Our Adoption Story, Part 2
Owen’s Adoption Story
Paperwork. Wait. Meetings. Wait. Decisions. More paperwork. Wait.
Let’s skip the details and get to the good stuff — am I right?!?!
After waiting about 18 months, we received a call that we would be presented to parents who met the criteria we set and we matched theirs. Nothing like a little anxiety for a Tuesday morning right?! We didn’t tell a soul, didn’t want to jinx it.
Well that’s not quite the truth. We told another couple who we were bestiest with and we celebrated watching football and drinking, and i mean, D-R-I-N-K-I-NG! Waking up with a hangover and the realization that I could be a mother, in a matter of months.
So this was the REAL DEAL; the first time our faces and story would be in front of people who may want to place their baby in our home. We waited and a couple of days later, received a call that they wanted to meet. Like in person. My first thought — what does one wear to potentially meet the birth parents of our child?!?!
We met in the social workers office (let’s call them K and T). We were nervous, I mean, I honestly don’t know what you say in these situations. But the meeting went very smoothly — they chose our profile out of the 150 they saw because of three reasons. One, we loved Boston sports — their cat looked a lot like ours and Tom’s dad works with cars and the birth father LOVES cars.
Three days later got the life altering call that they had chosen us. 3 anxious months of waiting, uncertainty, and of course, more paperwork. 3 months of preparing both to have a newborn and the potential that this would not or could not work out. There were happy days when I busily went along painting a gender neutral nursery. And there were days when I couldn’t bear walking through the baby section at Target without feeling all the anxiety and worry.
And then there were all the questions — How could I love someone that I hadn’t even met, who I may never actually meet? What if I met this baby and the birth parents changed their minds? ALL the What Ifs ran through my head. It wasn’t a simple time, but with the hubs, we made it to the day we had been wishing for for the past 2 years. October 26, 2009. We packed the car, packed an newborn car seat, fresh diapers and of course, a gender neutral going home outfit. And we made our way to a neighboring state to wait for the birth of this baby.
We weren’t there for the birth, but we were there within half an hour. Sitting in a local Marriott hotel, the call came in — “Your child was born. Do you want to know if its a boy or a girl?” I quickly said no, I mean we had waited this long, what was another 5 minutes. We raced to our car and sped to the hospital. Parking in the garage, I clearly remember looking at my husband a few steps from the hospital and saying, once we pass through these doors, our lives will forever be changed. And they were. Walking into the nursery, and meeting our son is a moment, a feeling that we will never forget. We both wanted a boy, but with our luck, assumed it would be a girl. We couldn’t decide between two names, but when the nurse asked what the name was, I didn’t even take a second to look at Tom and said Owen.
Owen Thomas Caleb Maida — some may ask why the two middle names, but we wanted to honor his birth parents by including his birth name as part of his middle name.
Honestly, it was a painless adoption. We were able to spend the last few minutes with his birth parents before they left the hospital. All I remember was lots of tears, sooo many thank yous from both sides, and walking away feeling like they had given us the biggest gift of our lives. We were with him from moments after he was born. We spent time bonding with him in the hospital, in several local hotels and were able to bring him home after a couple of weeks. Our lives as parents had begun.
12 years later, writing this blog and I still have all the same feels, but I know we work hard every day to parent the very best we know how.
Stay tuned for Daniel’s adoption story, which if you know, was a much different experience….
