I reached out to Olivia's dad

Against my dh's wishes, and probably my better judgment, I knew I had to reach out to Olivia's father. I had been crying every day for nearly a month. Any time I had a quiet moment my thoughts would drift back to her and the tears would start up again. I knew that my issue was more than just grief from not being her parent, but for the unknowns, where was she, was her dad able to get custody, how about his family? What happened after we left her?

I had some paperwork from the hospital, and her father's name was listed, and his city. It ends up he lives not too far from us, and yeah, I had a fantasy of me sending him a note, and him letting me know everything was ok, and why sure I could bring over some Christmas gifts and set up a college fund for her, and we could keep in touch and I could make sure she was always doing ok... Of course, reality was a little bit different.

So, I got on facebook and did a little search. Up popped his name and picture... and his wall was open. I clicked, and there was a little tiny post that announced the birth of his daughter. It was posted about 3 days after we had said goodbye, and people were congratulating him and he seemed so proud. But, that was it. A few days later there was a post that just said "i hate court." And then nothing else relevant. Well, that didn't help me at all, so I thought long and hard, and finally wrote him the following note, and hoped he would take pity on me and answer at least some of my questions.

Dear J., 

You & I don't know each other, but we both know someone very special - (baby Olivia, but I used the name that was on the hospital paperwork). We were the family that was set up to adopt her from the hospital. I need to tell you that at first we didn't know that you were involved, or wanted to be involved. When we found out that you didn't know that CPS or an adoption plan was in place, and that you wanted to be a father to sweet Olivia, then we made the extremely heart-hurting decision to step out of your and your family's way. We knew that it wasn't going to be easy for your side of the family to step in, fathers have very few rights in the USA, and CPS especially isn't the easiest to deal with. But, **we** couldn't be a hurdle to stopping a family who wanted to take care of their child.

You might be wondering why I'm contacting you now. The truth is, I haven't stopped crying for three weeks. Not because we aren't parents, but because once we left Olivia at the hospital, we never knew what happened next.  I need to know that she is ok, that we didn't do something wrong, that your family was able to get the ball-rolling for custody, or at least that you've heard where she is, and she's ok.  Can you please, please let me know?

I have some pictures of her from our night at the hospital with her. I'd love to send them over to you (I can e-mail them, or maybe set up a FB album, or just drop them off somewhere (we're in the East Bay). She really stole our heart in the short amount of time that we spent with her. She is a really special little girl, and I will never forget her. It would mean the world to me if you messaged me back and let me know how she is doing.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. I am so sorry if this is coming off as really strange, but please know my heart is in the right place, and I don't think it's bad for so many people to care about one little baby :)

The next day I had a FB message back, and although the news wasn't great, the first line made me feel so good: "I'm glad you sent this message." Apparently, the baby's mom is now claiming he's not the father, and he's gone to court once and been told he needs to take a DNA test, and he's not getting any answers, but he has a court date this week... He didn't answer anymore of my questions about if she's ok or if he's seen here, or who is taking care of her... I hope he sends me another update... At this point, I have no idea if he's capable of taking care of this baby. I don't know if anyone in his family can pass a background check, I don't' know anything, but I do know that at least he's making an effort, and that's more than many men do.

It's been odd... in may ways I feel like I am on the other side of an adoption - I had to do the best thing for the baby and myself by saying goodbye, and yet I was left with so many questions, and so much uncertainty and insecurity. It's amazing how just having the little amount of contact with her father (I'm really assuming he's the dad, he's always been the dad, and he and the mom were living together when she became pregnant, so it's not like he was a one-night stand or something) has put a little bit of peace in my heart, like I still have a link to her.

If I hear anything else, I'll update here, but the one thing that gets me through is telling myself that she's most likely with a family who is just loving and loving her, maybe a foster family or maybe an adoptive family that was willing to be in a risky situation, but in any case, I truly feel she is being loved, and I'm actually getting through days without crying now. I just hope I'll get a little more info soon. 

2010 can suck it

Ok 2010, you have just a little over 2 weeks to redeem yourself, but really, who are we kidding. 

Let's take a look at some of the lowlights and, to be fair, some of the highlights of this past stinking year.

January 1, 2010. If there was ever an inauspicious beginning to a new year, this had to be it. Started the year off by getting food poisoning so bad I ended up in the emergency room. I spent the first 10 days of the year completely housebound in pain and drained, in every sense of the word. Plus I had to field messages from my boss insisting that I had cholera. 

The next few months were consumed with the buying of our house. Every other day we were delayed, delayed and delayed some more with our loan. At one point we had resigned ourselves that the house we had been waiting for for 8 months wasn't going to be ours. 

Luckily, everything finally came together, the bank got their act together and we were able to close just a couple of weeks late. Yay for our first house, with plenty of room for our eventual new baby!

After February, everything was normal. I can't think of any really big disappointments, so that's good.  I did get to visit Mexico's Copper Canyon with two of my co-workers, and that was a nice diversion.

Edited to add: I forgot to mention my car accident in June! I was hit at full speed by a hit & run driver on the freeway. Thank God I wasn't hurt (other than some back pain), but having to pay a $2k deductible didn't feel very good!

In September, our adoption homestudy was finally approved, more than one year after we had begun (we delayed everything due to the new house). In October we went live, and waited for a match.  

In early November I went to Guatemala as a representative of my company, and that had its ups and downs, but for the most part was a highlight. Then in late November were matched with sweet Olivia, and in a whirlwind of 48 hours we experienced the most amazing feelings of love and responsibility to the deepest despair after having to say goodbye. Though we never actually got to say goodbye. All our decisions were made in a dingy Motel 6 away from the hospital... 

At the end of November, the morning after we got home from leaving Olivia, we were contacted by another woman who said she had chosen us to be her unborn baby's parents. Unfortunately, after two weeks of leading us on, but never following up with any of the agency's requests, including signing releases in order to have her pregnancy confirmed, or even telling them that she wanted to match with us, or even remembering our names when she did briefly call the agency.... the agency said in their best judgment that she was an emotional scammer and that we should disengage. The agency let her know that in order to move forward she needed to contact them, and instead she sent me a text that said the agency told her she wasn't allowed to contact us again, so sorry... 

Which leaves us here, in mid-December wondering what more hell we're going to have to go through before this year is finally over. 

Edited to add 12/16: This blog post must have really gotten to me, because last night I had a dream that I was going to die, and I was put on a plane that had designated seating for those with whatever illness I had. One of my thoughts, was, shoot, now I have to add this to my list of sucky things of 2010 on my blog!

Triggers

A few friends got together when they heard that we had been chosen by Olivia's birthmom and gave my husband and I an amazing, generous, fantastic giftcard to Babies R Us. I received it after we had come home without Olivia, but instead of it making me cry or super sad, I felt love and joy and even some relief. Well, first I felt guilt, because the gals who pitched in were obviously excited about our news, and I felt so bad that I had disappointed them that I actually was trying to find a way to reimburse them for the giftcard, but I was told pretty quickly that I was being ridiculous and it was a gift for us and our forever baby, whoever that ends up being... 

Anyway, it was an e-card, and on Sunday I started getting really paranoid that I would have a computer failure, or my cats would eat the printout, etc, etc, and somehow I would lose the e-card, so I decided to go into BRU to exchange the e-card for a physical gift card. Easy peasy. Since I had handled walking into BRU so well, I thought I would go ahead and take a run through the aisles... I swear I was doing fine, making mental notes, comparing items... until I came to the diaper bag aisle. There I saw the diaper bag my mom had bought me on the day we went to go get Olivia. She had called us from BRU right as we were leaving and said she had a ton of stuff for us, could we make a quick detour and meet her to get everything? So we did, and out of her trunk came a jumbo sized BRU bag overflowing with pink. Pink snowsuits, pink outfits, pink blankets, and a very pink diaper bag... we just laughed and hugged and took it with us. 

When we didn't come home with Olivia, I didn't know what to do with all the pink stuff.  I kept it in my trunk for about a week, and then slipped back to my mom's house and dropped it off. I didn't care if she took it back, or kept it for us for another time, but I just couldn't have the sea of pink taunting me.  So, she took the stuff back to BRU, most of it anyway. When I went to BRU on Sunday, there, right in front of me, was the the diaper bag, my diaper bag, the one I had taken all the stuffing out of and carried into the hospital because I was told that the hospital would fill it up with baby goods. It was right in front, and there was no denying it had been the one my mom had bought for me.  I quickly exited the store and waited for the tears and sobs to begin. But they didn't. 

Feeling empowered by not breaking down at BRU, I went to the mall to try to get some shopping done.  As I was smelling all the goodies at the Body Shop, a sight caught my eye. It was a white woman with an African American baby girl. The baby was beautiful, a bit older than a newborn, but still pretty young. She had curls like Olivia, but longer. Her skin was a similar shade and I just stared and then the tears started welling up, and I wanted to explain the the woman why I was staring at her, but instead the tears just started flowing. The mom was wearing her baby in a carrier or a wrap, just like I've dreamed of doing, and they seemed both really at peace, and I just wanted to talk to her, but I was afraid that I would freak her out with my tears and my story, and also I have urges to touch tight curls, and I realize that's not appropriate, but I'm not sure I can help myself, so it's best if I keep temptation away (my poor cousin, who is biracial, just chopped her hair off and she was a victim to me needing to run my fingers through curls. :))... so I quickly left the store and the mall.  

Throughout my ttc journey, and up to this point, I've never needed to avoid baby-related things (pregnant ladies, showers, stores), but this day was just too tough on me. I didn't realize I would be triggered by just going to the mall and seeing a sweet baby and her mom, but I was and now I need to figure out ways to deal. I'm just so worried about Olivia. Although we are no longer in the way of her father & his family, we were just one of many hurdles for them to get through, and I don't know where she is now or who she is with... my assumption is that she's with a foster family and I just hope they realize how amazing she is. 

So, I have a situation brewing with another potential birthmom, but for right now, she's not cooperating fully with our agency so I'm sort of disengaging until we get some things cleared up. I'll write more about all that a little later. Life is strange sometimes.