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Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Footprints of a Family, our second adoption journey, part 10

this journey begins here I hung up the phone, looked at Dave, and said...."The baby is coming." We were instantly awake and our gears were running. The first thing I did was phone the airlines to have our flight rescheduled. While I was on hold with the airlines, I went straight to our clothes dryer and started folding clothes.


My husband sees what I am doing and incredulously asks me, "Why are you doing laundry now?" I looked at him and said, "I have no idea." To this day we laugh about that. I guess in my subconscience mind, laundry was a mind numbing, soothing act and that is what I needed in that moment.


Laundry aside, we changed our flight to that morning. My parents were going to drive us to the airport and watch Cassie while we were gone. Our good friends offered to drive our dog up to the kennels for us. Our other dog and cat were staying home and our neighbor was going to take care of them. We were set. Our bags had been packed for awhile. We were ready to go. As we were leaving the house our phone rang. It was L's mother again. Apparently it was a false alarm. We were literally walking out the door, one minute more and we would have missed the call. Now what should we do? The plane reservations were made, the car was loaded, the dog was gone, our daughter was taken care of....should we still go, or stop the process knowing that this whole scenario will be repeated again? Most likely within a few days.


We decided to go. Our momentum was going, we were unable to stop. Off we went to the airport.


We flew into Atlanta. We were planning on renting a car and driving to South Carolina. We have good friends in Atlanta so we decided to stay a night with them, since we were no longer in a complete rush. We had a wonderful visit with our friends and the next day we rented a car and drove the 2 hours to Columbia. Our friends would have liked us to stay a bit longer but we were anxious to get to our final destination. Even though we were in constant contact with L and knew she was doing fine, we wanted to be in Columbia. We knew that there was a reason for us to be there early, we just did not know what is was yet.


We arrived in town and checked into our hotel. The day was Sunday, February 6, 2000. We called L and made arrangements to meet her and her mother for dinner. In the meantime we went to the grocery store to purchase the essentials and unpack. Our hotel room had a kitchenette which we knew would be essential with a new baby.


Before we knew it, it was time for dinner. I will never forget walking into the restaurant and seeing L and her mother sitting there with the biggest smiles on their faces. We immediately felt at ease and had a wonderful meal. We talked and laughed like we had known each other forever. It was wonderful and we all agreed that this was a much better way to meet for the first time, rather than our first meeting being in the hospital.


We went back to our hotel. Before going to bed that night I wrote a note to Cassie. I promised to send her a card every day...and we did. Dave wrote some and I wrote some, and we wrote some together. Missing her was horrendeous, and every day we were there it hurt more.


We also made daily phone calls to my parents and spoke with Cassie. Everyday she asked us, "Is my baby brother here yet?"...and everyday we had to tell her "No". Everyday I hung up the phone crying...everyday my heart broke a bit more missing my baby girl. We had no idea how long we would be there. We second guessed our decision constantly, should we have stayed home? How long would this take? Not knowing was maddening. Patience....again....how many lessons would we have on patience.


What we did know was that we were there, and we would continue to be there until our little boy was born. As the days dragged on, the thought crossed our minds to just come home without our baby. That was when we were at our lowest...when we missed Cassie the most.


How many days until his birth....how long after his birth would we have to stay there?


to be continued....

15 comments:

ChrisB said...

Another cliffhanger, you are too good at keeping us in suspense!

bichonpawz said...

Alison!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You are making me CRAZY!! Such suspense!!! Once again, I look forward to reading the rest...

tiki_lady said...

Oh another heart wrencher! It must have been so hard to be torn by distance and not knowing how much longer. Surely, you won't hold us in suspence for days! Next post pull eeeze!

Hootin Anni said...

You got me all tensed up and very excited! [PS...love the day's header...that's really cool]

Now, please, do tell me when 'the continuation' is added, I'd love to read more, and I don't do too much bloghopping these days with Spring Yard Work...but if you drop by and tell me, I will make SURE I read what you've added. Okay?

Sherryl said...

Man can you write! Hurry and finish this story. It is amazing.
Love you
Sher

karisma said...

Looks like you are trying to teach us patience here...you hype us all up then leave us hanging. I think when you finish writing all this you should get it printed as a book.

The laundry part had me laughing. When I had baby no. 4, I cooked a big meal, dished it up, cleaned up while they ate. Did all the laundry, ironed and put it away then popped my head calmly round the door and said "Umm, can I get a lift to the hospital please!" The look on everyones faces was priceless!

Beth from the Funny Farm said...

AAACCCHHHKKK!! What a cliffhanger!

ConverseMomma said...

You capture the agony of the wait so perfectly. It brings me back. Sometimes I have a hard time thinking about that time in my life because, although it was the greatest miracle and brought me Jackie, it was the most difficult thing I ever experienced. Can't wait to read more.

Unknown said...

The intensity and expectation are killing me!!!
I can't imagine what it was like to live it...
:)

Fiona said...

Alison, you are one VERY brave lady. My hat goes off to you....what a family!

Irene Latham said...

Hi Allison - I still don't like to leave my kids for more than just a few days, so I can imagine how difficult the open-endedness of the time away from little Cassie must have been! Also, like you, I find myself really relishing those no-brainer repetitive chores like laundry and vacuuming when I am under great stress... I can imagine being away from home without those chores to tend to would actually INCREASE the stress level! It's amazing all the ways we learn to cope, even without knowing that is what we are doing. There's just so much we can't plan for... especially tough in situations like this one! xxoo

Jennifer said...

Ok, drag it out a little longer why don't you??? Go ahead, I have nothing else to do! I can wait.............................no I can't, finish it NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jo Beaufoix said...

It must have been so hard missing Cassie. When I gave birth to Miss M, I wanted to get home to Miss E as soon as possible, I missed her so much.

Unknown said...

The waiting IS the hardest part. Oh how hard, this wait and wait some more.

Unknown said...

The waiting IS the hardest part. Oh how hard, this wait and wait some more.