Why We're Adopting - Part II

Okay, I'm home from work!! I should be making dinner, but I think I'll let it be a "fend for yourselves" night and blog instead!

Okay. To understand what happened last Friday, I need to give a bit of backstory. You all know we live in Fabulous Fircrest. The thing that brought this wonderful town to our attention is the elementary school here - part of the Tacoma School District, but worlds apart in almost every way. We drove our kids there for years before finally buying a house in town, just a few blocks from the school.

There's a teacher there named Mrs. Reese. Ellysa had her for 5th grade, and then a few years later, Kaylee had her for 4th grade. Through parent-teacher conferences, we got to know her fairly well, and always enjoyed seeing her. Mrs. Reese has an adopted daughter named Katie, who is 28 now, and when our girls were in her class, Katie occasionally came in to help out. Ellysa and Kaylee loved it when Katie visited, and Katie loved them too!

Katie is a victim of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, and as a result has some mental disabilities. (please note, that since she was adopted, Mrs. Reese didn't cause this problem - she instead gave Katie the best life she could get!) She lives in a group home where she enjoys independence to the extent that she can experience it, and is cared for in all the ways she can't. One of the issues she's battled over the years is anorexia, which has caused her to have heart problems from time to time.

Recently Cindy heard that Katie was in the hospital, and we assumed it was her heart acting up again. Kaylee, being our super-sympathetic and always concerned kid, took a strong interest in this, and asked Cindy to check in with Mrs. Reese while picking up the daycare kids from school, to find out how Katie's doing.

Last Friday, Cindy ran into Mrs. Reese at the school, and being the wonderful mother that she is, remembered Kaylee's request. She asked Mrs. Reese how Katie was doing.

The answer was 100%, completely unexpected.

It turned out that Katie wasn't in the hospital with heart problems, she was in the hospital because she was pregnant. With her anorexia, the developing baby had been consuming what few nutrients Katie took in, so she was admitted to the hospital and given a feeding tube to ensure proper nutrition for both of them. Mrs. Reese had an understandably heavy heart about the situation... In Katie's condition, keeping the baby wasn't an option, so they knew it would be adopted out. The heartache for both of them was wondering how to ensure a good family who would love and cherish the baby, and Katie desperately wants to be allowed to receive pictures and occasional updates on how her daughter is doing. They both really want the baby to know, later in life, that she wasn't given up for adoption because her birth mother didn't want her, but because she wasn't able to keep her.

As Cindy listened to the situation unfold, she realized what an amazing opportunity it presented us both as parents. She called me as soon as she left the school and described what was going on. Immediately, I felt a burning inside me that it was much more than a coincidence that:

• Two of our kids had Mrs. Reese as a teacher
• We've kept in touch with her even though Kaylee left her class 2 years ago
• We had pretty much decided that we would adopt a baby someday
• We hadn't actually adopted a baby yet

Feeling such a strong urge that this whole saga was part of a much larger plan, it only took a couple minutes for Cindy and I to agree (still on the phone) that we should spend the weekend discussing, pondering and praying about the opportunity before us.

By Sunday morning we knew that we wanted to go ahead with it, so before church we looked up various adoption websites - everything from the state DSHS to private adoption agencies - and all of them catered to people who wanted to adopt but didn't have a child in mind already. They were long, expensive processes that just didn't seem to fit our situation.

And it occurred to me: One of our friends at church is an attorney! We decided to ask him if he handles adoptions, or could refer us to someone who does. That conversation didn't take long, as he does handle adoptions, and could even fit us in to a Monday afternoon appointment!

All day Monday, we were anxiously awaiting our 3:00 appointment... Wondering how long it would take, how much it would cost, how many hoops we'd have to jump through to receive this precious baby before she ever enters the foster care system. The meeting finally came, and greatly surpassed all of our expectations! The price was low enough that we had to TRY to not act too surprised - don't want him raising his fees or anything! And he said there won't be anything stopping us from taking her home from the hospital after she's born!

After that, this whole thing started to feel like it was really happening. I called my mom and told her, and she was very excited - but I also told her to NOT tell my sisters because I was looking forward to taunting them with a teasing information drip. We had wanted to wait until this weekend to tell our kids, because Tyler's at his mom's house until Friday night. But our excitement was too much to contain, and we spilled it out over dinner Monday!

Yesterday morning Cindy was sick... I really thought we'd AVOID the whole morning sickness thing doing it this way, but I guess fate just felt like playing a little joke on us. I went into work late, ran the morning daycare shift, and took advantage of the opportunity to go visit Mrs. Reese's room after dropping our daycare kids off. See, the day before, Mrs. Reese had said she would bring in the ultrasound pics of Kate's baby for us, and I wanted to see them as soon as possible!

Based on the ultrasound and all the other tests they've run, the doctor says she is a perfectly healthy little girl - I love the shot I posted yesterday where you can see her nice big tummy! Seeing those pictures brought a whole new level of reality to the situation!!

Today it took another leap, as Cindy browsed through the baby section at Target... And wouldn't you know, there was lots of cute pink baby stuff on clearance! We now have the start of our new baby collection...

Thanks for all the congratulations! We are excited beyond words, and can't wait to welcome this new little bundle of baby joy into our family!! The actual delivery date is still up in the air, but she'll be coming by C-Section sometime in December or January... And we'll keep any and all updates coming right here!