Valentine's Day

We were set to sign the papers gaining all custody and parental rights on Valentine’s Day.  We got up early that morning and headed to the hospital to be with Will.  The social worker showed up around noon and we went into a room to sign the papers.  She said that everything had gone smoothly that morning with the birth parents and that they were confident in their decision to terminate all rights.  She went through all of the papers very thoroughly, but I barely remember any of it.  I was so nervous.  Do you get that feeling right before you pass out, where you can barely hear anything and everything seems to be moving in slow motion?  That is how I felt through the entire signing...

After signing the papers, I went into “mom mode” and made sure we had diapers, formula, signed papers to be released from the hospital, the car seat properly installed, and a million other things.  My husband, on the other hand, got hit with reality.  He was holding Will and BAWLING!  The nurses were teasing his to “get a grip” before he left the hospital.  At this time, I could see that all of the emotions that I seemed to be slowly going through in the entire “trying to get pregnant/adoption” process, had hit him all at once.  

I vividly remember getting into the car with Will.  We checked the car seat a few hundred times and I jumped into the passenger side as my husband drove us.  He asked me if I should be sitting in the backseat and I immediately thought to myself, “Oh my gosh!  Should I?  Is that what moms do?  Do I not have those ‘mommy instincts’ I should?”    Those emotions quickly turned into excitement.  This was the first time we had been with Will where he was in our legal custody.  It was official.  We were parents!!!

We drove ten miles under the speed limit back to our hotel and introduced him to the hotel staff.  We wanted so badly to “show off” our new son, so we ended up showing him to everyone in the hotel.  We befriended the concierges, cleaning, staff, cooks, etc. just to have someone to oogle at him as well.  Not having people we knew at the hotel with us was difficult.  We were 1000 miles away from any of our family or friends and had so many questions to ask and so many people we wanted him to meet.  The wait to come home was so hard.  

But, we tried to make the best of it.  However, things got a little uncomfortable as we sat in our hotel room, in the middle of Newark, on Valentine’s Day.  Let’s just say that our neighbors were not very considerate of us having a newborn.  Enough said?  Ugh...

My husband and I decided to celebrate our first night as official parents as well as Valentine’s Day, but were terrified to take Will out.  My husband went out to get us a nice dinner, which consisted of steak and lobster.  Things were perfect!  A beautiful son, an amazing husband, Valentine’s Day, and a wonderful dinner!  All we needed now was silverware.  No such luck.  We ate our steak and lobster like cavemen...picking it up with our hands and gnawing on it.  Oh well.