The M & M Family Blog: KJ and DJ

Barry and Heather are trying to Foster to Adopt a baby named Deshawn, he was born on January 12^th and came to their home a few days later. It’s a scary situation for them, he is half Navajo and that means technically, belongs to The Navajo Nation, also, his mother, would also like to get her life in to place where she can take care of him. So, we don’t know what is going to happen with Deshawn. We really hope that he can stay in our family. This reminds me of what we went through with Kailee and we know what Heather and Barry are going through. When Kailee was born, it was Christmas Day and we were with Micah’s family when we heard the news that Ashlee was in labor. We quickly canceled our dinner plans for that evening and went home and just waited for updates. Kailee, we found out was born at 3:58 PM and that while we were not invited up to see her that night we could go the next day before signing. We were feeling so many emotions, we were so crushed that we weren’t there for her birth, and we were so excited that we were going to meet her the next day. Well, the next day came and went and we still were not invited up to see her. When we found out that Ashlee was having second thoughts, we went over to Barry and Heathers and spent the day with them, just being with Barry , Heather and the boys brought us so much comfort. When our caseworker called that night to tell us that Ashlee decided to sign, we all celebrated. Well, as the story goes, we got a phone call the next day that Ashlee had decided to parent. We were crushed. The pain, I can’t even begin to describe. It’s like, when your birth mom decides to parent. Its knowing that your child will not be a part of your family. It’s that self-doubt that maybe you aren’t supposed to have children. Its everything. It’s not truly knowing how much you loved and wanted this child until you lost her. No matter how we tried they both couldn’t escape our every thought. Three days had now passed when the owner of the agency called and said that there had been some updates and changes and that Ashlee has decided to go through with the placement, but not for two more days, so that she could have a full week with Kailee. Yvonne wanted to know if we were still interested in an open adoption. We were. Ashlee wanted to know if we were mad. We weren’t. It’s really quite hard to explain. We were crushed, devastated, broken hearted, but we were not mad. So, Sunday evening, we cautiously switched gears, from mourning to preparing to bring our daughter home. We told no one. We didn’t think anyone would believe us. The plan was that on New Year’s Day we would meet at the Hilton in Ogden at 4:00 PM where we would finally meet our daughter. We drove in silence. We tried to make small talk, but we both were feeling the burden of the risk that we were taking. We both agreed that the risk was worth it, but we both couldn’t escape the weight of it. We knew that we could, for the third time leave without our baby. That we would have to fall in love with and then try to forget her, again. That we might need to drive home with an empty car seat one more time. That we would have to pack away the baby stuff, yet again, and that we would have to close the nursery door for a very long while. As we arrived to pick KJ up, we were told that we needed to leave, that they didn’t want us to be there when Ashlee arrived. They didn’t want to sidetrack her or for her to lose focus, we were told to go across the street to Iggy’s for a drink and to not be surprised if we weren’t to come back for an hour to an hour and a half. We decided to order dinner; we couldn’t genuinely remember the last time that we ate. As soon as our dinner arrived, our case manager called, we were to come back to the hotel- Ashlee had signed the relinquishment. We hurried back, in shock. Before we could meet Kailee we had paperwork to sign. After we finished signing and before we went up to meet her, Micah, decided to take a bathroom break. Our case manager asked me if he was okay, I told her that he was, but that he had been on a roller coaster of emotions for the past week and was just feeling overwhelmed. The truth is, I didn’t know. I did know that this hit him harder than it hit me. I know that every time we mourned a failed fertility treatment, he was the strong one, it wasn’t his body that was failing it was mine, and for some reason that made it okay for him. But this time was different. He didn’t know how to mourn this, he didn’t know what was next, and he didn’t know when he could be happy again. When he finally joined the group, I could see it in his eyes; he was terrified, that he didn’t know what he was getting himself into. It really seems quite silly now, but Micah is a very visual person, KJ wasn’t real until he saw her, smelled her and held her. We walked down the longest hall ever; I mean really, the person who designed that building had no idea. When we finally arrived, the room was full of people, I didn't care. There she was, in Ashlee’s arms sound asleep. What happened next was a bit of a blur. The next thing that I remember was pulling away from the hotel with a sleeping baby in her car seat and Micah saying that this was the saddest thing that he has ever seen. That seeing what Ashlee was going through made him love Kailee more. On the way home, I sent a text message with a picture of us holding KJ, to our nearest and dearest, it read:

I believe in being strong, when everything seems to be going wrong

I believe that happy girls, are the prettiest girls

I believe that tomorrow is another day,

And I believe in miracles.

Like this one…