It should be mentioned that from the time I heard that our angel had delivered, I barely set my phone down. I was getting phone calls and texts from Dana, from our birth-grandma, family, and people from my Army unit. I felt like I worked at the AT&T switchboard. Getting onto the plane in Alexandria was the first time I put my phone away, and that was only because I was afraid of the flight attendants. They are the scariest nice people in the world.
Sitting there on the the plane, itching to turn my phone on, but scared that the little blonde lady was watching me (they always are, you know), I had the first opportunity to really think about what was going on. Against all odds and laws of probability, I was on a plane headed to Utah (by way of Dallas/Ft. Worth) to become a father. After all the time of waiting and wanting to be a father, I never expected it to happen in this way. I felt a mix of surprise, worry, confusion, and stress, with a healthy dose of exhaustion mixed in, all swirling around in a base of completely giddy happiness.
I knew that Dana was ahead of me, and got to Utah first. She got to see our son first, touch him first. I was a little jealous of that, but overjoyed for her. I wished that I could be there to share those first moments with her, but mostly I was happy and grateful, well beyond the point of tears, that my wife was finally, finally, able to be a mother. I have written about this before, but it bears repeating here - by far the hardest thing for me to handle with the infertility was my own inability to give my own wife the thing she wanted more than anything else in the world. Now, at long last, our long slow heartache was coming to an end, and I sat in my window seat, looking out at the Alexandria, LA runway with tears of gratitude in my eyes. I said a silent prayer of thankfulness to my Heavenly Father that all of our years of prayers and patience were finally being rewarded. That same prayer also became a plea that the remaining obstacles would not trip us up. To come this close and still fall short would be more than we could overcome.
I don't remember much of either flight. I slept for most of them, which was a huge blessing. During my short layover in Dallas, I grabbed a bite to eat at the airport Chilis, and when I went to pay I was told that someone had picked up the bill for me. Things like that happen sometimes when a soldier travels in uniform. It is part of the reason that so few of us travel in uniform. While it is a wonderful gesture that I was tremendously grateful for, it is also embarrassing - I don't feel like I have ever done anything that makes me deserving of a free lunch. I was just a guy going home to be with my wife and child. But it warmed my heart that some stranger took it upon themselves to help a random soldier out. So whoever you are out there - thank you.
When I landed in Utah, the weather was crappy. It had been crappy for days. Dana's plane was almost diverted from SLC because of a blizzard, and when mine came in, the storm was apparently just taking a breather. When we landed, there was a little fog, some light snow falling. However, between landing and exiting the runway, the snow started in earnest. It got so bad that the pilot had to stop the plane. I have never heard of weather so bad that a plane couldn't drive, but that is what happened. The pilot got on the intercom and told us that visibility was so bad that we had to wait on ground vehicle assistance to taxi in. If that brief window in the weather had not happened, we certainly would have been diverted to who knows where - probably Denver - and I would have been delayed by hours if not the whole day. But in what I truly believe was a little miracle, we were able to safely put wheels on the ground in Salt Lake, and I was one step closer.
My best friend Jake picked me up from the airport, and took me straight to the hospital. We probably talked about all sorts of stuff, but I can't remember any of it. I was so close to seeing my son for the first time, that it was all I could think of. Dana kept texting me, worried that I would not get there before they closed the NICU for shift change. In fact, I only just barely squeaked in.
I entered the NICU, and there was Dana, pretty as the first day I saw her, sitting next to a hospital crib that contained a little blanket-wrapped bundle that I knew, from the moment I saw it, held my son. There were still some days of uncertainty ahead of us to be navigated, but as soon as I saw that little bundle, with his full head of black hair, his adorable little nose, and his big Fred Flintstone toes - I knew that he was our son. A feeling of peace settled over me that I can't even begin to describe. Looking down at him, holding onto my beloved wife, I knew that our years of drifting and hoping and wanting were finally, blessedly, over.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Empty Arms No Longer, Part II
Ok, so where was I . . .? Oh, yeah. Leaving training.
That night I was afraid that I wouldn't sleep well, but truth is I slept like a rock. All the building fatigue caught up with me and I crashed. I fell asleep while praying, lying on my cot. I was praying that everything would work out, that our angel would be comforted and guided by the Holy Ghost to make the right choices, and that we would be guided to do and say the right things to help her feel confident and reassured about her choice. There was still a very real chance that everything could fall through.
In the morning, I was up before the sun, and well before my alarm was set to go off. I could have easier teleported to Utah than go back to sleep, so I got up, and fussed around with my gear, getting it ready to be stored away. I packed all my airline friendly gear I thought I would need for the trip in my little assault pack, and left everything else in a pile for the unit to put into a storage container. That only took me ten minutes, leaving me over an hour to burn before first formation. The time stretched on forever.
After formation, there were three of us who were headed to the airport. I was going to catch my own flight, and the other two were going to pick up some late arriving providers who had been assigned to our unit for the training. It was this trip that had so fortunately provided me with the means of getting to the airport to catch my flight. I have no idea how I would have gotten there otherwise. We went to the dispatch after formation to get our van, which had been reserved since day one for this purpose, but the logistics folks told us that a Warrant Officer had come in earlier that morning and taken the van that we were supposed to have and had signed up for.
What ensued would have been entertaining if it was not also simultaneously giving me an ulcer. Tracking down this van was a complete comedy of errors, something out of a Three Stooges Movie. The WO who took the van was not supposed to have it, and had no authority to take it, but she outranked the SGTs who ran the logistics shop, and pretty much bullied them into letting her take it. Once the three of us arrived, those same SGTs had to tell three CPTs that the van they had signed up for days ago had been given away to someone else. Their faces were hilarious, and they were literally pointing at each other and yelling, each trying to place blame on someone else. "He did it!" "No I didn't! I wasn't even here when she took it!" etc. None of this helped get the van back, and each minute that passed was one minute less I had to make my flight and save my adoption. I was not a happy camper, but I managed to refrain from dressing anyone down. Well, I mostly managed.
The solution they came up with was to pile us in another van that had been tasked to take 10 soldiers to a mandatory class, and that after dropping them off we could chase down the van we were supposed to have. This added 30 minutes to our travel time, but it could still theoretically work. This was the point where I began to feel slightly nauseous. But it was the best solution the logistics people could work out, so we took it. Leaving my company commander and my 1SG there to spend time tearing the logistics guys inside out for not honoring the sign-up sheet. I feel bad for them now, but at the time I was just proud that I didn't choke anyone out.
As we drove off in van #2 to find van #1, I started to relax a little. I should have known better. When we got to the ammo depot where van #1 was supposed to be, there was clearly no van there. There was however a big gate labeled "NO ENTRY - TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT" No kidding. It was the ammo supply point for the fort we were at, and they don't play around with security at these places. We figured that our sneaky Warrant Officer had pulled into the depot, where we couldn't follow or find her. She was not best pleased when she found out that someone was coming to take her van in the first place. So our driver started to speculate while the other guy with us started a flurry of cell phone calls to the logistics shed again. The folks at the shed tried to tell us that the van was there, while our eyes stubbornly insisted that there was no van to be seen. Again, it would have been funny in a movie. Living it was like having food poisoning on finals day.
We turned around and headed back to base, mostly because we couldn't think of anything else to do, and the clock was ticking. On our way back, however, we passed van #1. The blessed WO had completely disregarded the instructions she agreed to, and drove back to base as we were driving out to meet her. She dropped off the van in a huff and refused to stay to explain things. So the intrepid SGTs at logistics got in the van and drove out to where it was supposed to be. Why they didn't call us to let us know will forever be a mystery. If we had not recognized the van as we passed it, we very likely could have been yo-yoing like this for hours. But we did recognize it, and flipped around in blatant disregard for traffic laws and customs, and chased them down at the ammo point. A hasty swap-out followed, and the three Captains finally headed off towards the airport. Two of them merely irritated, one of them having only barely staved off cardiac arrest.
My GPS told me that we still had just -barely- enough time to make it to the Alexandria airport in time for me to catch my flight. That is, provided security didn't take too long and there were no problems at ticketing. Both of which are certainly not guaranteed, of course. But I prayed and hoped, and as it turns out, things worked just fine.
Alexandria International Airport has 4 gates. Total. Security had 3 people in line and 5 people working it. I breezed through, and walked 10 steps to my gate, and even had time to sit down and learn how to breathe again. Obstacles were falling away, and as each one did I was that much closer to home, closer to being a father, closer to being able to support my wife during the most important chain of events since we got married. Relief doesn't come close to describing it. But for each obstacle that fell away, the ones that remained became that much clearer.
I still had to get to Utah, and once there I still had all the uncertainties of the actual adoption to get through, and the whole thing could have still fallen apart if a single young woman changed her mind about the most emotionally difficult thing she had ever done.
On the up side, since everything was so overwhelming, I went into a kind of emotional shock. I became detached and was able to look at it all from some distance. It was no more fun from a distance, but was somewhat more tolerable, and I was able to start to appreciate the funny bits.
That night I was afraid that I wouldn't sleep well, but truth is I slept like a rock. All the building fatigue caught up with me and I crashed. I fell asleep while praying, lying on my cot. I was praying that everything would work out, that our angel would be comforted and guided by the Holy Ghost to make the right choices, and that we would be guided to do and say the right things to help her feel confident and reassured about her choice. There was still a very real chance that everything could fall through.
In the morning, I was up before the sun, and well before my alarm was set to go off. I could have easier teleported to Utah than go back to sleep, so I got up, and fussed around with my gear, getting it ready to be stored away. I packed all my airline friendly gear I thought I would need for the trip in my little assault pack, and left everything else in a pile for the unit to put into a storage container. That only took me ten minutes, leaving me over an hour to burn before first formation. The time stretched on forever.
After formation, there were three of us who were headed to the airport. I was going to catch my own flight, and the other two were going to pick up some late arriving providers who had been assigned to our unit for the training. It was this trip that had so fortunately provided me with the means of getting to the airport to catch my flight. I have no idea how I would have gotten there otherwise. We went to the dispatch after formation to get our van, which had been reserved since day one for this purpose, but the logistics folks told us that a Warrant Officer had come in earlier that morning and taken the van that we were supposed to have and had signed up for.
What ensued would have been entertaining if it was not also simultaneously giving me an ulcer. Tracking down this van was a complete comedy of errors, something out of a Three Stooges Movie. The WO who took the van was not supposed to have it, and had no authority to take it, but she outranked the SGTs who ran the logistics shop, and pretty much bullied them into letting her take it. Once the three of us arrived, those same SGTs had to tell three CPTs that the van they had signed up for days ago had been given away to someone else. Their faces were hilarious, and they were literally pointing at each other and yelling, each trying to place blame on someone else. "He did it!" "No I didn't! I wasn't even here when she took it!" etc. None of this helped get the van back, and each minute that passed was one minute less I had to make my flight and save my adoption. I was not a happy camper, but I managed to refrain from dressing anyone down. Well, I mostly managed.
The solution they came up with was to pile us in another van that had been tasked to take 10 soldiers to a mandatory class, and that after dropping them off we could chase down the van we were supposed to have. This added 30 minutes to our travel time, but it could still theoretically work. This was the point where I began to feel slightly nauseous. But it was the best solution the logistics people could work out, so we took it. Leaving my company commander and my 1SG there to spend time tearing the logistics guys inside out for not honoring the sign-up sheet. I feel bad for them now, but at the time I was just proud that I didn't choke anyone out.
As we drove off in van #2 to find van #1, I started to relax a little. I should have known better. When we got to the ammo depot where van #1 was supposed to be, there was clearly no van there. There was however a big gate labeled "NO ENTRY - TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT" No kidding. It was the ammo supply point for the fort we were at, and they don't play around with security at these places. We figured that our sneaky Warrant Officer had pulled into the depot, where we couldn't follow or find her. She was not best pleased when she found out that someone was coming to take her van in the first place. So our driver started to speculate while the other guy with us started a flurry of cell phone calls to the logistics shed again. The folks at the shed tried to tell us that the van was there, while our eyes stubbornly insisted that there was no van to be seen. Again, it would have been funny in a movie. Living it was like having food poisoning on finals day.
We turned around and headed back to base, mostly because we couldn't think of anything else to do, and the clock was ticking. On our way back, however, we passed van #1. The blessed WO had completely disregarded the instructions she agreed to, and drove back to base as we were driving out to meet her. She dropped off the van in a huff and refused to stay to explain things. So the intrepid SGTs at logistics got in the van and drove out to where it was supposed to be. Why they didn't call us to let us know will forever be a mystery. If we had not recognized the van as we passed it, we very likely could have been yo-yoing like this for hours. But we did recognize it, and flipped around in blatant disregard for traffic laws and customs, and chased them down at the ammo point. A hasty swap-out followed, and the three Captains finally headed off towards the airport. Two of them merely irritated, one of them having only barely staved off cardiac arrest.
My GPS told me that we still had just -barely- enough time to make it to the Alexandria airport in time for me to catch my flight. That is, provided security didn't take too long and there were no problems at ticketing. Both of which are certainly not guaranteed, of course. But I prayed and hoped, and as it turns out, things worked just fine.
Alexandria International Airport has 4 gates. Total. Security had 3 people in line and 5 people working it. I breezed through, and walked 10 steps to my gate, and even had time to sit down and learn how to breathe again. Obstacles were falling away, and as each one did I was that much closer to home, closer to being a father, closer to being able to support my wife during the most important chain of events since we got married. Relief doesn't come close to describing it. But for each obstacle that fell away, the ones that remained became that much clearer.
I still had to get to Utah, and once there I still had all the uncertainties of the actual adoption to get through, and the whole thing could have still fallen apart if a single young woman changed her mind about the most emotionally difficult thing she had ever done.
On the up side, since everything was so overwhelming, I went into a kind of emotional shock. I became detached and was able to look at it all from some distance. It was no more fun from a distance, but was somewhat more tolerable, and I was able to start to appreciate the funny bits.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Empty Arms No Longer, part 1
After 8 years of heartbreaking waiting, Dana and I can finally say the words we have wanted to say more than any others: We Are Parents!
The story would take a very long time to tell in its entirety, but I want to share the finer points here, both as a way to share the story with those who have expressed interest, and also as a way to record the events before they fade from memory. I am a miserably bad journal writer, so if I don't get this in black and white now, I may not get around to it until I have forgotten or confused the realities of anything that really happened.
Way back in October 2012, a wonderful young woman in Utah selected us to be the adoptive parents of the baby she was expecting. She was the daughter of a friend of the family, and when she found out that she was pregnant with a baby that she didn't want and was not ready for, she said that her first thoughts were; "better me than someone else." She thought this because she knew that she was "going to do the right thing" where other girls her age might not. For her, the right thing was to give this child a chance to have a complete family, with a mother and a father who were both ready and able to raise a child.
When we got the news, we were overjoyed but also cautious, since it had not yet been a year after our first failed adoption. We didn't want to risk going through the pain of retracting good news again, and even though every indication told us that our new angel birthmom was sincere and dedicated to her intention, we did not let anyone know what was going on until it had actually happened. We had already learned the hard way not to count our chickens before they were hatched.
The months passed, and things just got better and better. We had a great correspondence with the birth-grandma, and birth mom, as well as with the family member, who was helping birth-mom deal with all the emotional impact of her situation and her decision. All the concerns that we had with our other adoptions just never surfaced, and every good sign we could have hoped for was there in plenty. Her whole family was on board, and engaged in the adoption. They supported her and helped her follow through with her decision. The peace of mind that this gave us was already nothing short of a miracle.
In December we got an invitation to come to Utah and visit with our angel and her family over Christmas. We still had not made the adoption known to the world, so it was lucky that my family is in Utah, so no one grew suspicious. We met with our angel and her wonderful family on Christmas Eve for the first time, and that meeting went really well. Our birth-mom was shy at first, but very sweet, and completely beautiful. Her whole family was warm and welcoming to us. While their own emotional pain and heartache was also plain to see, so too was their conviction that this adoption was the right choice. We used that time to ask questions and get to know each other better, and to break the ice for our relationship going forward. Our angel had one main worry - that the baby would hate her for not keeping him. We reassured her in every way that we could that the baby would only ever be told that she was an angel and one of the most wonderful people in the world, who gave us a chance to be a family.
After that meeting, we were invited to celebrate Christmas Eve with the family at their home. It was so gracious of them to accept us into their family this way, in spite of all the conflicted emotions they were experiencing. They supported the adoption decision, but they were already grieving the loss of the child, worried about the birth mom's feelings, and in general just unsure how everything would really work out. They were putting an immense amount of trust in us that we would not hurt their family when they were already vulnerable, so for them to bring us into their Christmas was another huge sign that they really were intent on doing this, and that they were getting themselves ready for it.
While in Utah, we also had the wonderful opportunity to join our angel for an ultrasound. We "saw" our son for the first time, which was amazing. Our angel was so sweet the whole time, telling us what it felt like when he moved, laughing and smiling in spite of her shyness. We just wanted to shower her with hugs and kisses and love, but made do with a few squeezed hands and shoulders and a lot of smiles.
After the Christmas break was over, we settled down at home to get things ready for the arrival of our son. We already had most of the baby things we needed from our earlier failed placement, so there was not much to do, but we sorted out all the girl clothes, bought a crib and a playpen, and generally just made a plan for bringing the little guy into our home. And then it was back to waiting, writing emails and Facebook messages on a nearly daily basis, and building the relationship and trust with our angel and her family. Where with the other adoptions we had been nervous and anxious, with this adoption we felt encouraged and hopeful. We could definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel, and this time it did not look at all like an oncoming train.
In early January, I had to leave for a major, 3-week Army training exercise in Louisiana. It was a major undertaking, something that my brigade had been building towards for over a year. We were on the bus headed down there for 16 hours. It was pure misery. When we finally got to our destination on 9 Jan, I was completely exhausted from the drive, but still had to put in a full day of work with no rest until that night. It was rainy, cold and otherwise completely horrible. The next day, however, was when things changed for me forever.
I was in the process of setting up the Behavioral Health Clinic at the practice base, around 10:30 on 10 Jan, when I got a phone call from our angel's mother, saying that she was going into labor, and that they were rushing her to the hospital. Of course, my heart sank into my stomach. The little guy was not supposed to arrive until March 3, so he was almost two months early. I knew many of the complications that could arise from such an early birth, and tried to prevent myself from prediction the worst. The remainder of that day was spent glued to my phone, sending texts and phone calls to Dana or to the birth family in Utah, trying to get information and figure things out.
The news trickled slowly out, in fits and starts. I got the news that she was in the hospital and that she was still in labor. Then heard that she was pushing. Then the word that she had delivered, but that the baby would need to be life-flighted to the NICU, since that hospital didn't have one. Then that the helicopter had arrived, and baby was being flown off, and that mom was doing OK.
Meanwhile, Dana and I had very different challenges to overcome. Dana had to pack up the house, the dog, and all her clothes, make two months worth of arrangements and get to the airport in less than 5 hours all by herself. If anyone can handle that kind of a deadline, it is Dana, but she still was not enjoying it. Her voice on the phone was so stressed and anxious, and I could do virtually nothing to help from where I was, stuck in the middle of the woods in an Army training camp. I was just happy that there were pockets where I could get cell-phone reception so I could stay at least a little connected to the events happening hundreds of miles away. Dana was somehow able to make all the arrangements needed, and was on a plane to Utah by 5 in the evening. By that time, my end of the drama had only reached half-time.
The nature of the training I was at was to simulate deployment. In other words, nobody who went down was allowed to leave except in the most dire of emergencies. My circumstances certainly counted as emergent, but the adoption situation clouded up the waters significantly. Everyone knows that having a child in the NICU is a big deal, but if that child isn't actually yours yet, and might still never be yours, the need and urgency is diluted significantly in the minds of others. So I had to sell my chain of command on my need to be there. I talked with my company and battalion commander, explained the situation to them as best I could, and tried to impress on them the need for me to be there in person. Their initial response was sympathetic but not encouraging - they didn't want to set a precedent that everyone who had a family issue would be allowed to go home. But they did assure me that they would take the issue to my Brigade Commander, who would make the ultimate decision. They would take it to him that night around 2100. I had a long time to wait and worry.
As I waited I prayed. I prayed over and over again that somehow these men could be made to know the urgency of my situation, and the need for me to be there to both support my wife, and to ensure that the adoption plan did not fall through because we did not both make it out to Utah. I called some very good friends and asked for their help and advice, which they freely gave. I was humbled by the amount of support that was freely sent our way by people I respect and admire. Even as far away from home as I was, I felt very protected and cared-for as I paced around the base with a phone glued to my ear. I continued to pray that somehow the urgency of the situation could be communicated to my chain of command. I got new pieces of information from our case-worker, that indicated a legal need for me to be present in order for the adoption to go through. I somehow needed to get that information through to my commanders, but they were all busy and out of my reach. As I stood in the dark wondering how to get a message across, our battalion chaplain "just happened" to walk up to me and ask me how I was doing. I told him about the situation, and he immediately got it. He understood the urgency and the need, and automatically volunteered to go find the battalion commander and tell him the new developments, impress on him the importance of the situation, and do whatever else he could do to ensure that I was able to leave the training and go be with my family.
I do not know what was said to my chain of command members that night, but I do know the end result. Around 2030, I was called into the command center, and my company CO told me that I was being granted emergency leave to go and be with my family. I was to find a flight out tomorrow, and there was a van already headed to the airport that would have a seat on it for me.
I instantly felt a huge wave of relief come over me. I knew that the adoption still had a few very crucial and difficult hurdles to clear, but my being able to be there at least ensured that I could actually do something useful, and did not have to sit helplessly on my hands. After feeling helpless for 8 years, it was torturous to think that in the final crucial moments, I would have to look helplessly on again. I am so thankful to my Heavenly Father that He blessed me so that I could leave the training, get a timely flight home, and be there with Dana as our little family finally started to grow.
The story would take a very long time to tell in its entirety, but I want to share the finer points here, both as a way to share the story with those who have expressed interest, and also as a way to record the events before they fade from memory. I am a miserably bad journal writer, so if I don't get this in black and white now, I may not get around to it until I have forgotten or confused the realities of anything that really happened.
Way back in October 2012, a wonderful young woman in Utah selected us to be the adoptive parents of the baby she was expecting. She was the daughter of a friend of the family, and when she found out that she was pregnant with a baby that she didn't want and was not ready for, she said that her first thoughts were; "better me than someone else." She thought this because she knew that she was "going to do the right thing" where other girls her age might not. For her, the right thing was to give this child a chance to have a complete family, with a mother and a father who were both ready and able to raise a child.
When we got the news, we were overjoyed but also cautious, since it had not yet been a year after our first failed adoption. We didn't want to risk going through the pain of retracting good news again, and even though every indication told us that our new angel birthmom was sincere and dedicated to her intention, we did not let anyone know what was going on until it had actually happened. We had already learned the hard way not to count our chickens before they were hatched.
The months passed, and things just got better and better. We had a great correspondence with the birth-grandma, and birth mom, as well as with the family member, who was helping birth-mom deal with all the emotional impact of her situation and her decision. All the concerns that we had with our other adoptions just never surfaced, and every good sign we could have hoped for was there in plenty. Her whole family was on board, and engaged in the adoption. They supported her and helped her follow through with her decision. The peace of mind that this gave us was already nothing short of a miracle.
In December we got an invitation to come to Utah and visit with our angel and her family over Christmas. We still had not made the adoption known to the world, so it was lucky that my family is in Utah, so no one grew suspicious. We met with our angel and her wonderful family on Christmas Eve for the first time, and that meeting went really well. Our birth-mom was shy at first, but very sweet, and completely beautiful. Her whole family was warm and welcoming to us. While their own emotional pain and heartache was also plain to see, so too was their conviction that this adoption was the right choice. We used that time to ask questions and get to know each other better, and to break the ice for our relationship going forward. Our angel had one main worry - that the baby would hate her for not keeping him. We reassured her in every way that we could that the baby would only ever be told that she was an angel and one of the most wonderful people in the world, who gave us a chance to be a family.
After that meeting, we were invited to celebrate Christmas Eve with the family at their home. It was so gracious of them to accept us into their family this way, in spite of all the conflicted emotions they were experiencing. They supported the adoption decision, but they were already grieving the loss of the child, worried about the birth mom's feelings, and in general just unsure how everything would really work out. They were putting an immense amount of trust in us that we would not hurt their family when they were already vulnerable, so for them to bring us into their Christmas was another huge sign that they really were intent on doing this, and that they were getting themselves ready for it.
While in Utah, we also had the wonderful opportunity to join our angel for an ultrasound. We "saw" our son for the first time, which was amazing. Our angel was so sweet the whole time, telling us what it felt like when he moved, laughing and smiling in spite of her shyness. We just wanted to shower her with hugs and kisses and love, but made do with a few squeezed hands and shoulders and a lot of smiles.
After the Christmas break was over, we settled down at home to get things ready for the arrival of our son. We already had most of the baby things we needed from our earlier failed placement, so there was not much to do, but we sorted out all the girl clothes, bought a crib and a playpen, and generally just made a plan for bringing the little guy into our home. And then it was back to waiting, writing emails and Facebook messages on a nearly daily basis, and building the relationship and trust with our angel and her family. Where with the other adoptions we had been nervous and anxious, with this adoption we felt encouraged and hopeful. We could definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel, and this time it did not look at all like an oncoming train.
In early January, I had to leave for a major, 3-week Army training exercise in Louisiana. It was a major undertaking, something that my brigade had been building towards for over a year. We were on the bus headed down there for 16 hours. It was pure misery. When we finally got to our destination on 9 Jan, I was completely exhausted from the drive, but still had to put in a full day of work with no rest until that night. It was rainy, cold and otherwise completely horrible. The next day, however, was when things changed for me forever.
I was in the process of setting up the Behavioral Health Clinic at the practice base, around 10:30 on 10 Jan, when I got a phone call from our angel's mother, saying that she was going into labor, and that they were rushing her to the hospital. Of course, my heart sank into my stomach. The little guy was not supposed to arrive until March 3, so he was almost two months early. I knew many of the complications that could arise from such an early birth, and tried to prevent myself from prediction the worst. The remainder of that day was spent glued to my phone, sending texts and phone calls to Dana or to the birth family in Utah, trying to get information and figure things out.
The news trickled slowly out, in fits and starts. I got the news that she was in the hospital and that she was still in labor. Then heard that she was pushing. Then the word that she had delivered, but that the baby would need to be life-flighted to the NICU, since that hospital didn't have one. Then that the helicopter had arrived, and baby was being flown off, and that mom was doing OK.
Meanwhile, Dana and I had very different challenges to overcome. Dana had to pack up the house, the dog, and all her clothes, make two months worth of arrangements and get to the airport in less than 5 hours all by herself. If anyone can handle that kind of a deadline, it is Dana, but she still was not enjoying it. Her voice on the phone was so stressed and anxious, and I could do virtually nothing to help from where I was, stuck in the middle of the woods in an Army training camp. I was just happy that there were pockets where I could get cell-phone reception so I could stay at least a little connected to the events happening hundreds of miles away. Dana was somehow able to make all the arrangements needed, and was on a plane to Utah by 5 in the evening. By that time, my end of the drama had only reached half-time.
The nature of the training I was at was to simulate deployment. In other words, nobody who went down was allowed to leave except in the most dire of emergencies. My circumstances certainly counted as emergent, but the adoption situation clouded up the waters significantly. Everyone knows that having a child in the NICU is a big deal, but if that child isn't actually yours yet, and might still never be yours, the need and urgency is diluted significantly in the minds of others. So I had to sell my chain of command on my need to be there. I talked with my company and battalion commander, explained the situation to them as best I could, and tried to impress on them the need for me to be there in person. Their initial response was sympathetic but not encouraging - they didn't want to set a precedent that everyone who had a family issue would be allowed to go home. But they did assure me that they would take the issue to my Brigade Commander, who would make the ultimate decision. They would take it to him that night around 2100. I had a long time to wait and worry.
As I waited I prayed. I prayed over and over again that somehow these men could be made to know the urgency of my situation, and the need for me to be there to both support my wife, and to ensure that the adoption plan did not fall through because we did not both make it out to Utah. I called some very good friends and asked for their help and advice, which they freely gave. I was humbled by the amount of support that was freely sent our way by people I respect and admire. Even as far away from home as I was, I felt very protected and cared-for as I paced around the base with a phone glued to my ear. I continued to pray that somehow the urgency of the situation could be communicated to my chain of command. I got new pieces of information from our case-worker, that indicated a legal need for me to be present in order for the adoption to go through. I somehow needed to get that information through to my commanders, but they were all busy and out of my reach. As I stood in the dark wondering how to get a message across, our battalion chaplain "just happened" to walk up to me and ask me how I was doing. I told him about the situation, and he immediately got it. He understood the urgency and the need, and automatically volunteered to go find the battalion commander and tell him the new developments, impress on him the importance of the situation, and do whatever else he could do to ensure that I was able to leave the training and go be with my family.
I do not know what was said to my chain of command members that night, but I do know the end result. Around 2030, I was called into the command center, and my company CO told me that I was being granted emergency leave to go and be with my family. I was to find a flight out tomorrow, and there was a van already headed to the airport that would have a seat on it for me.
I instantly felt a huge wave of relief come over me. I knew that the adoption still had a few very crucial and difficult hurdles to clear, but my being able to be there at least ensured that I could actually do something useful, and did not have to sit helplessly on my hands. After feeling helpless for 8 years, it was torturous to think that in the final crucial moments, I would have to look helplessly on again. I am so thankful to my Heavenly Father that He blessed me so that I could leave the training, get a timely flight home, and be there with Dana as our little family finally started to grow.
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