The title of this post is something hubby’s best friend’s daughter said tonight. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
I was at work today at 4:15pm.
My husband called me at work today and said “Our adoption social worker called.”
I said, “Okay.”
Then he said, “You remember that mom that is due in April and didn’t have health insurance? Well, I guess she wanted the adoption agency to pick a family for her. The adoption agency picked us. The adoption social worker emailed me asking me to call her, and she told me we can have the baby if we want him.”
I said, “Okay. What did you tell her?”
He answered, “I told her yes. Don’t talk so loud, you’re at work.”
Well, we work in a call center environment, but I don’t care. Ran around to my friends I work around and told them we’d been picked to adopt a baby boy. Called my friend that had already left; she promptly informed me that we needed to get together on Monday and plan a baby shower. Hubby and I went to Target after work and registered for baby stuff; we’re going to register on Babies R Us shortly. Called our families and Grandma Denise is going to throw a shower with hubby’s Aunt and Grandma Denise’s good friend. We decided on a work truck/airplane/dump truck theme for the nursery.
The baby is due April 16th. It’s a boy, half african-american, half caucasian, no known serious medical issues.
I am totally un prepared.
I am sorry if I didn’t call you personally, I tried to call as many people as I could think of.
Thanks! We’ll keep you updated! 
We have a name picked out (We’ve had it planned for YEARS) but we’re keeping it a secret until he’s born. We’ll let you know!
I can’t stop smiling!
2 more sleeps and I’ll be heading back to Kansas City!
Just got an email from our social worker tonight. She advised us of another situation: a biracial (caucasian/african american) boy that is going to be born in April. She advised that the birthmother does not have insurance, so the costs of the birth would fall on our shoulders. I am calling our insurance company tomorrow to see if they would cover the costs of the birth mother, but from what H.R. has told us is that those costs are not covered by insurance.
I could rant and rave about how unfair this is, that since I can’t have kids, I am forced to pay out of pocket for someone else’s expenses. I could go on and on about how unfair it is that this mother isn’t even on any type of public aid that could help. I could go on and on being mad, frustrated, and hurt.
However, I keep telling myself and I keeping telling other people, and I have to give myself the following pep talk all the time. It is so easy to be bitter, to be mad, to be angry at other people who can have kids the old fashioned way. This is what I tell myself over and over and over, and verbalize to other people:
I have committed to play this game. I don’t like the rules. I think all the odds are stacked against me. I think this game is completely unfair. I don’t like what I have to go through to play this game. But if I want to win, if I want the outcome of having a child, I have to play by other people’s rules and I have to play the game.
Talked to our social worker on Thursday. We were not picked by the two birth families (one baby was born on 12.26.07 and one was due 02.04.08) However, our social worker told us that she will let a birthmom in Nebraska know about us. We’ll see!
On the home front, everything is done. We didn’t have our realtor do photos on Friday, but he should take them sometime this week and get it back up on the market. We just have some cleaning to do and a little rearranging but that is it.
Found another attorney to help us with our mom’s estate stuff, so that was a good feeling to finally get some help on that. Hopefully, that will be resolved within the next couple of weeks. Today is just a laid back day, working on laundry and the cross stitch for my nephew. He hasn’t been born yet but should be anytime!
It will be fun being an aunt I think. Hubby was in Target a couple weeks ago and he was trying to convince me to buy our nephew a Star Wars Lego Set that is meant for an 8-10 year old. I advised Hubby that his nephew will not be able to play with a Star Wars lego set right out of the womb. Hubby said “well, I will give a lot of supervision!” Well, I’m sure.
Here is the announcement that went out at work letting everyone know I’d been promoted to supervisor (some of it is insurance jargon):
Jessica (Jessie) started her career at (Company Name) as a bilingual CSA in March
of 2005. She promoted to OCR on the Spanish Auto Coverage Team in October
of 2006 & became team coach in July of 2007. She has been backstopping for
various supervisors since August of 2007. She has earned her AIC and her
AIS designations, and is nearing completion of her GCA designation. She is
a member of Toastmasters, Diversity Club, and FEAPAC. She earned a degree
in Theatre, with a class concentration in Spanish, from Knox College in
Galesburg, Illinois in 1999. She and her husband, Donald, who also works
for KCHP in the Workforce department, are excited to be in the process of
adopting their first child.
On the adoption front, Hubby started his Saturday through Tuesday schedule last week, so if anything happens with adoption very quickly we will only need childcare 2 days a week. We have our names in with 2 different birth families, 1 child was born on Dec. 26th and another is due Feb. 4, we’ve given them our “book” but haven’t heard anything. I don’t think I ever blogged about this, but we had our name in for a baby due in August that she ended up picking someone else. I know domestic adoption can be full of “false starts,” which is just part of the deal. When people ask me “Isn’t this so hard” or “Isn’t this so expensive” I just say “If you want it, you have to play the game.” Even though I don’t like having to tell a social worker every detail of my life and give all of my tax information for the past 2 years and have her look at my house, it’s part of the game, it’s part of the system, and we have to play it. I am getting more and more excited and feeling as if things are really happening. We shelled out $900 for our homestudy on 1.15.08, just more to apply to the tax credit!
So, if one of those children happens to pan out, we’ve at least got a plan. Talked with HR and our insurance company. We can put our child on our insurance as soon as we “take possession” of the child, whether or not the adoption is finalized. No one seems to know for sure if insurance will pay for the birth mom’s labor costs. The birth mom that is due Feb 4th has NO health insurance, and our social worker was concerned that we would be responsible for all her labor costs. Well, if I went into labor my insurance would need to pay my hospital bill, but no one is sure if it can pay for the birth mother. Has anyone dealt with this before? It seems as if (YIPES) we would be responsible for paying these costs out of pocket.
We have everything we can possibly pack packed up and in the storage unit (one last load in Father in law’s van), and we are planning on having photos of our house taken and the house put BACK on the market Friday! It’s been a couple months but we’re nearing the home stretch. We have our bedrooms and kitchen to paint but that is it! Rest of the house is painted. SO glad the remodeling stuff is almost over!
