I’ve been meaning to write about our adoption experience for months! We told Megan that we would write something up just weeks after Wyatt was born. Well, here we are 7 months later, we just completed our finalization…and I finally decided that if I don’t do it now I never will. So here we go.

 

We began our adoption journey just over one year ago, in December 2006. After trying and failing to become pregnant and being subject to numerous tests, our doctors finally advised against my becoming pregnant. We had discussed adoption numerous times before as something we might think of in the future. Well, the “future” came up extra fast! It took a couple months of discussion and research until we decided that this was absolutely what we wanted to do. We selected American Adoptions as the agency that we wanted to work with to make our dream of a family a reality.

 

We sent our preliminary application in to the agency during the last week of January 2007. We worked feverishly to get the rest of the documentation completed and turned in. Once we had our minds made up – we couldn’t wait any longer! And on March 22^nd we received a note from Megan letting us know that we had been made active! Now the real wait was to begin!

 

In order to help ease our minds during the waiting period, we came up with a list of projects to do around the house. The first was a complete remodel of our main bathroom. We figured by completing one or two small steps each weekend, we could spread the remodel over 4 or 5 months before moving on to our next project. To our surprise (and elation!) on May 23^rd, only two months after becoming active, I received a call from Cara with American Adoptions notifying us that we had been selected by a birthmother! It was such surprise that Jason truly didn’t believe me when I called to let him know! He didn’t catch on that what I was saying was really real until I told him it was a boy, due in early July. Needless to say, our remodeling schedule had to be put on a rush!

 

We had a few conference calls with our birthmother, Casie, and then made a trip to her town to meet her. We were lucky that she was only about 4-1/2 hours away in a neighboring state. Meeting her and talking face to face made everything seem so real, and was so much easier than trying to make a connection over the phone. (We’d recommend a before-birth meeting to anyone, it made all of our time at the hospital after the birth so much more relaxed.) We spent the entire day getting to know her, her mom, and her dog! She is just the most wonderful person, we couldn’t have asked for a more perfect match! Casie isn’t just our sons’ birthmother, she has become our friend. Like most families starting out in the adoption process, at first we were scared of the idea of a more open adoption, but after meeting and talking to Casie – we couldn’t imagine not knowing her the way we do, or having such a close connection! 

 

We all stayed in close contact over the next few weeks, as Casie had already started dilating. Nevertheless, she made it to her due date and still no labor! So her doctor scheduled an induction three days later. We drove down a day early so we could be at the hospital with her. The induction began at 1 am and at first things moved slowly, she remained at 3 cm for hours. We got to her room at 5am and we sat and talked until about 6:45am before she really started getting uncomfortable – and all at once there was action! We left the room so a nurse could check her progress, and she was dilated to 8cm. As soon as the nurse left, I had to run to bring her back – the baby was coming! I stayed in the delivery room, and Jason stood just outside. There was no time for a doctor to arrive and the nurses delivered our son, Wyatt Dean at 7:04 am on July 5^th, 2007.

 

It was the most amazing experience, everything just happened to fast – I think we were in a little bit of shock! Casie said that if she hadn’t been in such pain she would have laughed at me, I looked terrified! There was no counting to ten, or special breathing, and stuff like you see on TV. All of the sudden he was just there! Casie said “Sara, meet your son,” and I was finally able to breathe. I was the first person to hold Wyatt, and Jason gave him his first bottle – and changed the first diaper (take notes Dad’s!). Wyatt was ours from the first minute, and we couldn’t take our eyes off him!

 

Casie and Cara had worked things out with the hospital so that we could stay in a room with Wyatt. We spent most of the next three days in Casie’s room or ours, talking, laughing, and admiring the most beautiful baby we’d ever seen!  Casie told us that from the minute she met us she knew that God had made her pregnant, so we could have Wyatt. It even turned out that she found out she was pregnant at the same time we made the decision that adoption was the answer to our prayers. As one of our friends who has also adopted told us, “So many things have fallen into place and are right for this little boy to be your child.  This is the amazing part of adoption.  In this big world, this tiny baby finds his way to his parents.” We are true believers in her wise words.

 

 We drove Casie home after being discharged from the hospital, and stayed for over an hour talking. It was so hard to leave, like saying goodbye to a friend you don’t know when you’ll see again. Driving away was a mixture of emotions; happy, sad, scared. But finally after all of our wishing, hoping, and dreaming, it was just the three of us – our new family!

 

We made it back home after ICPC just as Wyatt turned two weeks old. He’ll be 7 months tomorrow, and we just completed his finalization. Others told us how fast the six months would pass – we never believed it would go as fast as it did. It does seem like he was born just yesterday! He has grown to become the happiest, most handsome, and well behaved child. And he has added so much joy and purpose to our lives! Our love for him goes beyond words.

 

We have kept in contact with Wyatt’s birthmother, Casie. We email back and forth, and we don’t just send a few pictures now and then - we send every picture, every month! Her life is moving on, as is ours. But we will always share in a deep connection with her, and that is our son, Wyatt. We thank God for her, everyday.

 

We’d like to say Thank You to everyone at American Adoptions for making the entire process as smooth as possible. We’d also like to mention Megan Kautio, Jenny Ball, and Cara Hinkle from American Adoptions and thank them especially for the assistance, friendship, and support they provided through our entire experience.