A year ago we were discussing our exit strategy. We were trying to figure out when we would draw that line in the sand, the line that left us a family of 3. It was not an easy conversation. In fact, most of our journey to parenthood has been centered around difficult conversations. However, that’s one of the things I credit the strength of my relationship with my husband to. We’ve always been pretty good at communicating but I truly think the years of forced tough conversations reinforced this. Anyway, when just about everything with adding a kid to your family is out of your control how do you decide when enough is enough?
When you adopt, there are certain requirements you must meet before your family can be considered actively waiting for a child. These requirements vary by state but when you choose a national agency (like we did) you’re obligated to meet all state’s requirements to maximize your options. This includes things like an annual physical with certain lab work, fingerprinting for criminal background checks, references, financial screening, a home visit, etc. If that isn’t invasive enough, you have to repeat all of this EVERY year you are waiting, you know, in case you decide to become a criminal during your wait or something.
Well, a year ago we were updating all of those requirements which led to that discussion about how many MORE times we’d be willing to update all.the.things. We had started the journey for kiddo #2 two years before so it had already lasted longer than we anticipated. We decided that we’d reassess in August since we had just survived our first disruption. At that point, Wes would be 4 and his physical would need updating so we thought it’d be a good time to revisit.
From January 2020 to August 2020 we had two false starts on different adoption opportunities. By the time August rolled around, it was hard to think about walking away but hard to think about staying on the roller coaster, too. So, we updated Wes’ physical and punted the decision down the road to the end of the year. Of course, one thing worth mentioning is in order to remain active through the agency, your physical can’t expire. This means that you can’t go more than 1 year (or 365 days) past your last physical date. What this also means is your insurance might not pay for your physical if you do it in less than 365 days from the one before. This is important because in this instance, I almost just waited to complete Wes’ physical until the day or two after his expired. What would it matter if things were out of date for a couple of days? It didn’t seem likely that anything important would happen in those few days. However, after thinking it through we followed through with updating the physical ahead of time like we usually did. And it’s a good thing we did. Wesley’s physical expired 8/24. Had we waited to update his physical until day 366+, it would’ve been done 8/28 (my day off). However, we learned about Clara on 8/26 and I’m not sure what would’ve happened if we had some of our paperwork out of date!
All of this to say how lucky I feel that we not only decided to power through on our journey and to do it on time! I cannot imagine my little family without Clara in it anymore and I’m so glad she got to be our exit strategy.
As many of you already know, our family grew by two little feet back in August and we are slowly starting to find our rhythm as a family of four!
Our adoption journey for kiddo number 2 was a LONG time in the making. We started all the paperwork back in January of 2018! That means it took over 2.5 years from start to finish – so much longer than we ever anticipated! A whole year longer than our journey to find Wes and also a bit messier with a disrupted opportunity in 2019 and a few false starts earlier this year. We sort of knew it couldn’t possibly be as smooth as our first go around, but at the end of it all we’d be the luckiest little family of four. One thing we didn’t expect was how QUICK things would go once we got that call.
On August 24, we were busy celebrating Wesley – he was turning 4 the next day after all and that’s a pretty big deal! We had absolutely no idea that 11:47 that night, our daughter would be born (yep, just 13 minutes away from sharing a birthday with her brother). August 25 led to more Wesley celebrations – although we all worked and went to “school” (what we call Wes’ daycare). We ended with cupcakes and my private declaration that I was glad the birthday was over so we could get back to ‘regular life.’ 🤣 When Mike texted me at work the next morning asking me if I was free because the agency was calling, I still did not anticipate ANY of the conversation that occurred. When they told us they had a HEALTHY baby girl waiting for us in Kansas, I was shocked. My heart was racing and I couldn’t think straight. I had to get out of work ASAP – and luckily I have some of the best co-workers who just took care of everything so I could bolt less than 30 minutes later.
Our first order of business was figuring out what we would do with Wes – take him with us? Leave him with someone? Neither was ideal but the idea of disrupting his life completely and trying to entertain him for an unknown amount of time in a hotel room during COVID was less so. Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa for being so flexible and available for Wes – he loved his time with grandpa, and although he missed us, he was well taken care of and loved. We then took care of Riley (our pup) – thanks to Oma and Papa for picking her up! Lastly, we had to pack up stuff for us and a baby for an unspecified amount of time. It was a bit chaotic and a very unorganized pack job but we got the job done! Because of how quick we had to get everything together, I came to realize how much of a blessing our disruption late last year was. I had all of our baby stuff pulled out for that opportunity, recently washed, and loosely organized before I simply shut the nursery door and walked away from “that mess.”It made packing much easier this time around! About 4 hours after we got that call, we were on the road headed to meet our baby girl!
The drive to Kansas was mostly uneventful. We stopped twice and made it in about 8 hours. The topic of conversation: what to name this girl! We had a short list of names already from our disrupted adoption – that baby was a girl also – so we were able to narrow it down to our top 2 names. When we couldn’t pick which one, we decided to just wait until we met her. Like with Wes, we wanted her middle name to be a nod to her birth mom. For Wes, his birth mom helped pick the name. We didn’t have that with Clara but we were able to settle on a name that could provide that link to her birth mom. And that’s how we have little miss Clara Louise. Just 12 hours after the call that literally changed our lives, we were holding and snuggling our sweet girl.
We were lucky enough to be discharged the afternoon of 8/27 (Thursday) after both birth parents signed the adoption papers terminating their parental rights. We hunkered down in a nearby hotel while we waited ICPC clearance from the state of Kansas and the state of Wisconsin to travel back home. We were also lucky to have family less than an hour away to help with food, supplies, and other distractions while we waited – it was literally a life saver, so thanks to Aunt Deb and Uncle Lance! Although we thought it would be a long shot to get the approval to travel home by Monday, 8/31, we thought it would be so cool if it happened because 8/31/2016 was the day we got to travel home with Wesley! Sure enough, by midday, we were given the go ahead! It is so interesting how so much of Wes and Clara’s adoption journey is similar… and how much is so, so different! We made the choice to wait until early the next morning to make the trek back to Wisconsin with the goal of doing the drive all in one day – and avoid another COVID hotel stop. Little did we know, miss Clara had other plans!
Overnight, she started breathing fast and was more fussy than usual. She also felt a bit warm but we didn’t have a way to accurately check her temperature. She had spit up a little while earlier, and while seemingly unrelated at the time it was apparently the trigger. So we made the decision around 2am (I think) to take her into ED for an evaluation. We kind of expected we would be told all is normal but really wanted the reassurance before attempting a 10+ hour drive that day. When we got there, she was still breathing fast but had no fever or any other abnormalities in her vitals. Shortly after arrival, however, her oxygen saturation started to dip into the mid 80’s and her skin turned a more dusky color when that happened. So, that triggered all sort of testing – chest and abdomen x-ray (we thought she was constipated so they were looking for an obstruction), blood draws to check labs and cultures, she even got a COVID test! Everything came back ok but she was started on antibiotics while waiting for blood culture results. She continued to struggle to keep oxygen levels consistently up on her own so she was transferred to another local hospital via ambulance (she was stable so no lights and sirens!) where she could have additional testing and monitoring. There, she had an ECHO which did not find anything to explain what was going on followed by the determination that this all stemmed from reflux (remember that earlier spit up?) that aggravated her airways. Who knew?! We simply had to wait for the blood cultures to confirm no infection so antibiotics could be stopped and make sure she could tolerate room air (no oxygen). She failed her first attempt off oxygen that first evening, but by next morning she was doing great! They wanted to keep her one more night to confirm she was stable at night and early Thursday morning we got the OK to go home! We made great time and were home by supper that day!
Only two big hurdles were left – meeting big brother and finalizing the adoption. The introduction with Wes has gone so much more smoothly than I could have hoped. If you know Wes, you know he is a bundle of energy – nonstop, rough, wild, and ALL boy! Seeing him love Clara is the sweetest. He wants to hug her and snuggle her ALL of the time. He is always willing to stop what he’s doing to help change her diaper, get her bottle ready, whatever she needs. She is pretty lucky to have such an awesome big brother!
Last month we checked the last big thing off the list – we finalized the adoption via Zoom and thankfully all went perfectly. We are officially a family of 4 and couldn’t be happier!
Each time I greet a new year I can’t help but look back at significant events in my adulthood.
2020 marks
17 years since graduating high school and becoming a BADGER (If you want to be a Badger…)
13 years loving Mike
11 years as a Doctor of Pharmacy
10 years of wedded bliss
10 years of making our house a home
9 years of struggles to grow our family
7 years since our failed IVF
6 years since our ectopic pregnancy loss
5 years since our first adoption journey started
4 years loving Wes
2 years since our second adoption journey started
1 month since our adoption loss
Towards the end of 2019, we got one of those life changing calls that we would be starting 2020 with a new baby! We were chosen to parent a baby due 1/3/20 and we were so excited. We were also a bit anxious as we had less than 3 months to prepare everything! This was so different than the 6 months we had to prepare with Wes’ adoption, but we quickly made a list of the necessities we needed (new bottles, some diapers, formula, etc). We made plans with family for Wes and Riley – we talked about what would happened if we got a call in the middle of the night, while at work, etc. We tried to figure out how to get there the quickest- would we drive the 12+ hours or fly? How would we pack for either scenario? How would we spend the holidays? How would Santa find Wes if we were in another state? We fixed up the crib and started to re-organize the nursery. We debated and picked out a name. We talked to Wes about being a big brother – in the vaguest way possible because, with adoption, you never really know until the documents are finalized. Unfortunately, after about 6 weeks of fast and furious planning and prepping, we got another life changing call – this time to let us know the expectant mother and family were no longer pursuing adoption for this baby.
It’s hard to explain the roller coaster of emotions that followed. I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me for awhile and I just felt numb. This was followed by so much grief at the loss of all future plans I had already started to make for this baby and our soon to be family of 4. I was angry that I was stuck processing these emotions. I was frustrated that we couldn’t just grow our family like “everyone else.” I cried at the unfairness of it all. I hated that the holidays were wrapped around “could have beens” and there were moments I really struggled to enjoy the life I was actually living. Ultimately, this is what we signed up for when we chose adoption as approximately 20 to 25% of adoptions end up disrupted (meaning for various reasons no adoption occurs). We knew that and we were sure to remind any one we shared the news with so we could set expectations. However, that didn’t come close to preparing our hearts for this part of our journey.
As the weeks have passed since that second call, I have found the easy days outnumber the hard ones again. This was the first year Wes really got into Christmas and it was pretty special to see his eyes light up. The holidays offered a lot of opportunity to do fun activities – Wes’ first movie theater experience, ice skating, indoor mini golf, bowling! I am looking forward to getting back into the swing of routine now that the holidays are over though as I think that will help me fully move on. I still find myself thinking about this baby and their family – sincerely hoping that baby is here and everyone is happy and healthy and thriving. I know that this will continue, probably forever, as I know that baby and their family will always hold a tiny piece of my heart.
One side effect (sorry, I’m a pharmacist, talking side effects comes naturally- haha!) of this experience, is I now find this wait for our baby more difficult than before. It was pretty easy not to think about getting the call and all the planning that would be needed before we actually experienced it this time around. Now I find myself constantly hoping the phone will ring and anxious for that moment when our family will feel whole and complete. One thing I know, is the perfect opportunity will find us again (and hopefully soon!!)
November is National Adoption Awareness Month. I always intend to blog more about adoption (among other things) but life with a 3 year old is tiring 🙂 So, trying to squeeze in a quick post about an aspect of adoption I initially found a bit terrifying and am now so grateful for before the month is over.
I wish I could say I was one of those people who “always wanted to adopt,” but I wasn’t. I wish I didn’t have to worry that Wes will feel less loved or wanted because adoption was not our first choice, but I do (and while I’m sure I don’t have to say it here, I will – he is my favorite part of every day and I am so glad I get to love him). I always wanted to be a mom, I just didn’t know my journey to get there would be different. I never had anything against adoption, it just wasn’t something I had thought about. Adoption may not have been “Plan A” or even “Plan B,” it was nevertheless a well-researched, well-formulated plan that we were very excited about by the time it became a part of our journey. I’m not sure how I will ever adequately explain that second choice does not mean second best to our child(ren). It is because of the road blocks on this journey to parenthood that I am Wes’ mom and I cannot imagine my life without him.
Becoming parents through adoption is not the same as becoming a parent through biology so it was important for me to understand what responsibilities I might be undertaking by choosing adoption. Many aspects of parenting are the same – middle of the night feedings, dirty diapers, potty training, meltdowns, driving all over to various activities, etc. There’s just another layer on top of that – potentially navigating feelings of abandonment, questions surrounding why their bio family chose adoption, feeling different from their peers, uncertainty about long-term health risks without thorough family history, etc.
When I was first learning about adoption, I have to admit the idea of an open adoption was hard to understand. How does that work? Would we be co-parents? Would I have to discuss most parenting decisions with this other set of parents? Would my parenting decisions always be questioned or judged? Would my child be confused? Would they hate me for taking them away from their real family? Would they run away to be with them? So many questions and the possible answers seemed scary to contemplate. In fact, I was so overwhelmed with my initial research that we abandoned the adoption path and headed down the road of IVF because that simply was easier (at least in my mind). Although we were knee deep in IVF, the research with adoption did not stop. The more I learned, the more comfortable I became with the idea of being an adoptive mom.
Side note: It was not until recently that open adoptions became the most common type of adoption in the US. With an open adoption, the adoptive family is chosen by the expectant mom/family and often times the two families are able to meet before the birth. Open adoptions have varying degrees of contact after the child is born ranging from sharing occasional pictures and letters to frequent in-person visits.
I now know how fortunate we are to have a good relationship with Wes’ other mom. Although our contact has slowly diminished over the last couple of years, we still touch base several times a year, frequently share pictures of our families, and even had the first visit since his birth earlier this year. It’s definitely nerve-wracking to meet up with the woman who made you a mother – what would she think of me if Wes misbehaved? Would she judge how I handled it (because let’s be real, what 3 year old doesn’t misbehave haha)? Will she think I’m a good mom? Will I do or say something that makes her regret her decision? Will Wes want to go home with her? Will it be hard for me to see him with her? And so on. So many emotions leading up to the visit, but the love and respect we all have for each other was something I would not have imagined possible but it was so evident by the time the weekend was over. I hope we are always able to maintain such an honest relationship.
We’ve talked openly with Wes about his other mom, his birth story, and adoption in general since birth. We hope there is never a time that he remembers learning he was adopted. It’s a complicated relationship to explain to a 3 year old (I think it’s a complicated relationship for adults to understand, too), but I think he understands what he needs to. He definitely loved his visit with her (and really loved the extra attention that weekend, haha!) and so glad he got to feel so much extra love during the visit.
For the past 3 years, I have not had that feeling of dread as Mother’s Day approaches. As most of you know, the whole path to parenthood was pretty tumultuous. One that had a lot of ups, downs, and stalls before it ended with the most incredible experience. (In case you need a refresher, you can read a little more about it here,here, and here).
Now, Mother’s Day brings on a whole bunch of other emotions – joy, of course, but also relief to have “made it”, guilt that I get to enjoy this kick ass kid and maybe somehow didn’t earn it, worry that Wes will resent us as he gets older, sadness for Wes’ other mom… it’s definitely complicated. One thing is sure, I am grateful – so, so grateful (!!) that Wes is mine to love. Without Wes’ other mom, I would not be a mom to this wild, energetic, smart, curious, wonderful boy. So today, I also think of her (a lot) and thank her for giving me this amazing gift.
This year, while honoring all the incredible mother’s in your life, remember how complicated Mother’s Day (and wouldn’t hurt to keep this in mind for Father’s Day, too) can really be for some. For birth moms, adoptive moms, moms who have lost a child, a child who has lost their mom, surrogates, those longing to be a mom, those who have a difficult relationship with their mom, and on and on.
So, if this day is complicated for you, I wish that you have the day you need today. Whatever that means for you. I wish that you feel loved, that you feel seen, that you have the space to feel whatever emotions you’re feeling, and that you don’t feel alone. You are not alone.
Baby Steps 