Our Adoption Story - Part 5 - Chosen

Part 1 - Infertility
Part 2 - Waiting
Part 3 - A New Goal
Part 4 - Comfort


August 2004

Fall semester begins. Some days, while it's still sunny and warm in the afternoon, Eli and I eat on the campus lawn. It's on a day like this that I quickly swallow a bite of sandwich to answer my cell phone. Mary, from LDS family services, tells me that a birth mother, expecting a baby girl in four weeks, wants to meet us. Meet US! So she does. She "chose us" and she is "not going to change her mind." I can hardly believe our good fortune. Before we leave her, we have already named our baby to be, Hailey Shameeka.

Eli reminds me not to get too excited, but, it's hopeless. I share the voice I had felt about it being our time soon. I am confident this placement will go through. I go shopping. I can't stop day-dreaming about this unborn baby girl becoming part of our life --- part of our family! In mere weeks I'll be a mother! I'll have a daughter. A little black girl. She consumes my thoughts. I drop all my classes. Becoming a mommy is now my only focus. I find the cutest material with little pink roses to make crib bedding out of. I start sewing a beautiful matching little baby quilt to wrap my newborn in. Daydreaming and sewing, I pause to answer the phone. The birthmother has changed her mind. She has chosen to go through a different adoption agency. She chose another couple.

Shock. Denial. Despair. Longing. The emptiness. The deep, deep pain. In a weird way, the only comfort I receive is thinking about agency. Then, I consider how deeply her agency is hurting me --- surprisingly, I'm not angry, I just feel so lost and so empty. I hope she uses her agency to change her mind back again. After all, I still believe it's our turn. Surely, she'll change her mind back! Is this a test? There's an urgent feeling to do something... I just can't let my baby go! I am reaching, trying to hang on, but there's nothing for us to hang on to. All we can do is pray --- and PRAY we do. We fast. Many family members join us in our fast. But, she doesn't change her mind back to us.


September 2004

Her due date comes and goes. Still in a fog, I return the baby purchases. The boy behind the Target counter asks me why I am returning these items. Resenting the question and before thinking better of it, I respond, "There won't be a baby," and the finality of it suddenly hits. Another dam of tears brakes as I now stand impatiently waiting for my money.

On Sunday, a lady I don't know shows up in Relief Society every week holding her band-new, dark-haired, baby girl. I stare at her baby whenever I feel like I can get away with it. I am filled with self-pity and envy and thoughts of This is what it could have been like. I smile outwardly, but inside the sadness won't go away.

How does one deal with all this pain? I HAD felt a voice. Why? WHY!?!? I am drowning in blackness! I hurt so deep that I cry right out loud. I know Eli's parent's can hear my anguish, but I don't care and am thankful they don't come to console me. Finally, after this bitter release, I quiet down and begin to pray and pray. I pray so earnestly that I feel my spirit speak with God --- that's the only way I know to describe it. Yet, after all this, I still feel my answer is the same, that my time will be soon, really soon. When is really soon? God knows. And once again, I decide to take comfort in that feeling. Within my turmoil, I now feel a small sense of peace again. For now, I just need to let time pass.

I need to fill that time. I work as much as possible. It's the best way to bury my emotions; but, sometimes, those feelings still get the best of me. I feel Eli distance himself from me. It's hard because I really need him close. I don't consider what he needs. I can't --- even though I should. But, he has his parents now.

Part 6 - Charlotte