The Match

So, we were in the “waiting” phase.  I was so excited to finally be in the active stage, and was enjoying my paper pregnancy.  Would my paper pregnancy be like a normal 9 month pregnancy?  The agency did say about 9-18 months...We had 19 days.  

I had come home from work, was watching tv and waiting for my husband to come home.  It was about 6pm when the phone rang.  Caller ID showed up as American Adoptions, but in the few seconds I had to run to the phone, I convinced myself that they were just checking in.  But, it was after hours.  Hmmm...

I picked up the phone and was told that we had been matched with a couple from New Jersey.  Although the birthmother was not aware of her pregnancy right away, she was healthy and had had a healthy pregnancy.  She did not know the gender of the baby, but the baby was Puerto Rican and Portuguese.  I was so shocked that I kept dropping the phone.  She asked me if I had any questions, and I literally had no idea what to say.  What should I say?  What questions should I ask?  She had just told me that I was going to be a parent...of course I had questions!!!  The social worker told me to talk to my husband and get back to her that night.  Oh yeah, did I tell you that the baby was being born THAT NIGHT???!!!  They were preparing her for a C-section as I was on the phone with the agency.  

I called my husband to tell him the news.  He had tried calling while I was on the other line, so he immediately started talking when I called him back. He started talking about having pork chops for dinner before I could tell him.  Finally I was able to squeak out the words, “we’ve been matched!”  I don’t remember much of the rest of the conversation, but I was a wreck!  I was laughing and crying, literally going through every emotion possible.  It was the strangest feeling to go from living how I had for years, to instantly becoming a mom.  

When my husband got home I could tell he was also a wreck.  His face was red from crying and he had a huge smile on his face.   We sat down for dinner and went for a walk.  There was so much to talk about, but we knew that God had put this baby into our lives at exactly the right time.  Everything had happened so quickly, but we were so excited!  We called back the social worker and told her that we would be out to New Jersey as soon as we could.  We called our families and a few of our friends and told them the news.  

(This is a cute story of telling my parents...I called my parents and my dad answered.  I asked him if he would be able to watch our dog the next day.  After hemming and hawing and telling me how busy he was (he’s retired) he finally agreed.  Then he asked me why I needed him to watch the dog and I told him that we had to catch a flight to New Jersey to go and meet our son or daughter that was about to be born.  I envisioned screaming or crying or something dramatic, but instead he asks, “Well, we need to watch Marty for longer than a day, right?”  WHAT??? Typical guy response :)  After it actually sunk in what I said, he started asking a million questions while my mom was in the background yelling, “What?  What are you talking about?  Are you matched?”  Brock’s dad kept saying, “So, I’m a grandpa!  People can call me ‘grandpa’ now!”  Okay, just a fun story to tell, now back to the main event! )


I don’t think anyone could believe it!  My husband starting booking flights and hotels, and I went to tell my principal that I would need to be on maternity leave for the next 12 weeks.  My husband was completely calm and under control and was able to get all of the details in order.  I, on the other hand, was washing all the clothes, writing 12 weeks of lesson plans, packing, crying, laughing, pacing, etc.

The next morning we finished packing and went in to finish a few things at work.  At about 8:30am we got a call again from the social worker letting us know that the baby was born, was completely healthy, and was a BOY!  We had a son!!!  

We caught our flight and headed to LaGuardia.  (If I did it all over again, I would mess with the people who gave us weird looks walking around with a baby carrier, but no baby :) ) On the flight, we wrote a letter to the birthmom thanking her for her decision to choose adoption as well as for choosing us to be his parents.  We also went through names that we liked, if we got to choose the name.  

Once we were there, we had to get a rental car and make our way to Newark, New Jersey.