Why I Am Disturbed

Oh the Joy of adoption. It seems to never end – the worry, the anxiety and the unknown. What most people don’t know is that right now, Matt and I only have physical custody of the baby. The agency has legal custody. We are not granted legal custody until finalization by the Judge sometime in March. At the time we were not expecting any complications and were confident things would go smoothly. Here is why – the birth mother signed and relinquished her rights. She has no way legally of getting her child back. At the time we signed the papers – she did not name the father and claimed he was deceased. She stated that the birth father was a gang banger and was shot and killed. This meant our attorney needed to advertise on the punitive father registry for 30 days, giving any man who had been with the birth mom a chance to come forward. They had until 12/11 to do so. If the father was deceased we had absolutely nothing to worry about because he would not come forward and contest the adoption.

As everyone who can read a calendar knows, the 11th has come and gone. Matt and I have been relieved and overjoyed knowing that this Christmas we had our miracle and that everything else to come was merely an administration/paperwork issue.

Until two days ago.

I am not sure how many people we have told, but after the birthmother signed her rights away, she checked out of the hospital. We went in signed papers, made our way to the nursery and started to care for our child. The hospital needed to keep him for 48 hours. We had to spend the night before we could bring him home. The Hospital did NOT give us a room or try to make us comfortable in anyway. We had to leave our newborn for the night and come back the next morning. That we did, and we were surprised when we walked into the nursery that they had K in the NICU. We panicked but the male nurse assured us nothing was wrong, he was just keeping in NICU to keep an eye on him since he was the only baby at the Hospital not in NICU (which is very sad for the city of which he came from). We waited patiently for our child to be released but could not leave until the court order from the County in which we live in was faxed to the hospital. At 2 pm, we received a call from the agency advising us that hospital security was going to escort us to our car when we were released because there had been an incident that morning in which the birth mom came to the hospital and tried to take the baby out of the nursery. I immediately shifted into ….FREAK OUT MODE. The real reason K was in NICU was to hide him.

We brought K home and patiently waited for 12/11 to pass. I received a couple calls from the agency asking for pictures for the birth mom. We sent them. Then, one day I get a call telling me that the birth father has risen from the dead and is now trying to figure out if he can get the baby. Well, we were not that panicked because the agency could not give him info since he was not named on any paperwork. He would have to figure out how to find the punitive father registry online, make a claim, and prove he was the dad. As long as he did not do this before 12/11 we were in the clear.

Two days ago, 12/17 we got an invoice from the agency about an amount of living expenses to be paid to birth mom. A post it note was attached that said “don’t worry we will not pay out until the birth dad issue is resolved” – WTF??? I called Matt. Matt called the agency. Turns out, she named the birth dad. This means, because he is now named and they know who he is, he has to be served papers and punitive father registry NO LONGER APPLIES. (Thanks agency for calling us before the 11th to let us know! We appreciate it. We didn’t want peace of mind anyway!!!)

What this means:
1 – He can sign the adoption papers and terminate his rights
2 – He can not sign and let 30 days pass and terminate his rights
3 – He can contest by getting a DNA test and an attorney to fight us.

What we believe (WE DO NOT KNOW THIS FOR SURE) is – the birth mom told the father in hopes he would make an attempt to get the baby back. I remember the male nurse telling me he knew the dad (I was shocked because we thought he was dead) and that he would not want to be in our shoes and hoped everything worked out for the best. I remember asking about it, and everyone reassured me that if the birth dad was alive he would have to pay for a DNA test to prove it and that the likely hood of that is minimal because of the area in which we got K. The area is one of the most destitute in America and the economy is horrible there. People can barely afford to feed themselves. I dropped it, thinking we had 1 month for all this to be over with.

Fast forward to today – under normal circumstances, I am not a negative person. Adoption has broken me. I know everyone has seen the facebook status updates, and those are only but a fraction of the emotion I have experienced in this absolutely horrible process. 8 birth moms, a year wasted, and thousands of wasted dollars. I get that there are people out there with bigger problems than me, but you know...every time an adoption falls through it is like suffering a miscarriage. A child, you are expecting, plan for and talk about becomes real and when the adoption falls through your heart is ripped out of your chest. If you are a parent, all I can say for you to gain an understanding of this is - imagine your child is taken away from you forever and you never get them back, knowing they are not taken care of the way you take care of them. This is the pain I have felt several times throughout this process. It hurts and it sucks and you just want it to end but you suffer a little longer in hopes that your dream will finally be realized. That a child will come into your life and you can give all the love you have to a precious amazing being that will rely on you forever.

I have faith in God. God works in mysterious ways. God allows bad things to happen (I experienced it for a year). I believe God is good, but I also know we don’t always get what we want. I am tired of spending countless hours journaling, praying, begging and pleading that this process comes to a close. My stress level cannot take much more. It takes its toll on my marriage, my work environment et al.

What this news means for us; we no longer get to have a worry free Christmas with “our” child. He is now, “maybe our child, as long as the birth dad lets time go by and does nothing”. I am not self pitying – I am pissed off. I am sick of this process and I am sick of crazy ass people who can’t get their shit straightened out and do right by the lives they bring into this world because they can’t keep their legs closed or the selfishness at bay.

What are the odds of him doing anything about it? They are not great and the courts have overturned adoptions for birth dads. I do not have blinders on and refuse to pretend that the possibility is not likely. Positive thinking does nothing. I thought positively and prayed in several birth mom situations and was still taken advantage of.

What everyone should know is that nothing can be assumed about anything when it comes to adoption. I have had millions of questions about things that have happened to us in this process and I have no answers. My answers to these questions are not the same as those by people (birth parents) who are selfish, knowing they cannot provide for their child, stealing money from couples like me and matt and not giving a crap about their personal future or the future of their child.

I also understand that a birth mom gives birth and it is her right to keep her child if she wants.

So for now, we wait. Praying that God would not be cruel enough to allow us to bring a child in our home, love and adore him only to have him taken away. I believe God can do anything but I cannot claim to know what the outcome of this situation will be and for me that makes this Christmas – just like last Christmas – filled with anxiety.

Here is something that is positive that shows me that God is working in this situation though:

I gave a love offering to a certain ministry two months ago. I felt called to do it. The ministry that I gave to called me out of the blue yesterday evening at about 6:30pm. They called merely to ask me, if I had any prayer requests that I would like to pray with them about. That is pretty awesome.

Thanks to all of our friends and family members for the continued support. It means a lot. The only thing I ask is that people refrain from making claims that there is no way K will be taken away.

Simply put – just pray that he is not taken away.

Our Little Santa

I love What Blogger Can Do Now

Thanks to mastering HTML with myspace I havecome to the realization that you can do amazing things with this new version of Blogger. It is actually pretty easy too. How awesome.

I know this blog is supposed to be about Kellen, but I needed to express how excited I am about blogging again. It has been so long. I feel alive again, sort of like being able to decorate this blog is my muse to begin writing again.

Right now, Kellen is sleeping so I have been able to work on my page for awhile. He is so cute. I absolutely adore him. I never in a million years could have imagined that having a child would be this wonderful. We went through so much to finally get him and I am so full of love my heart could just burst! He is our Holiday miracle. I would like to say Christmas, but because we had him at the beginning of November he is also a Thanksgiving miracle. So..I am calling him our Holiday Miracle.

I want to blog about the experience but feel very overwhelmed about where to start because it was such a long hard road. We worked with a total of 8 birth moms. We had two scams and the rest were just flighty. I will be able to talk about it more tomorrow I think.

I am done messing around on blogger for now.

See you soon.

Cleaning Carpet Sucks!

I have my carpets cleaned /shampooed and stainguarded on a quarterly basis. I learned this from my Grandma. She always had nice carpets and was paranoid about it getting stained. Thankfully, I learned this valuable lesson from her about caring for carpets. If you care for them, you very rarely have to have carpet replaced unless you are looking for an updated look. Anyway, with two big dogs, I convinced Matt a long time ago to have high traffic areas stainguarded. It is well worth the extra money to do it. Why you ask? Well..I thought you would never ask. Let me give you three very good examples.

Example #1 - Dog Fight.

2 years ago, Booker & Fritz got into a fight about something really stupid. Fritz somehow got a free string from a dog rope and was chewing on it. Booker decuded he wanted said string and preceded to attack Fritz. He bit Fritz on the nose. There was blood EVERYWHERE. Down the stairway, on the walls and in the living room. It looked like a horror movie. Keep in mind, this was 3 days after we had the inside of the house painted to a light ecru color. I was horrified. I called Matt screaming, not because of all the blood but because of Fritz' nose. It was sliced down the middle. Matt took him to the vet and the vet said he had no idea how he was going fix his nose but he would figure something out. He ended up stapeling his nose and now you can't even tell. Now, back to the carpet. I used a wash rag with cold water and every single blood stain came out. I was amazed. From this point on, Matt agreed that stainguard is a miracle.

Example #2 - Dog Puke

Fritz is notorious for eating socks. The first time he did it we panicked and took him to the vet. The vet said if he still wants to eat and passes the sock no need to bring him in. About three weeks ago (in the middle of adoption chaos after we found out Maria was keeping her son) Fritz got really sick. He was very lethargic and did not want to eat anyting. We knew something was wrong. Fritz always wants to eat. He kicks his bowl around everynight at 5:30. If we are home during the day he starts kicking it around 3:30 or 4:00. Sometimes, Matt will feed him and when I get home Fritz tries to trick me into feeding him again, by kicking his bowl around. So, we knew some thing was wrong. He puked EVERYwhere. In our master bedroom, in the living room etc. It was horrible. During my first cleaning run it wasn't coming up but the second time around it all came up. You can't even tell. Fritz ended up having surgery for the first time and now has a huge scar on his belly. Does he get that it was a result for eating the sock?? No.

Example 3 - Dog looses Dew Claw
If you don't know about dew claws, they are basically the thumb claws for dogs. It is a very careful and delicate thing when cutting a dogs nails because you have to make sure that you don't cut the quick. Quick injury causes a lot of pain to an animal and results in massive bleeding.

Last night, I was filling out Christmas cards for my beloved friends and family. Matt was trying to fix a light in our track lighting in the kitchen. He walked out into the living room and saw Fritz on the couch he was bleeding ALL over the couch. I panicked thinking I needed to somehow get him to his crate so I could assess the injury. Well...that did not work. He got off the couch and ran away, ran all over the living room while I chased him. He ended up back in the living room under the coffee table. I was able to figure out that he lost his dew claw. I applied pressure to get it to stop bleeding. Matt worked on the carpet and couch. We applied flour to the wound to keep it from bleeding again and I put the poor guy in his crate so he would be more comfortable.

I walked into the living room and was overwhelmed. There were bright red blood spots all over. Matt went up to the nursery to change Kellen and I started to do the second round of blood clean up. It took over an hour to spot clean and I wasn't sure it was completely out. I decided to go to bed and see what happened overnight.

I woke up and saw a few spots that needed to be worked on a little more. At last, a brand new carpet.

Then, an hour ago the dogs started roughhousing and Fritz started bleeding...AGAIN! I got it all up, but now I am very irritated.

All this to say Stainguard works like a champ. Now that I am thinking about it though it appears that my dogs are a pain in the butt and the animal lover that I am, I LOVE THEM ANYWAY!

I Finally Made It Back to Blogging.

I spent a year trying to decide if I wanted to start blogging again. I stopped after the loss of my grandmother because it was something she and I shared. I decided that given our experience with adoption, I needed to verbalize some things. It was a very painful and long process. It is still not over and likely will not be over until the adoption is finalized in March. It will be a huge milestone for us. Thanks for checking this out and hopefully everyone I used to blog with back in the day, will start it up again. A hem - Mom, Jason, Matt, Chrissy??