Adoption Story --- Part 5

In case you missed anything:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
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As you can imagine the next few days were full of excitement and anxiety. We did our best to busy ourselves and try and rest up before the baby came home. Thanksgiving was full of well wishes from family members. Although I have one person in my family, when I was talking to her about the baby and the possible health issues she asked, “If she is sick are you obligated to keep her?” What the HELL? I wanted to say, “You kept your kids didn’t you.” We were sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was ours.

Saturday November 30, 2002 was one the longest days ever. Matt had to work. I spent the day cleaning and making sure all of the laundry was caught up, I didn’t dare leave my house. At just before 7pm the phone rang. It was our caseworker. Micayla was born at 6:19 pm. She was 6 lbs 4 oz and 19 inches long. Everything went well and she appeared to be healthy. Yeah!!! Micayla was here and in just a couple of days we would have her home with us!

Sunday was an exciting day to go to church. We were able to tell our friends about the baby and share our excitement. Matt and I both bore our Testimonies in Sacrament Meeting. After church we went home for dinner and starting watching a couple of movies we had rented. Then the phone call came. It was our caseworker. He told us that the baby had been moved to the ICU. She was having a problem swallowing, she couldn’t keep anything down. He also said that she had a heart murmur. He told us not to plan on bringing her home on Tuesday. He promised that they would keep us posted on what was going on. I fell apart. We went to Matt’s parent’s house. His sister and her husband were there. We knelt together in their living room and Matt’s dad offered a family prayer on Micayla’s behalf. It was a sleepless night.

The next day was Matt’s last shift at work before he would have almost 3 weeks off, planning to be home with the baby. I stayed close to the phone expecting a phone call at anytime, praying for the best. At 5 pm Susan’s case worker called me. She told that Micayla’s condition was very serious. She had major heart problems. She was going to be transferred to Primary Children’s Medical Center at 7 pm. The doctor at LDS hospital wanted to talk to us before they transferred her. Robin told me to get to LDS hospital with Matt as soon as possible. Matt got permission to leave work and we got there at about 6 pm. When we walked in Robin told us that they had already flown her. She told us that Susan wanted us to come up to her room, she was about to be discharged and she wanted us to go with her to Primary Children’s to see Micayla. On the way up in the elevator Robin told us that this was now an open adoption. We would now know Susan’s last name and she would know ours. That was a bit freaky to us, but it was truly the only way the next few days would be bearable. When we got up to her room we were thrown another curve ball….. My aunt was her nurse.

We chatted with Susan and her mom for a while and they gave us tons of gifts for Micayla. Lots of clothes that people had brought and an afghan that someone had made. My sweet aunt came in with the discharge papers and we left one hospital for the other.

We made our way through the maze of streets in Salt Lake. When we got to the hospital Matt and I had to wait in the NICU waiting room while Susan, her mom and caseworker went to work out the logistics of how this all was going to work. You see the NICU rules are such that only family can visit the baby and until Susan signed the adoption papers we were just friends of the family. Only 2 people could be at the bedside at a time and one of them had to a parent, grandparents were also allowed to visit. After a little while they came to get us so that we could talk to one of the doctors – we still didn’t really know what was going on.

The doctor sat with us and explained 4 heart defects that they thought that she had. Thankfully Matt understood a lot more of this than I did. I just wanted to see her. I just wanted to hold her. After the meeting with the doctor they bent the rules for a few minutes and they let 3 of us visit the bedside, Susan, Matt and me.

She was beautiful!! Soft porcelain skin. Pale. Full of wires.

This is her transport bed.

Our first family photo.

To be continued.........................................