Just after lunch, TechnoDad and I went to meet A. All the way there, I repeated this mantra to myself "Do not focus on the baby. Do not focus on the baby."
We walked into the hospital room and A and her birthmom (let's call her Z) were lying in bed on their sides facing each other. Z rolled over onto her back and said "I watch her so much she's gonna think she's a TV show." (And indeed, A has preserved her love of an audience lo, these ten years.) I talked to Z, asked her about the birth ("It HURT."), gave her the gift we'd brought. Finally, and I am so pleased that it went this way, Z asked "Do you want to see her?" I was so determined not to act like A was our baby at that point. She wasn't, not yet, and Z was in charge and important (and is still so important - how could she not be? She changed my life.) and I was very determined not to do anything that would make her feel like we didn't think that. I am so happy that I waited until Z offered her to us.
So I held my girl and she started to fuss and Z said "It's about time for her to eat, let me show you how to feed her." and I stood there listening and nodding, me, who had bottle fed literally hundreds of bottles to babies of beloved friends in an attempt to get through thirteen childless years whole, I stood there and listened and let her tell me what to do. And I'm thankful for that too. Sometimes I think there's no right way to be the prospective adoptive parents in a hospital room with a woman and her newborn, but I do know there are lots of wrong ways to be there.
So I fed her and burped her and gave her back to her mother, and the social worker showed up and Z introduced us and then asked the Social Worker "So where are those papers you want me to sign?" and the Social Worker looked rather pointedly at us and said "We can get to that in a minute." So we took the hint.
In the elevator on the way down, TechnoDad could not stop beaming, and I couldn't stop crying. "It seems so soon to love her this much", I said. And I stood there sobbing and he stood there beaming, and a lovely old couple got on on the floor below and looked at me and then at GrinningFool and then at me and then at ChortlingMan and we were both too much in the grip of our emotions to explain anything. (They're still confused, wherever they are. Or maybe one of them is a writer and has written a much more interesting back story.)
Sometime that evening, TechnoDad snuck back from running an unspecified errand and decorated the nursery with a brand new rocking chair and twelve bright red roses. I spent the rest of the day wandering aimlessly about my house, unable to sit still, unable to believe it might actually finally be over. That our happy ending might actually be less than twenty-four hours away.
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6 comments:
Great story Sue. It brought tears to my eyes.
And yes, it is possible to love something so much so quickly. I am finding that out more and more every day.
And for all those years of waiting you, more than anyone else I know, deserved to have a happy ending.
Thanks, CCAP. You too, honey.
Thanks for writing that. I love the picture of TechnoDad grinning in the elevator :-)
I've always been glad I got to experience Day 10 with B, but I didn't get to experience any of that with A so I love reading about it. (Oh, except Day 11 when you drove wildly across the prairies to show her off to the family :-)
Sue, this is so moving. I don't know...I think more people should read it. You should submit it to one of those 'Chicken soup' collections or something.
How about the "Miracles of Motherhood: Prayers and Poems for a New Mother" - a June Cotner thing. Guidelines say "short prose pieces can be submitted." It's listed on the Inscribe website here.
there's a contentment in reading the satisfaction of another, especially when i have been privvy to some of the prologue. i'm grateful you invited me in.
northlite
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