Blast from the past

That picture is of JM at one year!

I was cleaning out my Word folder of old documents. I don't throw away much, especially adoption stuff. They become memories and I found a doozy today. I am copy/pasting the letter we sent to friends and family a few months after receiving JM into our family. This seems like a lifetime ago, and it was the spring of 2001.

Enjoy! I sure did rereading it.

Greetings friends! June 2001

We hope that most of you received our adoption announcements that were sent out around the beginning of April. We say “hope” because some things weren’t fully organized and done quickly rather than thoroughly during the last three months. Many of you have asked for the full details of our adoption experience. We have the opportunity to stop and catch our breath and give you the full story, and here it is in a time-line:

Tuesday, March 6^th, 2001—At a hospital somewhere in Houston, a baby boy is born. His birth mother chooses to place him for adoption and relinquishment papers are signed. This baby is then placed in a foster home while a family is found.

Thursday, March 22, 2001—AM is at work. She is having a conversation with a friend/co-worker, Lisa. Lisa, asks the common question “What is going on with adoption?” AM “We are waiting for THE phone call. I can’t wait to be at home. I can’t believe I am so busy. I am looking forward to having a baby so I can relax!” Ha ha ha….The conversation ends. AM heads back to her office. The receptionist flags her down and says that Deborah is on the phone.

Deborah is the director of our adoption agency. She is not our caseworker, so AM assumed it was a paperwork issue—nothing else. Deborah asks “Are you in a private office?” No. “Put me on hold and get to one.” Okay, so AM’s blood pressure begins to rise. Deborah reveals specific information about the baby born on 3/6, and would we be interested? AM says yes. Deborah then puts AM on hold and initiates a three-way call to Texas. While on hold, Lisa passes by. “Pssttt!! Lisa!!” Lisa pops her head in with a quizzical look on her face. “This is THE call!” Lisa has the look on her face like a marble hit her forehead. She tells all the office about this call. The call is completed with Texas and AM has full information regarding the specifics of this little boy. All they need is a “yes” from the us and this baby is ours. Time was crucial—other couples had also been informed about him, so it was a race as to who would say “yes” first.

AM hangs up, and rushes to her office to call ML—who is in class. She hangs up and decides to wait a few minutes before rushing to pull him out of class. When she hangs up, all female co-workers are standing at AM’s desk positively beaming. She blurts out pertinent details and makes it clear, this isn’t a done deal. AM reaches ML, they confer that this is the child. AM calls back Deborah. Deborah calls Houston. Deborah calls AM and greets her with “Hello Mom”. It’s a done deal. AM’s knees literally buckled. They buckled a few more times that day.

Friday, March 23^rd, 2001—An interstate compact is initiated on our behalf so that upon arrival in Texas in a few days, this little boy can cross state lines. We are given the privilege of naming him and JM is the name chosen.

Monday, March 26^th, 2001—AM’s co-workers put on a baby shower, and AM is blessed that she is being showered for an upcoming baby. All the years of trying to have kids, and finally getting to this point was overwhelming.

Wednesday, March 28^th—We attempt to leave home using standby passes. We don’t anticipate that it is spring break for Oregon colleges, and flights are full. We also don’t anticipate that a flight will be canceled due to mechanical difficulties. We are bumped from three flights that day, and return home utterly frustrated. Friends and family expected to get phone calls from us sitting in our hotel room in Texas, not our own living room. We board a flight that night at 11 p.m. and do a red-eye flight to Chicago, then a very early flight to Houston. There was a Starbucks in the lobby of Chicago. Yahoo!

Thursday, March 29^th, 2001—We arrive in Houston, TX at about 10 a.m. after being awake for about 28 hours. We rent a car and drive to the adoption agency. They call the foster home where JM is being cared for. He is on his way. We fill out paperwork and chat. JM is placed in our arms around 11:30 a.m. We simply walk out the door and go to Chili’s for lunch. We are amazed at how simple the whole process took. If you look at your calendar, it was only one week before today when AM received THE call. After lunch, we go to a hotel room and crash, all three of us. When we get our wits about us, we begin to enjoy our son. We are amazed. Very little sleep is had by anyone that night.

Friday, March 30^th, 2001—We realize that flying into Portland, OR will be just as difficult as flying out was. We decide to fly into Seattle, WA and rent a car to drive several hours home. We wake up at the crack of dawn to catch a flight to San Francisco, CA, then onto Seattle, WA. We arrive in Seattle,WA around 1 p.m. and head home. We arrive home around 6 p.m. The pictures that were taken of us that evening definitely show that we had little sleep in the past 72 hours.

Saturday, March 31^st, 2001—ML’s parents and his sister drive from their hometown to meet the new family member. We tumble out of bed and hand JM to them while we put ourselves together. It’s that silly sleeping thing!! All of us thoroughly enjoy a day of just getting to know JM.

April 5^th, 2001—JM has his first doctor’s appointment and he weighs 10 pounds 12 ounces. His doctor falls in love with him and offers to babysit if we need a babysitter. How many of your doctors have volunteered to babysit for you??

The timeline could go on and on. There are all the “firsts”. The first Easter, the first Mother’s Day, the first time eating rice cereal, the first time to the park, the first giggle, etc. We won’t take up two more pages with that list.

We do want to tell you some specific prayer requests as we complete our adoption of baby JM:

Issues regarding JM’s birthfather are not resolved. Please pray that as those issues would be resolved. As we write this, things are looking good.

Please pray for our finances. As much as we have planned and planned for this event. Things are tight.

We are committed to AM being at home with JM. She will work part-time through the summer, then step down from her position—but will return to volunteer status.

Pray that paperwork with this adoption would go through smoothly. We want this adoption to go through by the end of this year, from the standpoint of paperwork.

How do we close such a letter? Not sure. We are truly, truly enjoying our new roles as parents and each smile from JM is a gift from God. Our hope is that as we enjoy our new family member this spring, that God is richly blessing your family.

Lovingly, ML, AM and JM