Well, so much for posting regularly. I just looked over my last post and I have come to the conclusion that either I really have nothing great going on in my life or I just don't think to post when something does happen. I can use the excuse that I don't use the computer much when I get home from work. I guess my brain is saying that I use the computer more than enough at work and should keep it that way. I am posting right now from work but that is only because this just popped into my head.
Jimmy finally got his first paycheck after being out of work for almost 6 weeks. He lost his job after our close encounter with adopting a baby. I guess I can go into the story now. It is no secret that we haven't been able to conceive and we have looked into many different options but we both agreed that the baby doesn't have to be ours biologically because there really are a lot of kids that have no family. We have looked at so many different agencies and read many stories of other couples adopting. We have also heard all of the horrors that some couples go through trying to adopt but we basically decided that international adoption would be our best bet because once the baby is chosen for you, he or she is yours and there is no family to interfere, whereas, domestic adoption can be frightening, especially depending on what state you live in. New York has a 90 day waiting period before a domestic adoption is final. The other problem that I have with domestic adoption is that we have to advertise for a baby. So basically if the woman doesn't like your pictures or bio, they don't choose you and you could be waiting for a while.
Well back to our adoption story. My husband was working in a hospital here on Long Island for 4 years as an emergency room transporter. He brought E.R. patients to the various floors of the hospital. Well in the beginning of July, he had a patient to transport to labor/delivery. She was in her late 30's and was all alone. She was panicking because she thought she was 2 months early having the baby and she asked my husband if he knew the number to planned parenthood. He said no and asked her why? She told him that she wanted to place the baby up for adoption and didn't know who she should contact. My husband told her that we were looking to adopt and he thought that she was doing a wonderful thing for some lucky couple. He dropped her off and wished her luck. She delivered a baby boy later that day and asked the nurses how she could get in contact with the transporter who brought her from the ER. They told her who to contact and when my husband came in the next day, there was a message for him from her. He went up to see her and she told him that she would like to give the baby to us because he was very helpful and she didn't want her baby to go to a foster home. He called me and told me what she said and said that I could call her if I wanted to. He also said that he didn't want to see the baby without me. I was very nervous because I felt that it was way to fast and way too easy, especially after hearing how long some people wait to adopt in the US. Well I called her and she seemed really nice and very sincere in her wanting us to adopt him. She asked me to come to the hospital to see the baby and I had to go. I got to the hospital and with Jimmy, we went up to maternity and met her and she had him with her. He was the cutest little guy I had ever seen and her first words to us were, come look at
your son. Those words were the best I had ever heard in my life. My entire life, I knew that I would be a mommy one day and this was the first time that it seemed like it really would happen. I couldn't take my eyes off of him. He was perfect and he was going to be mine. I now understand how every other mother feels for their new child. It was love at first site. We took pictures of him and she told us that she had to tell us before anyone else did. She had done cocaine once during the pregnancy and that the baby tested positive for it. We accepted that and said that it didn't change our minds one bit. She said that she told the hospital that she had a couple to adopt the baby and when the social worker from the hospital met us, that is when all the problems started. She was told that Child Protective Services would not interfere with our adoption plan and we had to get a lawyer and do all the necessary paperwork. We have friends that have adopted and they referred us to an attorney so that was all set up. We decided that we would name him Erik James, she said that a really important person in her life was named Eric and that would be a great name. The next day we were on our way to the attorney to get the paperwork and CPS called my husband and said that because the baby tested positive for Cocaine, they were going to step in and place him in foster care since she didn't want him. We were devestated and tried everything we could to bring him home but it wasn't meant to be. We found out the next day that another couple went to the hospital the night before and because they had all the paperwork ready to adopt, they would be taking him. Because we hadn't decided yet on how to proceed with adopting, we hadn't even did a home study and without that, there was no way we could adopt anyway. We were hoping to at least be able to bring him home possibly as a foster child and get everything done while he was with us. I guess not. My heart was shattered. Just as I felt the instant love that a mother feels for her child the first time she looks at him, I also felt the heartbreak of a mother that has lost their child. I just thank God that he went to a couple that wanted a child as much as we did and hopefully he is getting all the love he deserves. I can't bring myself to get rid of the pictures that we took of him. I carry one with me.
Well, how does this tie back into Jimmy loosing his job? Since he worked at the hospital where the baby was born, he should have never told her that we were looking to adopt a child. He broke hospital policy and they were afraid that she could sue the hospital by saying that my husband talked her into giving her baby up. When this was first going on, the hospital told Jimmy that they didn't like the situation but they wouldn't interfere with the adoption. We now know that that was never true. After Jimmy was terminated for supposedly trying to buy the baby from the woman (as the hospital administrator said), he found out a few days later that someone in administration ended up adopting the baby. Jimmy wasn't angry with being fired because he felt that he couldn't work for the hospital if it was going to punish him for trying to become a father. This was the last straw with his job anyway. The hospital is owned by Catholic Health Services and because the Catholic church is in charge of that, our attempt at in-vitro fertilization was unsuccessful because they don't condone technology helping a couple to conceive even though our coverage would have paid for in-vitro if he worked for a non-catholic company. Well, he is again working for another Catholic hospital and they do know what happened in July but his new boss wasn't concerned with that because he knows that my husband is a great employee.
I guess that is all for now. Catch you later. :)
