And Baby Makes Five!!

What, did you think it was me?? PPPLLLLEEEAAASSSEEE!! No, my sister and brother-in-law, Yvonne and Steve adopted a beautiful baby girl (Siena) on 3/21/07 to join their clan (along with their two lovable dogs). Boy, do they have quite an adoption story to tell!

It all started with a telephone call to Yvonne and Steve earlier in the month. They had been in contact with an attorney last December to start the adoption process and were told that it should take 18-24 months for a match, so this telephone call as a total surprise. (The following narrative is from my brother-in-law).

Thursday, March 8th -- We were to be in LA the next week for the "Match Meeting". The “Match” is a process where the birth parent(s) meet the adoptive parents. If anyone is uncomfortable for any reason then the “Match” is not made and new adoptive parents are searched out. So, they headed to LA on 3/8. That’s when things changed and the story begins. Yvonne answered the phone. “You’re kidding”, she said. After hanging up, she said we have new plans. “The birth mother is in labor – we need to go straight to the hospital.”

Indulge me for a second, but I need to say that I think Yvonne and I have an exceptional marriage. The only thing that we do poorly together is driving – VERY poorly! So, to keep our marriage strong, we try to limit the driving experiences that we have in foreign locations. Of course, I did address this several years ago by buying a GPS device, but a very close friend of mine has it now (sorry Jeff, I just had to say it). So, we were on our own. The destination was 6 miles from LAX. After 45 minutes, we realized that we had gone full circle and were back at LAX – negative things were said and we started out again. After an hour and 15 minutes, we arrived at the hospital.

Upon entering the hospital, we met our lawyer. “Under the circumstances, this will be a modified Match” he said. He gave us some advice about the process and then said let’s go meet the birth parents.

My first impression: With a personality style of “guardian” I mentally protect against the downside, which means I predict the worst case scenario. So, I did this for both the birth parents. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Upon entering the room, we were introduced to the birth mother and the birth father. Both were articulate, smart, striking and grounded in their decision to give up their baby for adoption. The birth mother is half French and half Indonesian. The birth father is African American. The birth mother is 5’4”, but the men in her family are between 6’2” and 6’4”. The birth father is 6’3”. I suspect that Siena will be taller than Yvonne (easy call) and probably taller than me.

This was my first time being around someone in labor. It certainly looks uncomfortable and boring. The birth mother’s water broke Wednesday at midnight. She and The birth father hailed a taxi and asked for the nearest hospital – it was Sedars-Sinai – very nice – the place where our movie stars go. The birth mother was given Petocin to speed up the delivery – it never worked. So, she went in for the C-section at 9:30pm. After eating dinner, Yvonne and I joined the birth father for more waiting.

At 12:30am, we were invited to go see our new daughter. The doctors estimate that she is 4 weeks short of full term, so she is in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Wow, what can I say? We walked up and saw our cute little girl for the first time (yes, I know everyone thinks that their baby is cute, but the reality is you were all fooling yourselves when you thought that… only our baby is cute). We cannot hold Siena because she has tubes all over her body, but we could rub her head, hold her toes and have her hold our finger. Like I said, wow!

On a side note, I’ve discovered what makes the Los Angeles economy work – it’s parking fees. The average price is $2 per 15 minutes to some maximum value. Every time we have to drive to run an errand, we got another $15 to $25 bill. Our car rental is $16.50 a day, but clearly the local economy is making it up in parking.

We thought we were only going to be in LA for one day when we flew down yesterday. Neither Yvonne nor I brought any change of clothes or toiletries. So, we went to Target and loaded up on clothes and necessities. I plan to stay here until Sunday and then fly home. Yvonne is going to stay with Siena until she comes home with us. I plan to fly back next weekend and, if all works out, we will drive home together. The circumstances of this trip have exciting and challenging. Both Yvonne and I are very, very thankful to all of our friends who are helping out back at home while we take care of this!"

As with any adoption, things can happen, and they sure did.....

Friday, March 16th - "I flew home from LA last Sunday. Yvonne and I spoke on the phone Monday and we were still on a euphoric high. On Tuesday after lunch I noticed that my lawyer had called. I immediately called back. He didn’t want to waste time getting to the bad news, “The birth mother has changed her mind. She is flying back to LA in 2 days to take the baby home with her”. I was numb, worse yet, I new that I had to tell Yvonne. I called Yvonne, but went straight into her voicemail, “Yvonne, call me when you get this voicemail”. Yvonne called about an hour later. She had been with Siena during one of the feedings.

One of the things I love about Yvonne is that she is nearly always happy. That was the case when she called me back. She started to tell me about her wonderful day. She was enjoying the sun after visiting with Siena and next she planned to go for a walk on the beach. Like the lawyer, I figured that there was no easy way to tell her the news, “The birth mother changed her mind. She is going take Siena back”. Yvonne went silent. Finally, she said, “I knew this was too easy.” One of the things Yvonne and I do well is work together to find a solution. Our conversation moved from the painful reality to strategizing about what to do. We decided that we needed to talk to the birth mother directly.

Yvonne worked with our lawyer to arrange a conference call with the birth mother. Yvonne and I dialed into the conference line and waited for the birth mother. “What are we going to say”, we asked? We through out a couple of ideas, but all was forgotten when the birth mother entered the call. A quick sidebar – I don’t do a lot of things great, but I can tell you I played my role perfectly – I did not say a word (except my occasional “right” to agree with what was being said). Yvonne was great. She explained that she wanted to do the right thing for Siena. Most importantly, she said that she did not want to take the birth mother’s baby away from her. She would only want Siena if the birth mother believed we were the right parents for her child. By the end of the conversation, the birth mother said that she did not know what she wanted and that she would decide shortly and get back to us. The birth mother never called us back.

I packed Thursday morning to fly down to LA to be with Yvonne and Siena for the weekend. I knew that there was no resolution to whether we would be able to keep Siena, but I was looking forward to seeing her. Deep down inside, I felt confident that this was going to work out. At 1:30pm, I got a phone call from our lawyer. I answered the phone hoping for the best. “The birth mother is flying back on Saturday to take the baby home with her.” I was numb, but somewhat prepared so I responded politely and said that I would call Yvonne. Before calling Yvonne, I thought to myself that this was not right. I’m not saying that I disagreed with the birth mother’s decision. Subconsciously, I just believed so strongly that all would work out and that Siena would come home with us. Unfortunately, I knew consciously that the odds were significantly against us.

After the Tuesday discussions with the birth mother, Yvonne was torn how much time to spend with Siena because she was concerned about getting too attached to Siena. I’m so proud that Yvonne threw those thoughts out the window and spent all of her available time with Siena. But when I called Yvonne with the news on Thursday, she acquiesced and decided to come home.

A quick note about Southwest Airlines: This adoption happened so fast that we could not adequately plan anything. Originally, we bought 2 round trip tickets to LA when we were scheduled to do the “match” with the birth mother and the birth father. With the change of events, we could not use the return tickets. We called Southwest 1.5 hours before the flight was to leave and canceled our return tickets – and received a full refund. On Thursday when the birth mother said she wanted Siena back, I canceled my ticket to LA and bought a ticket for Yvonne to come home. We got a full refund for my ticket and the price for Yvonne to fly home was only $125. Without giving away the rest of the story, let’s just say that when I had to change the tickets again Southwest Airlines was there for us…

This is what happened that required yet one last change to the Southwest tickets. At 4:30pm on Thursday I was in a meeting. I was still stinging from the realization that was sinking in that this adoption was slipping away. My phone rang. I looked down and saw “Adoption – The birth mother”. I quickly left the meeting and answered the phone. She started the conversation with “how are you doing”. Strangely, this is the same greeting that she used for all of our phone calls. “I’m not so good”, I said. She started crying and said that she was very sorry for hurting me and Yvonne. She said that she had been avoiding us because she had not made up her mind about Siena and she did not want to communicate with us until she finalized her decision.

Metaphorically, I was drowning. I can’t describe what I was thinking – I thought is there anything I could say to change her mind, but I said nothing. And then she started crying and said that she has decided that she wants Yvonne and me to adopt Siena. I lost it! Because I’m a guy, I can’t tell you the details, but let’s just say my buddies at the golf course would harass me to no end if they knew.

The birth mother next called Yvonne, then our lawyer and lastly, the hospital to let them know her intentions to uphold the adoption. So, we canceled the Southwest ticket for Yvonne and bought one for me. I flew down to LA and met up with Yvonne a few hours later.

This is where things stand now. Siena is in the NICU until she can consistently eat 40cc’s of formula from a bottle. She exceeded that goal for the last couple of feedings this weekend. Yvonne and I have a bet for when we can bring Siena home (I’m betting on Wed). When she is released, I will fly down and the 3 of us will drive home. It will be nice to have Yvonne and Siena here at home.

One of the reasons I wrote this e-mail is to let you all know that this adoption is not final. The legal process takes time to finalize (between 6 to 8 weeks). We could go through another episode like the one that happened this week. Worse yet, the birth mother could change her mind. Please pray for everyone in this story. I’m very optimistic that everything will work out for the best, but we will take any help that we can get."

But, fortunately, there is a happy ending to this story…..On Thursday, March 22nd (exactly two weeks after they arrived in LA), the birth mother signed a waiver to waive the 30-day waiting period!! Sooooo, Baby Siena is ours!! She was released from the hospital on Monday, March 26! Mom, Dad and Baby are doing great! She has already had many visitors and we get to spend Easter weekend with the new family!