to help. I needed someone to sort baby clothes, I needed to know what I could pack and not be arrested for. I needed to know how heavy my bag could be. I needed to clean out the goat shed and chicken shack. I needed Lu to be watched. The Church clan pulled together and helped Dan and I out tremendously that day! At some point, a bassinet showed up that we could borrow...from my brother-in-law and his wife. I began packing. Dan was getting close on the side job, but all of a sudden got a call from our wood guy that he was dropping off a load. Think small mountain of telephone-poll-like trees. So that showed up that day too:)

We were busy into the evening, but we were able to accomplish everything we needed to do, including faxing all the needed paperwork to the credit union.

I set the alarm for 4 a.m. I actually did sleep...a bit.

When the alarm went off, I snapped awake faster than I ever have. Then I felt a little sick. What are we doing??? I think I was in shock, and I was very nervous about flying...getting through security and finding the right gate. But it all went smoothly. It was so strange to us, to be in an airport, headed to Texas, in what felt like the middle of the night. And then what? They were just going to hand us this little baby and let us leave with him? What in the world!!

The boarding, take off, landing, waiting, boarding, take off and landing went smoothly. The closer we got the more excited and nervous we became. We landed in IAH and waited forever for the one item we checked...a car seat:) Lu was bouncing off the walls, literally, and at that point I believe we got a voicemail from our caseworker. We had been trying to figure out if we could be approved really fast for a grant that we had applied for earlier that week that we figured would be a shoe-in. Problem was, although we had mailed the application in on Tuesday, it hadn't arrived and if they didn't get it that day, it wouldn't be considered. We were a bit bummed by this, and I knew that now we would have more paperwork to do at the hotel after we got Baby Harrison...I did not want to do that, but if we got the grant, it would really help.

We found the shuttle that took us to our rental car. We got matched with our car. We got directions to the agency. We got lost, turned around. Turned around again. Called the caseworker 6 or 7 times. Couldn't figure it out! We were on the right road, we were seeing some of the landmarks she was telling us, but where was this place!!! I was so stressed and tired my eyes felt like they were going to bleed. I kept praying "Lord just let us find it." Finally, we realized our GPS was totally off, we needed to go south about 4 miles. Then we found it easily. We walked into this little suite in a strip mall. A friendly woman was telling us our baby was in there, but she held a folder. This first, because once the baby comes out you're no good to me! We almost made it through the whole stack, but the time had come. We needed to meet our Harrison! They took Lu out, apparently the tradition there is to let the sibbling "carry" the baby in to mom and dad. Weird but, whatever, just bring me my baby. And then there he was, this impossibly tiny, brown baby. I picked him up and looked at his little face, told him it was mommy, told him I loved him, gave him his first kiss from mama. We took pictures, did a few more formalities, including writing out a very big check (Yikes!)

Then, we loaded him in the car seat and drove out the parking lot. He was ours. Let's go "home." I hated putting him in that car seat, but once we arrived at our hotel, he did not stay in that car seat one second longer than he needed to!

We did have to get that application in that night, so while I fed him his "first" bottle I was also typing away. It wouldn't work to email it, because I couldn't save the info on the form, so I had to print and scan and attach. The hoops we jumped through!!! We got it in by around 9 p.m. A day late, worth a try. Then, we were free! Free to enjoy our sweet little boy, who every time we looked at him got more precious and cute. It was surreal. Like nothing we've ever done. One of the greatest things we ever done, by far!

The next day I received a voicemail from our caseworker...we got the grant! Icing on the cake. Now, we could enjoy 9 more days in Texas, like going back in time it was so summery warm. I'll write about our stay in the next post!