We want his name to be Jackson
Well as you sit to have some morning coffee let's continue our journey in the adoption. I left off with the last blog as we were ready to begin our speed dating experience with a birth mom out of state. We comitted to visit the birth mom’s home state every 3 to 4 weeks to spend time with her and to text with her as often as she wanted to get to know her and her family.
It becomes something like speed dating because she has to make a good connection quickly in order for this to work. So we began the speed dating process. We made the trip every month, we had dinners, walks in the park, and discussions on family, looking at pictures of the family, understanding family history and on and on… We loved this young mom and mom to be! She had her head on straight – I mean really straight – she just found herself in a tough situation and now living back with her mom.
Because she was so strong and so well put together we often wondered why is she doing this. She is not panicking, she makes sense and there is no drama! I am now scared all over again! This birth mom is going to change her mind because she’s got it together and just doesn’t realize it yet. And did I mention that she could be a model—just beautiful, inside and out.
Well the speed dating continued we are now in October spending time with them at Halloween, then its November and spending time with them just before Thanksgiving and at our annual Thanksgiving feast in Atlanta with 30 of our closest friends and family we announced that we were matched and the baby was due in January. Before we knew it ---it’s December and we planned to be with her and her family for the holiday. We were really dating at this point and things were going really well.
So as you can imagine we had several conversations and discussions including the birth plan by this point—if she wanted us in the hospital room during delivery, what did we want to name the baby. And what we want to name the baby we were told can be a really odd and/or tough conversation as we heard that some birth moms change their mind as they don’t like the baby’s name so we should not let on what the name will be – so we didn’t for the longest time. When she brought it up, we changed the subject or turned the tables to ask her about baby names.
We finally reached a point that we had to say something because the question wasn’t going away and we had to hope that the name we selected was one that she liked and didn’t give her any reason to change her mind. The other thing that made it easy was that she was calling the baby—“baby” and wanted to start calling the baby by the name we selected so a connection to us would begin. We thought this is a really in tune and sharp young lady and on one hand I worried she would wake up and change her mind and on the other I felt like she has accepted this and how this was going to be so I needed to get on board because that baby was coming and coming soon. Here goes--- we want his name to be Jackson. Her response and it was an overwhelming response was that she loved that name - really loved that name! And so did her family!
We were overjoyed and excited about this and I revealed now that Doug and I are having a boy! So also no worries about coming a girl’s hair for me and we got the boy that we always wanted. I know that it may sound like the months between September and December seemed easy and in some aspects it was but others it was not. As I mentioned we talked a lot about several different things and how she reached this decision, what she really wanted for the baby and along the way she had a couple of scares and ended up in the hospital for a few issues. Both times that she got sick and had to go to the hospital her mom called us in Atlanta to let us know what was happening and that she would keep us posted along the way-- and she did like every hour on the hour.
Now, it December 23rd and we are going to be in her home state for Christmas to spend it with her and her family....and remember Jackson is scheduled to arrive on January 9th and we planned to stay in the state until he arrives. We checked into the Hotel Indigo in the city and they became our family for the next 4 weeks....
Before checking into the Hotel Indigo we checked into a 5 star hotel in the city for Christmas eve and a few more days and invited the the birthmom and her daughter to join us there for an amazing Christmas few days and it was. This was and is a strong family connection we share with this family.
It's now December 28th and we had a really long walk with the birth mom like 3 miles and also find more time to finalize the hospital plan. Doug and I would have our own hospital room across the hall from her, we would be in the delivery room, we would have full rights to make decisions for the baby the moment he was born and she planned to sign rights to us right away---- but as some of you may know birthmoms are not allowed to sign rights away until they are not on medication- so it would be days later potentially.....
After this long and emotion day, Doug and I decided to have a bit of fun on our own... a nice dinner with a bottle of wine and a few cocktails at a bar... I think we got back to the hotel around 2am and we were drunk..... guess what happens next....?
