It was 3 a.m., and my phone beeped loudly with a text. The phone was in the kitchen, down the hallway from the bedroom, but my husband and I both heard it anyway, awakening from our sleep. Our son's birth mom was heading to the hospital to deliver a baby boy. What came next was a flurry of excitement, hectic planning of logistics, and an abundance of nervous energy. We called a shuttle to take us to the airport. A wonderful friend was kind enough to pick up our dog later that day and take care of him while we flew to Florida to meet our brand new son.
It was a pure blessing that my parents so generously rented a place for us to stay for a week in their Florida retirement community, and more importantly, took care of our older son, while we went to the hospital in Miami. Little did we know, we would have to stay at that hospital much longer than we expected.
After we arrived at the birth mom's room, she called three times to ask a nurse to bring the baby to the room. Finally, there he was, cozy in a white and blue-striped blanket. I was able to rock him in my arms. But it only lasted a minute because a hospital employee came to take him away almost immediately.
For two painful days, we waited while the hospital refused to let us see the baby. I'm still not completely sure why. I didn't sleep much. Finally, someone came to bring us to our son. I was so out of sorts that I started putting his long-sleeved onesie on him the wrong way. But next came the joyful feeling of cradling him and giving him a bottle. At that moment, every second in our journey to adoption was totally worth it.
Our journey started with a series of setbacks. First, a local fertility clinic refused to take me on as a patient. That was a devastating and unexpected hit. We found a second fertility clinic and eventually went through two rounds of IVF. The first one ended in miscarriage, and the second one failed. Both were heartbreaking.
But I would change none of it now. Why? Because it led us to adopt our older son, also in Florida, and then two years later, adopt our younger son. Both adoptions took about nine months, including the home study and the waiting period. How lucky we are to have both of them entrusted in our care. We are forever grateful to their birth moms.
Because of the setbacks, our journey took persistence, resilience and steadfast hope in the face of a lot of daunting uncertainty. Ultimately, the story is one of building a family with tender love and strong commitment. Never giving up is what got us to where we are now. Our two healthy boys, 11 and 9, bond over video games, adore our two dogs, and make our family all we could ever hope for and more.
It was a pure blessing that my parents so generously rented a place for us to stay for a week in their Florida retirement community, and more importantly, took care of our older son, while we went to the hospital in Miami. Little did we know, we would have to stay at that hospital much longer than we expected.
After we arrived at the birth mom's room, she called three times to ask a nurse to bring the baby to the room. Finally, there he was, cozy in a white and blue-striped blanket. I was able to rock him in my arms. But it only lasted a minute because a hospital employee came to take him away almost immediately.
For two painful days, we waited while the hospital refused to let us see the baby. I'm still not completely sure why. I didn't sleep much. Finally, someone came to bring us to our son. I was so out of sorts that I started putting his long-sleeved onesie on him the wrong way. But next came the joyful feeling of cradling him and giving him a bottle. At that moment, every second in our journey to adoption was totally worth it.
Our journey started with a series of setbacks. First, a local fertility clinic refused to take me on as a patient. That was a devastating and unexpected hit. We found a second fertility clinic and eventually went through two rounds of IVF. The first one ended in miscarriage, and the second one failed. Both were heartbreaking.
But I would change none of it now. Why? Because it led us to adopt our older son, also in Florida, and then two years later, adopt our younger son. Both adoptions took about nine months, including the home study and the waiting period. How lucky we are to have both of them entrusted in our care. We are forever grateful to their birth moms.
Because of the setbacks, our journey took persistence, resilience and steadfast hope in the face of a lot of daunting uncertainty. Ultimately, the story is one of building a family with tender love and strong commitment. Never giving up is what got us to where we are now. Our two healthy boys, 11 and 9, bond over video games, adore our two dogs, and make our family all we could ever hope for and more.