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After writing about the emotions that adoptive parents often feel when they are going through the adoption process, I wrote about the emotions that are common for adoptive parents to experience when their children are first placed with them, and then I started sharing some of our personal experiences with meeting our children for the first time and what our early days with them were like.
Our first two experiences were with international adoption, however our second two adoptions were domestic adoptions.
With Marcus’ adoption, we were matched with his birth mother almost two months before he was born. It was a very open situation and I spoke on the phone with T. regularly. It was an intensely emotional time for me as I got to know this young girl and heard all about her life and her struggles. She had already placed a child for adoption and knew how hard it would be, and I found it hard to be excited knowing the pain that she would have to go through. At the same time, while she seemed very confident in her decision to place him with us, I could not help but worry that things would fall through and she would change her mind.
So the “wait” was very different. With our international adoptions we had children that were ours. We had pictures and video of them. We chose names for them and knew that at the end of the process, they would be with us. We worried about their well-being and longed to be with them as soon as possible.
With Marcus’ adoption, we could not claim him as “ours” while we waited, because he wasn’t ours. He was T.’s baby. There were no pictures, as he was not born yet. We wanted him with us and were excited for that, and yet at the same time we were painfully aware that our gain was going to be someone else’s tremendous loss. And then there was the fear that we would not end up with him at all.
Meeting him for the first time was almost unreal. We had not planned on being in the delivery room, however T. called us at the last minute and said that she was alone at the hospital and asked us to come. We were nervous, excited and every other emotion you could imagine. Being in the room for someone else’s delivery was emotional. Watching a child you thought and hoped was going to be yours was unbelievably emotional. Seeing a young girl give birth to a child that she was not going to parent was heart-breaking.
We had a wonderful few hours of spending time with T. and with Marcus together. Things were not awkward as I expected. But then that night when we left the hospital, with instructions to wait for a phone call in the morning that would let us know when (if) the relinquishments were signed, and then we would be able to go and pick him up. It was heart-wrenching to think about what was going on at the hospital. It was nerve-wracking to sit there in our hotel room, with my diaper bag and car seat, and wonder if I was going to go pick up the baby I already loved, or go home empty handed. It was rough.
But the phone rang, and we were told we could come and get Marcus. He was in the hospital nursery when we got there and T. had already left. For the next hour while I held him, fed him, dressed him and cared for him, were the first minutes I finally started to relax and believe that he was our baby.
His adjustment was as smooth as possible. As a newborn he quickly bonded to me and he was a wonderful, content baby who ate well and slept well in those early weeks.
And when I spoke with T. on the phone on and off during those first few weeks after placement, I was able to witness her peace with the situation and her knowledge that she she felt she had done the right thing, which helped me to resolve some of those challenging, conflicting emotions.
Marcus’ domestic adoption was very different emotionally than our international adoptions. I found it a lot more challenging emotionally and a lot more stressful, however, the joys were also very joyful, and being able to see our son be born was amazing beyond words. Having Marcus from his very earliest moments was priceless. I got to do more with him (such as give him his first bath) than I did with the children I gave birth to. And of course having a newborn was wonderful.
Once again, it was definitely an emotional roller coaster!
