What a difference two weeks makes! Two weeks ago, we had no ide
a that such a little
person as our baby boy, we'll call him Newbie, existed on the face of the earth. Now, he is as much our child as Little Miss and Little Man. It's one of the strange things about adoption...it can go so quick! In all of the months of waiting (seven months for us on this adoption), during which you might hear from your social workers just two or three times, it is very hard to remember that placement with a new baby could be imminent. Even though we had experience with Little Miss' adoption (a whopping six days notice) we were still floored when Newbie entered our lives with a scant seven days notice. It's kind of hard to wrap your head around it when things go that fast! I'll give you a little more description of our placement and adjustment as I, well, adjust, but for now here is a timeline of how quickly an adoption can proceed.
Monday 8/11
I got a call from one of our social workers. They had been working with a biracial little boy and his birthmom since before his birth. Though he was six weeks old, he had been in the hospital all along because of exposure to a drug called methadone. Given the withdrawal and potential complications from the drug (the social worker asked) did we want our profile shown to this birthmom? After several frantic phone calls and a few google searches, we decided to be shown.
Wednesday 8/13
The birthmom chose us (!) and would like to meet us as soon as possible.
Thursday 8/14
We met the birthmom at 11am and everyone felt really comfortable. The social worker, birthmom, and we all felt committed to seeing this adoption through, so we decided to visit Newbie in the hospital. What a cutie! His birthmom and our social worker stayed for about an hour, and Phil and I stayed for another two hours after that. That evening, we even brought Phil's parents and brother over to see the baby. The kiddobeans got to see him through the window to the Special Care Nursery and became very excited.
Friday 8/15-Sunday 8/17
Phil and I juggled the care of the other kids so that we could tag-team up to eight or ten hours a day visiting Newbie in the hospital. He was in the final stages of withdrawal and was being weaned from the morphine that was controlling his severe withdrawal 
symptoms. During these few days, we also finished the nursery (so cute!) brought out and washed all of the baby toys and clothes, and had several frantic shopping trips to catch up on odds and ends that we still needed. Exhausted, we finally asked my parents to take the two kiddobeans from Sunday night through Wednesday afternoon because it looked like we might be placed on Monday. During these few days, we were living on faith and trust in the word of our birthmom because she was not going to relinquish her rights until he was released from the hospital. Although we trusted her, knowing that she could change her mind (even though we didn't think she would) added to the emotional strain.
Monday 8/18
Placement! We all signed papers and the baby was released from the hospital and placed in our arms at about 8pm. We had a emotional and heartfelt meeting with his birthmom and decided to fully disclose our information (full name, address, phone number) in order to have a fully open relationship.
So here we are a week later still reeling from such a quick placement. Somehow, no matter how prepared you think you are, you just can't prepare for parenthood to come in a seven day period. It's just hard to wrap your mind around it. So, for those of you beginning the process or languishing on profile--take heart! Everything can change in the space of a week!
