For those of you who live in Indianapolis, I'm sure you've heard of "Producer Will" and his wife's recent heartbreak. For those of you outside of Indiana, Will is the producer of a popular morning radio show. He and his wife, Adrienne, are in the process of adopting their first child. Recently, they had the heartbreaking experience that affects about 20% of all adoption plans: their birth mother changed her mind before she signed the papers. We were warned from the beginning that heartbreak is a part of the adoption process. Everyone tells you to not get too far ahead of yourself when you begin this process. I don't think either one of us thought it could happen before we even signed any paperwork, but inspired by Producer Will and Adrienne's courage to tell their story to all of Indianapolis, we'd like to share the next installment in our story with you:
It all started about two months ago. We were making a quick trip down to Kentucky to visit Brian's grandmother. Granny lives in the mountains, where cell phone service isn't always very reliable. We both had lost service for quite awhile, and when we picked it back up again, our phones started buzzing like crazy. We each had a text and email, and I had a voicemail, all from a friend saying she needed to talk with us soon about "an adoption related matter." Unsure of what this could possibly be, we quickly called her back.
Long story short, there was a friend of a friend (we'll call her Erin) who was pregnant and looking to make an adoption plan for her son. She actually had a plan in place with another couple, but they couldn't pass their home study, and the husband had gotten cold feet anyway. Erin was desperately trying to make an adoption plan for her son, knowing that she couldn't provide a steady life for him. Our friend wanted to know if we would be interested in possibly meeting with her and discussing a plan. We spent the rest of the weekend in Kentucky with Brian's family, and spending any time alone in our hotel room making lists of little boy names.
When we returned to Indianapolis, I reached out to an attorney that we know, probably one of the best adoption attorneys in the state of Indiana. She advised us on how to proceed. Because Erin was only about 8 weeks from her due date, time was a critical factor. Home studies take 2-3 months, and a baby cannot be placed in a home without a completed home study. However, if we could find a licensed agency to be legally responsible, we could basically foster this baby, then sign the appropriate adoption paperwork upon completion of our home study. Luckily for us, this attorney not only operates an adoption law practice, but an adoption agency as well. They do mostly international placements, but her agency could serve as our placing agency until the home study was complete. Bonus news: Not needing to pay an agency for advertisement and placement fees could save us close to $15,000 in this process.
So we began preparing. We started organizing closets, moving furniture, and cleaning the house in preparation for our home study. We created an email address that didn't include our last name. We went to WalMart on Easter Sunday to buy a cheap, disposable cell phone, since the attorney had cautioned us to not use our "real" cell numbers or email addresses. (Let me repeat that sentence: My husband, a Target employee and perhaps the world's most loyal Target shopper, went to WalMart to help prepare for this baby!) We created a short photo book of us, something to show this woman the kind of people we are, the kind of lives we lead.
Our friend had dinner with Erin, and we received a text on the cell phone (which we have taken to calling "the baby's phone") shortly thereafter. Erin liked what our friend said about us, and she was interested in meeting us. We arranged a date and time to meet for dinner, at a restaurant near Erin's home. A few hours before we were to meet, Erin texted, saying that she felt ill and asking to reschedule.
We sent several options for a reschedule date to Erin, but didn't hear back right away. One of us always had the baby's phone with us, and we checked it compulsively.
One evening, while Brian was at work, the baby's phone beeped with an incoming text message. It was Erin. "Would you consider yourselves empathetic?" she asked. "Yes, I would say that we are," I replied. I anxiously checked the phone for the rest of the night, but no other communication came through.
No further messages came through for almost a week. We were approaching a state of panic. By this point, Erin was only about 6 weeks from her due date, and we knew there was a lot of work to be done in a very short period of time in order to make this work. About a week after the empathy discussion, I had to travel for work. I happened to have the baby's phone with me while on the trip. I was in my hotel room, getting ready for dinner with coworkers, when the baby's phone beeped again. I had to read the message several times before its meaning sunk in:
"I am going to officially decline meeting you both. Bye."
Simple, short, direct. I didn't know what to say in response. A thousand questions came to mind. What had we said or done that caused Erin to reject us before she even met us? Had she found someone else? Was she not moving forward with any adoption plan? I finally texted back, "I'm sorry if we said something that offended you. We wish you nothing but the best."
We don't know what Erin's new plan is. In the process of grieving for this little boy, we have found comfort for ourselves, knowing that, whether it takes two months or two years, we are going to walk away from this process with a baby, with our baby. We have the luxury of time. Erin doesn't have that luxury. As I type this, Erin's due date was about 2 weeks ago. Every day, I pray for Erin, for her son. Even never having met Erin, never having seen her son, we know we loved him in our own way as we prepared to be his parents.
