When we started this journey with our agency, Bethany Christian Services, we were told the average wait was a little over two years. So, we had in our minds that it was unlikely for anything to happen soon, especially because we were pretty average in what we were open to in what we would accept. Still, there is that hope in the back of your head that you will not be average - you will be above average and get that baby quickly. But it didn't happen.
After the two year mark, and the several times we were notified our portfolio had been shown (and one weekend it was being shown to three different birth moms at the same time!) and not picked, it begins to feel like you are never going to get picked and you second guess your portfolio and what you are open to, and any other little thing. Chris and I had started to make a video, hoping that would increase our chances.
So, on Friday, June 15 around 3:30 in the afternoon, I was hurriedly driving my niece and nephew home after a fun day at my house so we could make it to Juliette's bridging ceremony for Brownies on time. I saw a call come through that was a number I didn't recognize so I didn't pick up (I almost never pick up unrecognizable numbers). And I had been trying to call Chris because I realized I had forgotten to take out the rugs from the wash and I didn't want them to mildew. Chris wasn't answering. Then I see a text pop up and I see something about our agency and to call them ASAP. That was new...but we'd been called before and usually its as some sort of situation they wanted to make sure that we were okay with before they showed our portfolio. I wasn't sure it would be best for my niece and nephew to hear that conversation, since my phone connects to the bluetooth in the car. I was hoping the pregnancy counselor had called Chris and that was why he wasn't picking up my calls.
Then the phone rang again. I thought I had better answer it since it seemed urgent. I was half way down Antonio to Ladera when I hear the words coming from the other line that there was a baby boy waiting at the hospital for us because his mother had chosen us. The emotions swelled up so quickly I almost couldn't speak. I am pretty sure I wasn't very coherent and spoke minimal words. The counselor continued on, giving me the brief information about the situation asking me if we had a name because birth mom would put it on the certificate before she left the hospital. We had a name we had thrown around (okay, a name I pushed for and eventually it won Chris over, but I thought I had better check with him first). I told her I'd get back to her. I honestly am glad I was still able to drive because I was crying from almost the beginning of the call. My sweet niece and nephew are sitting in the back seat almost perfectly silent because they clearly understood the gravity of the situation. In the meantime, I saw a text come through from Chris saying "it's happening isn't it?!?!?..." but I didn't see all his texts because it was just flashing through on my screen, I didn't have the texts open.
I called Chris and told him the news through my tears. He agreed on our name so I told him to call her back with our name that we picked - Preston, after my paternal grandfather. I did actually have to pull over for a moment right after we entered the kids' neighborhood because I felt a little dizzy. I am not sure I had been breathing. Harrison and Juliette were very excited, and I know there will be a special bond there with little Preston because they were in the car and the first to hear the news!
My mind was swirling - we were so excited the moment had finally come, but we were also completely unprepared! We hadn't really bought much because we just didn't know when it would happen and what the gender would be. We had set up the nursery finally and bought an armoire. I still hadn't chosen a mattress because the myriad of choices overwhelmed me! I had set up a private Pinterest page so we could drop stuff we knew we wanted and that way if we got a surprise call, it would be fairly easy to just run to the store and buy it....(hahaha, that's funny now).
We arrived at my brother's home, with just enough time to get Juliette changed and over to the school where I needed to take her. I'm pretty sure Harrison sensed that I was having a hard time focusing, because he totally stepped in and helped Juliette get what she needed and ready to go. Chris and I also talked about how to share the news, and we wanted to surprise them, but I had my doubts that my 9 year old niece and 11 year old nephew could keep the secret. But they promised they could, so I told them not to say anything until their parents got the news. My plan had been to stay for the ceremony, and I still wanted to do that because it was only about 15 minutes and that way I could take pictures. But, it was hard, my mind was chaotic and I couldn't tell the other ladies there why I wanted to make sure the ceremony really only was 15 minutes. My little niece was so excited and she came up to me and asked if she could tell her friend. When I said no, she said it was so hard because she was so excited, and I told her I was too, so she could just tell me. I drove home after the brief ceremony, talking to Chris on the way. We plotted a little, but the sweetest part was that right after the call, Chris said a prayer of thanksgiving, and then even wrote it down because he wanted to make sure he remembered it always. We hugged, kissed, cried a little and then we ran upstairs to the nursery and pulled out the two sets of baby boy outfits we had, held them up and took a picture. That was going to be our first hint to our families. Then, hurriedly I wrote on a piece of cardstock "We are going to be big sisters!" and we rushed out back to try to pose the dogs. After several quick attempts we had one that would do (it didn't meet our usual standards...but we were in a hurry!).
I was so hungry, as was Chris. I had been busy all day cleaning the house because we had a big party planned on Sunday, Father's Day, for my family to celebrate my dad's 75th birthday and a little going away party for my parents. (I thought the pregnancy counselor had said the baby was born that day, and so I remember thinking it was too bad it had missed my dad's birthday by one day.) We decided we needed coffee and mobile ordered Starbucks, and picked it up on the way. Chris also wanted to video the whole thing, so there we sat in the Starbucks parking lot making the first recording. I was really pretty tongue tied at that point, so I'm glad Chris was a little more level headed and could do most of the speaking. We then started to battle the traffic to Downey Kaiser, where our little guy was waiting for us. At that point the drive was going to be over 1 1/2 hours.
Of course, we messed up the directions and took the toll road exit too early, but we were busy discussing what we might like as a middle name for Preston. I thought that since he is Hispanic we should pick a middle name that was in Spanish, but I also wanted it to be Biblical. So I started to google it and found all the books of the Bible in Spanish. I started to say them out loud to Chris to see how it sounded with the name Preston. A few I liked that Chris didn't, but he really liked Lucas (the book of Luke). I like the name Luke, but wasn't sure it went so well with our last name and in all my years of teaching students of Hispanic descent I can't remember one Lucas. It didn't feel very Hispanic to me. Then I looked up the meaning of Lucas and it said "light-giving" and that sealed the deal for me. I had been praying that our child would receive a double portion of faith. I want him to grow up knowing and serving the Lord with a steadfast faith. I also want him to use that faith to bring light to a dark world, so to me it was the perfect Biblical name, and as well that I love the book of Luke and think it's cool he was a doctor. So Preston Lucas Lat it would be.
We stopped at an El Pollo Loco and grabbed dinner but I really was too excited and nervous to even be able to eat much. We got back on the freeway and drove. At first the traffic didn't bother me because I was looking up the closest Buy Buy Baby to go purchase the car seat/stroller combo we wanted and what time they closed. Eventually though, when I didn't have much else to do, the traffic started to drive me crazy. I just wanted to get there and meet this little guy!
In the meantime, Chris was video taping everything. He is actually really sentimental like that, and I love that he did most of the talking. I was really too flustered to do much. Kind of weird how much of my energy zoned in on what needed to be done - its like Chris and I switched personalities. We did arrive at Kaiser around 7pm. We parked and just before we walked in we started to send the first text to our families of the baby clothes. My mom was the first of my family to ask if we were trying to tell them something and Christine was the first in Chris'. We let that kind of drop and sit for a few minutes. We then sent the picture of the dogs announcing they were going to be big sisters. That's when the families started to get excited! We walked to the security desk. At this point, as we were checking in with the security guard, I was having a very hard time holding back tears. Everything was so surreal as well. That's the only word you can use for it. And it was a lot of going back and forth between disbelief, excitement, and panicking that we had nothing ready. I don't even know how to explain the mix of emotions...
The guard sent us to NICU. He was only in NICU as a temporary holding area since birth mom had already checked out. She did not want to meet us, even though she had picked us earlier that afternoon (and she picked us because she liked we had dogs...and that's pretty amazing because we had begun to fear that we had too much about our dogs in our portfolio and decided to downplay them in the video). In respect of the privacy of both birth mom and baby Preston, I won't go into detail here what we know about her and the situation, but I would like to reinforce that placing a child for adoption is an act of love. This mom was clearly concerned about the best interests of her child and that is why she chose what she chose. Chris and I will forever be indebted to her for this gift. I cannot imagine her pain, but she knew it was worth it because that is how much she loved her baby. She chose to guard his life, took good care of him for the forty weeks she carried him and because of her love, he came out a very healthy baby. It is an open adoption, but limited for now to just updates through email, with no meetings. That may one day change, but I am grateful she has left his medical and social history for us and we will be able to tell Preston with confidence how much she loved him and why she made the choice she made. I'm glad we will be able to answer many of the questions he will probably one day have.
We took the elevator to the third floor and stepped out. We walked up to the big security door and watched as another mom pressed the button and spoke to the gatekeeper inside. It was then our turn and was had to explain that we are the adoptive parents for Preston. Luckily it wasn't too awkward and they let us in without too many questions. We stopped at the hand washing station and Chris helped me place my purse into a bag. Understandably, NICU had some more protective guidelines than I'd ever experienced and I was glad Chris was much more confident about what to do (grateful for that nurse's training he has, as limited as it is in regards to hospitals).
After giving our IDs to be copied they showed us back to the station where he was. The first nurse we dealt with was nice enough, but she seemed not that excited we were adopting. Chris in his excitement started to videotape her as she ran down some information and she commented how weird it was....and I get her point, but she clearly didn't understand what kind of a moment this was for us either. And then there was our baby boy - fresh, red, and wrinkly with a cone head from the birthing canal covered in dark hair.
It's hard to really express what I was feeling at that moment. It was such a wide range of emotions with everything from extreme joy to extreme disbelief this moment had arrived. There was an instant connection with Preston, and yet he was also still a stranger to us. It was a bit hard for me to really process all this and so I think I naturally tend to take a step back from my emotions at times like that, although the tears kept coming back when I thought about how amazing this all was.
I held Preston first, and he slept through most of it. He was a good sleeper then, and so far still is. Chris also held him, and let me tell you how sweet it is that I think my husband may like to hold babies more than I do. And here is a man who swaddled his puppy, and cuddles regularly with his dog. These are the reasons I knew he was meant to be a father. We also did a short video clip to send to our families announcing that not only were we chosen but the baby was already here!
I saw Preston's stats at the end of his bed and realized that he had actually been born at 10:37 pm on June 14th! I was so amazed at that because that meant he was born on my father's 75th birthday! He now shared a birthday with my dad and shares a name with my dad's dad. Preston weighed 8 lbs and 5.7 oz at birth. It didn't have his length, but he was a healthy baby boy. I watched the oxygen and the heart rate machine...not really knowing much about it, but I saw that the numbers held strong and steady. We later learned he scored 9 on his APGAR test and that he was 19" long. The nurses all commented on what a good sleeper he was.
At this point, all our families knew was that the dogs were going to be big sisters, so they all figured out we had gotten good news, but they had no idea how soon! I called my parents and made my mom get my dad on the phone so I could tell them at the same time. Their responses showed how surprised and how happy they were. Then, Chris's dad ended up calling him and asking if he wanted to go fishing the next morning. Chris' response was no, that he now had a son of his own! It took a moment for that to sink in, and then we wanted to call his mom, who wasn't answering, but eventually Chris got a hold of her. They were also pretty excited, and the next step was to send out the video we had made introducing Preston Lucas Lat to our families. Everyone was so happy and excited!
The nurses changed shifts while we were there and a new young nurse with a southern accent came on that seemed a lot more excited for us and we liked her instantly. We learned they fed him every three hours and we would need to do a diaper change and feeding before he was discharged to us. We also knew we needed to get to a Buy Buy Baby to get our car seat and stroller. We knew what we needed to get, but we discovered that the closest store was thirty minutes away. By this time, we knew we probably wouldn't make it to the store and back for his 9 o'clock feeding. It was hard to leave (I was already feeling mom guilt), but I didn't want to leave picking the car seat up until morning because we were expected to be back at the hospital by 11 a.m. the next morning.
We left and headed to the store in Torrance where we scrambled to find the car seat. I began to fear that even though it showed online, they didn't have it, but a store employee was able to locate it. We looked at the outfits (and it's so hard to not want to buy them all!) and I chose one that with a lion on front and a little jacket with ears on it. Our adoption agency had told us to make sure we brought a car seat, a new outfit, and diapers. She had said our baby was chunky, so I bought for 0-3 months. We didn't buy much else, and then we rushed to Babies R Us hoping to find good deals, but they ended up being out of almost everything baby.
We were also getting a flurry of phone calls from family and friends because we had started to send out hint texts to our friends as well. I felt bad giving the news through a text, but there was just no way to call everyone, besides, I think the video said it all quite well! It was so wonderful though how supportive and excited everyone was for us. Already we had offers from all our friends with young boys to receive clothes and other items that had been used...and since babies grow so fast and don't get a lot of use out of the clothes it was perfect!
We drove back to the hospital, and reentered the unit, and it was the strangest feeling to have to buzz into NICU and explain over and over that we were the adoptive parents to baby boy _____ (birth mom's last name). It's exciting and hard at the same time. We were super excited but at any moment I felt I could be discredited and not allowed to see him (not that the hospital staff made us feel this way, but legally at that point I had very little rights to him, no paperwork had been signed, etc.). He was ours, but yet he wasn't...not yet. Birth mom could even change her mind (and still can at the time I write this).
We came back to our baby boy and we while we waited for his next feeding, the nurse went over all the discharge information on how to properly take care of a newborn and what we should expect and do. I was so glad they did this. It came time to feed and change the diapers, so I did it with the nurse guiding me and Chris watching on. Shortly after this (we are past midnight by now and onto June 16th), Chris' sister, Christine and her husband Dean arrived at the hospital. Christine went in to meet baby Preston while I sat out in the waiting room with Dean (only two were allowed in at one time...). Chris came out to get me and I went back in with Christine and then eventually she switched with Dean. So, they were Preston's first visitors!
By this point, we were well after 1 in the morning. We still had Hannah and Nova to take care of, and Hannah was way overdue on her heart meds, which are supposed to be given every twelve hours. One of the meds is a diuretic, so that means we also have to make sure she goes potty frequently for the first few hours after her meds and she wears diapers whenever she's in the house. I was about to have two sets of diapers in my life! The four of us wanted to get some food, but everything was pretty much closed except for a few 24 hour places. Chris and I decided to just buy some fast food closer to home, and then we got stuck on the freeway in traffic. We stopped at the Del Taco off Alicia and then made it home somewhere around 3:30 pm. I felt awful, realizing that I needed to wash the baby's new outfits, so I stayed up doing that, Chris worked on getting the stroller and car seat ready. I don't think we got to bed until somewhere around 5:30 in the morning. Honestly, I'm not sure I would have slept much anyway with all the excitement as well as all the ways I felt so unprepared!
Running on just a few hours of sleep, we arose and one thing led to another and we weren't getting on the road to drive back up to Downey until well after we had intended. I started to internally panic because there was so much we didn't have! No diaper bag, no blanket, no wipes, no clean bottles...I felt so terrible! And here we were now just trying to make it to the hospital by 11 am (birth mom was supposed to go to the hospital to sign paperwork and say goodbye to baby, and didn't want to run into us, so we had to go later). Then, on the drive, we got a text...birth mom couldn't be reached at this point. What did this mean??? Was she changing her mind? Had she just decided to blow it off? What would happen if they couldn't reach her? Chris sent a text to the families to ask for prayer that birth mom would reconnect with our agency and get the paperwork signed.
We found there was a Walmart right by the hospital, so since we had time now anyway, we did a quick run in. I felt much better having a diaper bag to pull out baby Preston's first outfit than just a plastic bag. We loaded up on formula and some cute outfits, bibs, diapers, bottles, burp clothes, receiving blankets, etc. but still inside I was feeling awful that none of this was washed! What would the nurses think of us? Did we even deserve to be taking this precious little bundle home?
We got the news somewhere around this time that birth mom had connected with our agency and they were meeting at a Starbucks to sign paperwork instead of at the hospital. All was well...we breathed a sigh of relief (part of me was sure it would work out...it was just too perfect not to! Part of me was so scared it was too good to be true!) and headed back to the hospital.
We arrived around noon with a new nurse, this time and older woman with a foreign accent. She began to quiz us on certain pieces of information we had been told the night before, and I think this was just to check if we needed to go through the discharge instructions again. She quickly warmed up and I could see this woman had a lot of experience and she ended up being even more excited for us than the others. Preston was very red though, so they wanted to run a Bilirubin test. This nurse wanted to give him the full forty ml of formula (nurse from night before had said Preston spit up the day before because they were giving him too much), because she said it would help to bring the redness down and she was right!
It was so exciting to see up on the wall the dry-erase board with Preston's name on it and a message saying he was going home today! And a cute little bunny was drawn on it, too! Everyone seemed much more excited for us today.
We had to step out and deal with our agency's paperwork and also the social worker assigned to the baby. Chris and I sat through at least an hour of paperwork, but our worker assured us that birth mom is very sweet and smart and that this was the least risk. The birth mom was confident in her decision and she liked our name we had picked out. All this was a relief, and we did yet another feeding and changed our little guy into his first outfit. The newborn outfit my mom had bought several months back was the one that would fit (he wasn't that chunky!). It was a little red shirt that said "Little chief to the rescue" with a fireman's hat on it and little blue pants with a firetruck on the bottom. We put the gray jacket with the ears on him (although it was way too big!) and some cute little socks. We then packed up our little guy with his hospital beanie, several bottles of pre-mixed formula, a bulb syringe, his umbilical cord clip and his little wristbands from the hospital. They helped us put Preston into his car seat.
We said goodbye, our nurse volunteered to video us leaving (although I think she must not have done it right because the video was only a few seconds) and she followed us all the way to the elevator doors. We walked to the car and Chris recorded video again - even getting Preston in the car and driving home with him. I sat in the back next to him, but already I was so afraid that he wasn't in the car seat right or that somehow he'd stop breathing on the way home! We did stop for coffee because I was exhausted.
Our first stop on the way home was to drop off gifts for my niece that just graduated from 8th grade. It was her party and we had intended to attend. We stopped for just a few minutes and Preston had a crowd of admirers gathered around him as my family met our son for the first time. My mom also had a bag of newborn clothes and some bottles from my good friend Katherine whose baby boy had just outgrown them. My old small group members had pitched in for flowers and balloons as well that she had delivered. We then drove the rest of the way home and later that evening Chris' family came over to meet their first grandchild/nephew along with bringing us dinner....
....As anyone who is a parent knows, your life gets turned upside down and there is barely time to sleep let alone get extra stuff done. Preston is closing in on a month now and I'm just finishing up this blog post. I had written most what is above within the first week or two of his life because I wanted to make sure I wrote down even the most minute details of that day that has changed our lives completely in the best way possible.
We've been completely overwhelmed by and grateful for all the love and support we've been given through messages, gifts, and visits from everyone. Chris' sister, Christine, threw together in the matter of a week an epic baby shower for Preston. It was so beautifully done and between Chris' family and mine, quite a crowd.
I think we've adjusted pretty well, Chris luckily has been working from home and he is an amazing father. We take shifts for feeding baby Preston - I usually get the night shifts and he will take early morning so I can sleep in. It's the sweetest thing to watch your husband and your son. The dogs have adjusted fairly well too. I can tell Nova feels a little ignored the way she cuddles up to any visitor that walks into the door!
So many people prayed for this baby, including us, for years now. Your prayers have been so appreciated and we ask that you continue to pray for this baby boy - that he will grow strong and steady in the grace of the Lord.
1 Samuel 1:27-28 (NIV)27 I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him. 28 So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord.” And he worshiped the Lord there.Honestly, I don't know how Hannah (from the story the Scripture is quoted from above) was able to have her baby boy and then leave him at the temple. But daily, when I think about all the things that could go wrong (SIDS is always there in the back of my mind... it will be several months before the adoption becomes official...and other general things parents worry about), I have to give him back to the Lord and know that God is in control. We can only love him and do our best for him every day right now.
Adoption is not a quick process. Birth mom's rights have been legally terminated already because she signed the paperwork and sent it in immediately after the 24 hour waiting period. Our agency then works with us over the next six months and after they clear us, we can go apply for a court date. Once we get to see the judge, then we can legally adopt him.
We also want to always remember what the Lord has done for us. I'm still pretty blown away by the way He worked it out. I figured that Preston was conceived sometime around my 40th birthday, he was then born on my dad's 75th birthday, and he came home with us on our 5th wedding anniversary. Chris was able to celebrate his very first Father's Day as a father to something more than the pups (because they always get him a Father's Day card...they are quite thoughtful pups). Looking back, my 40th was a little hard for me and I would say the primary reason is because we were still waiting for a baby. I was getting concerned that a birth mom might not want to pick me because I was getting too old. I thought about my wrinkles and age spots and gray hair in the pictures we'd take as a family...but that whole time God had given the best gift ever for that birthday and it just took 9 months to arrive!
Epilogue - I started this post maybe a week or two after we brought Preston home. I think I finished it within the first month. But then I put it on the back burner, waiting for Chris to read and edit (because I hate editing)...sort of forgot about it...but maybe sort of wasn't ready to put it out there yet either. Not that I don't love sharing this story, because I do. It's super long and detailed and more of a journal entry for us to look back every now and then and to share with Preston one day. Now that Preston has turned three months, I figured I'd better get it done. It's a testament to what the Lord has done in our lives.
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