Worth the Wait

Here is a little summary to catch you all up on this story from the beginning. 

January 2019: We decided to adopt and start the paperwork

March 2019: Match ready! All paperwork is complete and we are waiting to be matched with a birth mother. 

March 2020: We renew our home study and updated all our paperwork and continue to wait. 

March 2021: We renew our home study (again) and update all our paperwork (again) and wait some more. 

September 2021: Matched! 

October 2021: The baby is born early. We drive to Missouri. The birth mom changes her mind. We come home still as a family of 2. 

*** We recover. ***

February 2022: Match! We fly to Texas and meet with the birth parents. It seems like a great fit!

Early March 2022: Hurry up, update the paperwork,

 and renew our home study because the baby could be here any day! 

March 2022: We drive out to Texas on the due date. The baby is born. The birth parents change their minds. We come home again still a family of 2. 

*** We take a couple weeks to decide if we are ready to try this again. We ask for special permission to only be seen in situations where the decision to place the baby with an adopted family happens at or after the time of the baby's birth. This decreases our chances for a match but prevents a long match that could end up falling through. ***

Now you're caught up 

June 15,2022 was going to be just like any other day. Garrett was in the office. I was at home. I didn't think much when my phone rang around 1 o'clock in the afternoon. But that was it. It was "the" phone call. The one we thought we'd gotten twice before. So just like before, I called Garrett and merged him in. They told us this was it. They sounded so calm on the phone when they told us that there was a baby girl in Florida who had been born two days prior that was ready for us to pick up. I had to have them repeat it for me. They told us that the birth parents were already signing the paperwork on their end and that we just needed to accept the placement. I think my exact words were "should I start packing for Florida?" to which they responded with a resounding "YES! Go pack!"  It took us a moment to process what was actually happening. We had them repeat information to us a few more times and Garrett started on his way home while I started packing. 

We'd done this pack-and-go thing a couple times now so we knew generally what we would need to bring and do to get the house ready to go, the baby's bag had stayed packed from our last trip thankfully, and after a few phone calls to parents to make sure the dog was covered and someone would be there while our house got painted during the following week, we were ready to go! By 3 PM we were on the road to Orlando. (I don't know about you but 2 hours to get ready for a trip when we don't know how long we are staying at our destination is pretty impressive!) Fortunately, Orlando is only an 8-hour drive instead of 12 hours like previous trips. On the way, we discussed names, updated our parents and siblings, and worked with the agency to get us "parent" status at the hospital so we could visit Baby Girl as soon as we got there, which was going to be well after visiting hours. We got to our hotel in Orlando around 10:30 PM where we quickly cleaned up and changed before heading to the hospital. Just before 11PM, we were in the hospital elevator so close to meeting our baby girl. She was staying in a NICU because there wasn't a nursery for her stay in. We had to wash our hands in a fancy handwashing machine before we could go back and we were so nervous we'd get turned away because we didn't feel like parents yet. We didn't know her room number or what name she was under or anything. Fortunately for us, the night nurses were so sweet to us. They told us everything they knew about our baby girl. It was mostly what we had already found out over the phone but we wanted to know as much as we could about her first two days. 

Garrett kindly let me hold her first but it wasn't long before he got her. We stayed taking turns holding her, feeding her, changing her, and staring at her face trying to figure out what her name should be until 1 AM. At that point, the adrenaline was finally wearing off and those chairs were just not comfy. We left her with the nurses to catch some sleep with plans to be back to feed her in the morning. 

The next morning at 8 AM we were there to feed her and we didn't leave until they released her to us around 1PM. We decided her name would be Mia Katherine and told more of our family that she was here in our arms. 24 hours. In 24 hours we went from learning that she existed to loading her in the car. 

We spent the next few days in a haze at the hotel. It was a little bubble just for the three of us to start learning how to be a family of three. Next, we moved on to an Airbnb in Jacksonville to get a little closer to home and enjoyed staying there for the next few days. We celebrated Garrett on his very first Father's Day and took Mia to the beach for her 1 week birthday. There was more space to spread out and a washer and dryer. We were face timing with family constantly and all 3 of us were still in a sleepy haze. 

Finally, we got clearance to come home. We made it home around 11PM. I don't think I've ever been happier to be home. Our families had cleaned the house from top to bottom and had everything ready for us. Bottles, cribs, clothes, diapers, wipes, and food for us, all we had to do was collapse and rest for a while. 

We spent the next few days and weeks introducing Mia to family and friends. Garrett had 12 weeks off so the three of us have done everything together. Garrett's back at work now and I'm learning the flow of being a stay-at-home mom. We couldn't be happier. Mia is the sweetest. She has insane eyelashes, smiles with her whole body, and has become very social. She loves to talk, is a great sleeper, and loves her paci more than anything. If she's not sweating she's cold and most of the time if she's fussy and not hungry, she wants a blanket. Even if it's 90 degrees. 

We feel so blessed that we get the honor of raising Mia and that her birth parents trust us with her. We communicate with her birth mom regularly and keep her up to date on Mia and things that are happening in our lives. She makes sure we know what she's up to and has sent a few pictures of herself and her family so that Mia can always see where she came from. Mia's birth parents have their reasons for choosing to place their daughter with us and we respect that and have a lot of love for them. Adoption always involves loss. We focus on what we gain but some days you can't ignore that our blessing came from someone else's brokenness. Mia will always know that she was adopted. She will know her birth parents' names and faces. She will know that we love her and that her birth parents love her but couldn't give her the life they wanted for her. She will know they picked us to take care of her and that they checked on her to make sure she was happy and loved. Mia is blessed to have a lot of people to call family, chosen and biological. We hope and pray that we will always have the wisdom, love, and grace to navigate everything with her as we continue to build our lives together. 

FAQ:

- Mia is pronounced Mee-uh. We mostly call her Mia but sometimes she goes by Mia Katherine, Mia Kate, or MK.

- Mia is part Russian, part Hispanic, and part Hawaiian from what we've been told. 

- Thankfully, we have been able to find formula despite the shortage.

- She is sleeping through the night most nights and we are thankful for that too.