Our Story, Part 5 - Preparing For the Worst

The next few weeks were some of the hardest weeks of my life. For those of you who are following this story, I hope I am not boring you with details, but there were so many things that happened and I am only writing a small portion each day. Here is a brief recap: Ruth is the boys’ birth mother and “V” is their biological grandmother.

Because we lived in a small town (and we weren’t trying to hide) Ruth and “V” knew where we lived. They would stop by quite often to see the boys. I am sure they missed the boys terribly and were probably lamenting the fact that they were gone, but at the time it was so hard for me to have them visit (you know it always happens that people stop by when your house is a wreck and you haven’t made it to the shower, they never seem to stop by when your house is clean and your hair is fixed!) I never knew if they were coming to take the boys back or if they were just checking to see if I knew what I was doing. I felt like I was in a huge fishbowl.

We also had to start the paperwork to get the birth father’s rights relinquished. (Ruth obviously didn’t want to relinquish her rights until his were taken care of first). We had to find a sheriff to locate him (he was in a different state) and personally serve him with the paperwork.
At this point we had started meeting with a licensed clinical social worker to start our “Home Study” – which basically means you pay around $1000 to have a social worker meet with you several times, make sure your home is safe, ask hundreds of personally invasive questions such as how you discipline kids, why you are adopting, why you can’t have children of your own, check your entire background including financial and criminal databases, and THEN go to the local jail and get fingerprinted ~ and that is just the first visit (okay, so maybe it wasn’t THAT bad but I felt like a common criminal).

I was still working 40 hours a week trying to juggle daycare, daily/weekly visits from Ruth and “V”, home study visits and adoption paperwork; all of that combined with lack of sleep, and being a new mom, made me a little stressed to say the least. My brother used to joke that “when women get stressed they cut their hair.” I laugh about it now, but at Thanksgiving when my father mentioned adoption I had long hair. It was so short by the time we got them and over the next few weeks it continually got shorter. (This was probably because it was the only thing I had complete control over!)

I really had no control over the present situation. The only thing I could do was love and care for the boys and hope for the best. I was basically a glorified baby-sitter and that was frustrating at times. Bryan already called me “mom” and the boys would snuggle, hug and kiss me just like I had always been the only one there for them. I adored my two little boys and relished every minute I was able to spend with them. I loved hearing them laugh when I tickled them, I loved their smell and softness, and most of all I loved holding them and being their “mother.”


Even though the first few weeks were stressful, it was just a preface for what would happen in the next few weeks and upcoming months.