Not Nice Spice
I am beyond thrilled to have a handful of mamas come along and share their own birth stories. I was considering the order of stories to share—just start with the order I received them or layer them based on how their motherhood journey began—but I decided to just roll with my heart strings instead. On my mind the past few days has been sweet Angelina. I met her through a health and wellness accountability group my sister-in-law runs. We’ve never even met in person, but she was always incredibly lovely and encouraging, had a crazy nurse’s work schedule and managed to love on her family and others in a beautiful way. I absolutely love her story of motherhood and adoption. Okay, so here’s my journey to motherhood story- First off my name is Angelina and I have one boy, Henry, who just turned one.
Ten years ago I married my best friend. We were 23. We worked overnights at the local hospital and just lived life. We both knew we wanted children and decided to just see what happened. So in other words- we weren’t doing anything solid to prevent getting pregnant, but we were not actively trying to get pregnant. Fast-forward to 3 years ago- my 30th birthday. I decided it was time to go see a doctor. I only had one missed period in that whole time where I was pregnant, but 2 weeks later lost the baby. I’m crying as I type this because only a very few number of people know this. The day after my 30th birthday I went in for an exploratory laparoscopic surgery to find out what was the cause of my infertility. The doctor determined that even with my mild endometriosis he could not explain why I could not get pregnant. So we started IUI treatments. And I had to get hormone shots, which I had my hubby give to me because I couldn’t do it myself. No luck. I prayed month after month. Finally, I said no more attempts and no IVF. I just could not put myself or my hubby through it. Let’s just wait and see. Mind you the MD yelled at me for waiting so long. Fast-forward to April of 2017. My aunt came to me after church and asked me to sit down. She told me of a couple who were looking to give their unborn baby boy up for adoption and would Josh and I be interested. The mother was 6 months along and baby boy was healthy. After giving my husband a week to think about this- with his answer still a firm no- I remember mowing the lawn and pleading with God to change his mind because I knew in my heart this was my son. Still, a no from Josh. I told my aunt the answer was no. She asked me if I was okay with the decision and I said I will be. We went out for lunch and on the drive home we had a heart to heart talk and Josh told me he couldn’t say no if I would have this sadness in my eyes forever. From that moment on we were on board! We had 3 months to find an adoption lawyer, find an agency that could do an interstate adoption in time, come up with all the money, and get our apartment ready for a home study. As well as process- we are going to have a baby in 3 months!! I also needed to figure out if I was going to continue my last year of nursing school (I did!) and travel/lodging to Texas (time off of work for both of us) for a month. I cannot even begin to explain how God lined everything up to fall into place. My aunt has friends who live just south of where we needed to be who emailed her asking her to come visit. They welcomed us into their home for a month, two weeks with a newborn, and went through a hurricane together. Money was given to us or a fundraiser went exceptionally well at just the right times to pay lawyer fees or agency fees. We got into mandatory parenting classes for the adoption agency that was full with no room for us. Our home study was done in record time. We travelled to Texas with my aunt and we slept for two days on the birth mother’s couches. We walked around the mall for hours trying to induce labor. I got to feel Henry kick. He heard our voices as we played card games together. I was in the delivery room right up until a few hours before labor began. I held Henry 15 minutes after he was born and gave him his first feeding. We slept in the NICU room with him (nothing wrong with Henry- he was perfect and healthy and it was protocol for the adoption). We were treated as if we were already legally his parents. Henry’s birth mom made sure of that. She asked what we wanted to name him and that is on his original birth certificate. It was almost like she carried him for us. And just like that, papers were signed and we went to our friend’s house with our newborn, Henry. And now a year later- we have a very busy one year old and everything is finalized. We are legally Henry’s parents with an amended birth certificate and all. * I would like to stress that as each mom has her own unique birth story so it is the same with adoption stories. We are extremely blessed that everything happened quickly for us to bring Henry home right out of the hospital. We had a rollercoaster ride and could not have come out the other side without tons of prayers and a lot of midnight/midday/all the time? Talks with God lol
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Kate FrancesWhen you don't know what else to do, then it's time to write. Then write a little while longer for good measure. Archives
February 2020
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