My wife is a labor and delivery nurse at a local hospital. You can imagine that after 2 years of infertility, helping mothers deliver their new babies everyday became a very painful part of her job. As well, there were many days she cared for mothers who very evidently did not want their babies. In these situations, she could do nothing even though her heart ached to care for these little ones. As we began the process of becoming foster parents and looking deeper into adoption, she was very transparent with her colleagues about this next step in our lives.

We received a phone call one night from a doctor colleague of my wife. This doctor is also her personal OB/GYN. She was well aware of our situation and reached out to my wife. The doctor was caring for a patient who was considering adoption for her baby. This young girl had settled in her mind that she would place her baby for adoption but she had not yet chosen a forever family. The doctor connected Lauren with this girl and they talked by phone a few nights later.

Their first conversation lasted three hours. Three hours. As I listened to them talk, it sounded like old friends catching up on life, family and dreams. It was awesome to find out about this girl who was incredibly talented, bright, smart and working very hard to graduate from college. She had been dating her boyfriend for over 3 years and had become pregnant. We learned later that her boyfriend was also highly talented, a musician, an engineering student at a large university and working very hard. These were two very good kids who found themselves having to make an extremely difficult decision.

Over the next three months, there were multiple conversations. We learned more about each of them, their families, their hopes and dreams. Even more, we learned about their desires for this baby boy who was coming. They wanted him to grow up in a family full of love that would push him to achieve his wildest dreams. Both of them expressed how deeply they wanted to parent him but understood with their current stage of life, it was practically impossible. The best decision for him (and for them) was to place him for adoption.

The more we visited, we learned that they wanted a closed adoption. They wanted pictures and a letter once per year detailing his life, achievements and milestones.  For them, it would be too difficult to watch him grow up in a different family but they knew that was best for him. We were so impressed by their maturity and resolve; this wasn’t a flippant decision to cover up a “mistake.” They had thought out, researched and made a very informed decision to place their son for adoption.

In August 2010, we received a phone call from the birthmother informing us of her decision. She wanted us to be parents to her little boy. We were elated, ecstatic and overwhelmed with joy. After 3 years of infertility, we would finally welcome another baby into our home.

-sb

Want to read previous posts in the Adoption Journey? Click HERE

08 Feb This entry was published on February 8, 2013 at 7:28 am. It’s filed under adoption, experiences, family, father/son, God, Uncategorized and tagged adoption, family, foster parents, open adoption, orphan care. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.