Happy National Adoption Month!! My name is Christina and I
have been friends with Jason and Nicole for 11 years. Nicole has done a great job of educating
readers with her blog about the adoption world and doing so in such a positive
way. What we do not hear a whole lot about, however, is the ugly side of their
story. When I stood beside them on their wedding day and heard them take their
vows, I had no idea at the time what the meaning of “for better or worse” would
mean.
Nicole and Jason never hid the fact that they wanted a big
family so it did not come as a surprise to me shortly after their wedding that
they announced that they were not going to officially try to have a baby but
were going to stop using protective measures.
A few months went by and they moved from “not officially trying” to “officially
trying.” I watched them start tracking
calendars, change diet habits, etc. At
first I would say things like “oh I am sure birth control is still left in your
system or “you guys are too stressed about it.”
There were breakdowns and “go crazy” moments by Nicole. I am sure everyone reading this can think of
a time that there close friend has called and hit rock bottom and feel like
nothing will ever be the better again.
The moments that you can eventually laugh about later only but at the time it
feels like there is nothing you can do to help.
Fast forward a year, Nicole and Jason were still trying
anything and everything to have child. They
decided to try IUI. The third round, I received a phone call from
Nicole saying that Lukas and I needed to immediately come to their house. After two years of watching Jason and Nicole
be on an emotional rollercoaster, they told us they were pregnant. This excitement was short lived. Since Nicole had a diagnosis of infertility,
she was deemed to have a high risk pregnancy.
I watched her stress day after day of having to go get blood work drawn
to make sure the pregnancy was still progressing normally. Less than one week after she found out she
was pregnant, she received a phone call from the doctor informing her that her
blood counts were no longer progressing normally and she would probably
experience a miscarriage over the weekend. Wanting to not believe it, I told
them that the test results had to be wrong.
As someone looking at her, she looked perfectly well, there is no way
she was experiencing a miscarriage. Two
days later, she called to tell me that she was bleeding. The next day, I
received a phone call from her that she was in Indy and she was had an ectopic
pregnancy and she was going into emergency surgery. We officially lost the Woodard baby.
During Nicole’s
physical pain (from the surgery) and emotional pain, Jason was amazing. He would drop anything and everything to do
anything for Nicole and it made me realize how strong their marriage was. They decided that they needed a break from the
“trying” part of having a baby and take a few months off and reevaluate what
their next step would be.
Adoption. It never
surprised me that this would be their next step. They had always expressed that they wanted to
adopt at some point in their marriage.
Selfishly I wanted them to take the adoption route because I thought it
was the safe route and they would experience no additional heart break. Oh how little I knew about adoption when I
thought that…..
I watched them go through the process of filling out paperwork,
getting background checks, going to the appropriate classes, create an adoption
book, home inspections, etc.….all to even become eligible to be on a list as
potential parents.
They say that couples typically wait between 18 and 24
months for a child in the state of Illinois.
The Woodard’s were selected within two months of their adoption book
being complete. To anyone that knows
them, this should not surprise you. They
are amazing people and anyone can see that, even by just viewing their
book. I believed the worst was behind us
and their baby would be born in a few short months. I helped Nicole get the nursery ready,
planned her baby shower, attended Jason’s diaper party, helped pick out the
“going home from the hospital outfit.”
When there were small red flags along the way, I brushed them off and tried
to assure them that they were reading too much into the situation. We celebrated last holidays of them being
parentless, last New Year’s without a child, last girls night out with a child,
etc. The day finally came, the baby boy
had arrived. I was so excited that they
were finally parents that I planned to meet Mrs. Grimm at their house to deep
clean it while they were at the hospital.
I arrived right as they were leaving.
I am not even sure how I can describe the look on their face at this
time, it was the happiest expressions I have ever seen on either of their face. A few hours later, we learned the birth
mother had changed her mind and she had decided to parent. It’s the strangest
feeling to secretly hope the birth mother changes her mind and gives her child
to a complete stranger and that suddenly this baby born would be theirs. And it’s even stranger to grieve for the loss
of a child, a child that I never met and a child that was never meant to be in
our lives. It took me a long time to come to terms that this baby belonged to
someone else and this is not the end of a journey but a hiccup in the Woodard’s
story of adopting a child. This journey
will lead them to the most precious child that will make all this craziness
worth it.
Since it is National Adoption month, I finish by sharing the Top 10 Things I Have Learned As Being A Bystander during this process:
- There is no safe point in a pregnancy. Unfortunately, until someone puts your baby in
their arm and says they have 10 healthy fingers and toes, there is no
guarantee.
- There is no right thing or wrong thing to say in
this situation. There have been so many
times that I honestly had no clue what to say to Nicole. I think I tried for so long to always have a
positive spin for them but in the end, it’s ok to say nothing.
- . Adoption
is a very long and difficult process- it is not the safe route as I once
thought it was.
- Birth mothers are the strongest individuals out
there.
- . You can never fully prepare for comments or
questions. Just when you think you have
heard it all, someone will through a curveball and say something very
insensitive or inappropriate. Also the
question Nicole and Jason hate being asked the most is why they are not trying
more/different fertility treatments. I
know Nicole would never write or say anything but guess this is what you get
when you turn your blog over to me.
- Adoptive parenting is no different than
biological parent. They are parents like
everyone else. They will someday a high
energy three year old who will be screaming in the background as we are trying
to have a phone conversation, we will have birthday parties to plan, Bella will
miss the days of being the Woodard’s only child when their kid continuously
climbs all over her. Girl’s trips will
now be a plus one with a baby sitting next to us playing in the sand on the
beach
- .
- Adoption brings people together. I didn’t realize how many people out there
were actually adopted or had adopted a child or in the process of trying to
adopt. So many people have such positive
stories and outcomes with adoption that it helps make the light at the end of
the tunnel seem so much closer.
- The adoption process is very individual. Some adoptions are closed, some are
open. Some adopt a child as an infant,
some adopt through foster care. Some
adopt domestically and some internationally.
People adopt children of all race and color. Every adoption plan is different and is the
decision of the adoptive parents.
- 9. Adoption is about patience. I am not referring to the hours of paperwork
that the Woodard’s did or the waiting game of home visits or the waiting of
return phone calls by the agency. That
was the unfortunately the easy part. The
hard part is patiently waiting and never knowing what to anticipate. They are waiting to be selected, they are
waiting for the birth of the child, they are waiting to hold their child for
the first time, they are waiting the 72 hours for the birth mothers final
decision, they are waiting the 30 days for the birth father to petition the
adoption.
- This baby will be so lucky!!
The week started with my first true "Lord help me" mom moment. My parents, Jason, and Aiden were planning on coming to the race and plans just were not working out like we had originally thought. The weather looked looming, it was a long drive, you know how this story goes. Well I find myself bawling my eyes out in my car one day because I cannot imagine not seeing Aiden for that long and how stupid am I to have signed up for this race, LOL you also know how this saga goes! It turned out just fine Aiden, Jason, my mom, and dad all made it down Friday night, cheered me on all day Saturday, all is right with the world I did not have to go into crazy mom mode! 
Saturday was beautiful. The 80% rain and severe thunderstorms rolled off the radar and it was a beautiful, partly sunny day! Jaclyn and I did our jog dive into the reservoir about 7:30 in the morning. I swam out 1, 2, 3, breath 1, 2, 3 breath sight ... hit the first orange bouy and around we go 1, 2, 3 breath 1, 2, 3 breath sight and so on. All I can see is the blue swim caps ahead of me I cannot sight the second orange bouy yet so I follow the masses. 1, 2, 3 breath 1, 2, 3 breath sight finally I see the last bouy and it all comes washing over me so fast. I felt like I had seen this before ( I had not) I knew in that instant that I was going to finish the race that day. I felt safe. I felt I was right where I was supposed to be. This feeling happened 2 more times that day once when I passed a tree on the bike the way the branch curled reminded me of something I had seen before again The Peace Feeling. Then on the run, my dad decided to run the last loop with me (Thank goodness!) I had never seen the run course but on the second loop we had to go to a deeper portion of the park. The whole time on the run I felt like I was going to run around a baseball diamond as we entered the latter part of the run there was a fenced in area in the park that was the baseball diamond I had been waiting on. It was so bizzarre. It was so amazing! It was more than I could have ever imagined! Things happened on the course that are unspeakable (peeing a lot of peeing LOL) but also amazing feats of perseverance and strength were demonstrated by all of the athletes! But all in all... 
