Journey to Same-Sex Parenthood. Eric Rosswood

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ several days, we knew the Texas situation was moving fast and would probably result in a match very soon. We presented both situations to our adoption coordinator and asked for advice. It became apparent that we needed to disclose the Texas situation to the mother of the twins.

      It was a very hard and emotional conversation. The mother of the twins was devastated. At that point, she was still determining whether she would parent or place her twin girls. She wanted us to parent if she chose not to, but she said it would break her heart to prevent us from matching with this other expecting couple. She insisted she would not stand in the way of us becoming dads. It was very difficult to end this potential situation, but when we received an e-mail including a sonogram photo from Mercy and Dylan, the expecting parents in Texas, we knew this was our perfect match. Mercy mentioned in the e-mail that the baby looked like a T-Rex.

      Matthew and I matched with Mercy and Dylan on April 10, 2013. I still have the voicemail saved on my phone. Mercy had just entered her second trimester at that time, so we fit into the category of a long match. This meant we had the opportunity to be present for a majority of the pregnancy and build a strong foundation for our relationship that would last a lifetime.

      A few weeks after we matched, it was time to determine the sex of baby T-Rex. Matthew was working the day we were supposed to find out, so I purchased two balloons: one pink and one blue. Then I waited outside of the hospital where Matthew was working. The next sixty minutes seemed to take hours. Finally, Mercy sent a wonderful text message that caught me completely off guard:

      It’s a girl. YAY!

      I grabbed the pink balloon, quickly entered the hospital and got in the elevator. As I exited the elevator and looked to the left, I saw Matthew working on the computer at the nurses’ station. I had the pink balloon hidden behind my back. Before he had time to say anything, I presented the balloon to him. We were able to enjoy that moment together after it had unfolded over one thousand miles away.

      Soon the time came for us to travel west and meet Mercy and Dylan in person. Near the end of May, we said goodbye to our cats and flew out to Texas. Our flight arrived in Dallas and then we rented a car to make the three-hour drive to the town of Abilene.

      Matthew and I dealt with a lot of stress leading up to that meeting. It seemed to escalate while driving to Abilene. We were overly excited and nervous to meet the expecting mother and father for the first time. The moments leading up to the meeting felt like a first date after building a foundation of communication with them over the past month.

      A counselor from our agency was there to facilitate the match meeting. He had reserved the children’s activity room at a library for everyone to get together, but there was not much about this exceptionally large space that indicated either children or activity. It was full of six-foot tables and chairs and did not have that small, quaint feeling we had hoped for. Matthew and I picked a table in the middle of the room and allowed our anticipation and nerves to grow even more.

      Before long, we heard a library representative tell someone, “The activity room is located in the back.” Mercy and Dylan were here. I’m pretty sure Matthew and I both stopped breathing. As the expecting mother and father seated themselves across from us, Matthew quickly stated what I think everyone was feeling: “I know we are all extremely nervous.” With that, the ice had been broken. Questions were then posed to both couples and with each answer the meeting seemed to get more and more comfortable.

      Thirty minutes quickly turned into an hour and a half. During that time, we learned about Mercy and Dylan both as individuals and as a couple. Looking back on the match meeting, all of the stress left as we said goodbye to the counselor and began our weekend in Abilene with Mercy and Dylan. I’m thankful for those anxieties, though, as they allowed us to be aware of this truly memorable moment and made us more prepared for the spectacular time that was in our near future.

      Over the next few days, Matthew and I were welcomed into an energetic, funny and loving family. We were able to spend time with parents, grandparents, siblings and cousins. Each and every one of them made an extra effort to show their support for us as a couple and the potential adoptive parents of their future daughter, granddaughter, great-granddaughter, niece and cousin. We listened to stories and told a few of our own. A couple of the stories were somewhat embarrassing, but we learned about Mercy and Dylan’s family and they learned about us. There was a lot of laughter all around. Some family members commuted from hours away and everyone made sure they had ample time off from work to meet and support Mercy, Dylan, Matthew and me. We felt so welcomed and loved by this family and were extremely excited to merge them with ours.

      The final night was marked by an epic family barbeque—Texas style, complete with cloth napkins, table decorations and a metal T-Rex sculpture. The menu included brisket, baby back ribs, sausage and jalapeño peppers stuffed with cream cheese, wrapped in bacon and then grilled to perfection. The evening was certainly a celebration, a family celebration that Matthew and I were a part of. There was not a better way to end our visit to Abilene than by enjoying each other’s company after a terrific Texas family BBQ.

      I have to admit it was a little emotional saying goodbye to everyone that night. Over the past three days, it felt like we were already a part of their family. But luckily, Matthew and I knew that this goodbye was only for a short period of time: In just a few months, Baby T-Rex would make her arrival. We were extremely excited about what the future held for our entire family, which had now grown much larger.

      As the summer quickly started to fade, we knew it could be weeks or merely days before we had to make the 1,128-mile trip back to Abilene for the birth of Baby T-Rex. When you’re on “baby time,” there are no easy planning or travel solutions. Blogs, books, lists, parenting forums and workshops do not prepare you for getting a phone call saying the expecting mom is at the hospital with contractions and you are over a thousand miles away.

      As we entered the last five weeks of pregnancy, Matthew and I worked through several available options to get us to the hospital as quickly as possible. We had tentative travel plans to arrive in Abilene a week before the due date. But what if the baby decided to make her appearance sooner? There was an alternative plan in place for that: One of us would be on the first available flight and the other would drive. We also made arrangements for our cats, mowing the lawn and anything else we could think of. The goal was to have everything packed and ready to go at a moment’s notice by mid-August.

      It was the second Thursday in August when we received the news that Mercy’s labor could be imminent. I hate to admit it, but Matthew and I were definitely caught off guard. It seemed as if clothing, baby clothes, diapers, cameras and cats were flying in every direction. The car was packed full with what felt like half our house and a car seat was securely in place. Everything happened extremely fast. Anxiety and excitement took complete control.

      On this particular Thursday, travel by air wasn’t an option, so Matthew and I both buckled in and began the seventeen-hour drive to Texas. We received numerous text updates from Mercy’s family throughout the evening. The miles were slowly ticking off. I swore the odometer was not working correctly. Our late night turned into early morning and there had been no change in Mercy’s condition. When we reached Memphis, Tennessee, we decided to stop and get some much-needed sleep.

      As the sun rose on a hot and humid Friday morning in west Tennessee, we learned that Mercy’s imminent labor was a false alarm. The expecting mother had a stalled labor and was now receiving medication to stop the contractions. Everyone was grateful that she was resting comfortably. Matthew and I took a deep breath, smiled and buckled in for our trip back home.

      After arriving in Johnson City and unpacking the car, we began creating a staging area in our guest bedroom for everything we wanted to take with us on the real trip. Bags and containers were unpacked and repacked more efficiently. The false alarm had been a practice drill that we were СКАЧАТЬ