here's the story...

tuesday, march 8, 2011

this evening i decided to look over our budget calendar and get a handle on how many vacation days i have and how we might be able to make our budget work for us whenever we got a baby. this is an activity i had done several times before in different stages along the way so there was no special significance- i just wanted to make sure that i could take off as much time as possible when we got a baby.

wednesday, march 9, 2011

i go to work, just another wednesday, and i did my work thing- a few loans, vault stuff, and i was trying to get some loose ends tied up; there was a sense of urgency, but no reason really, i just wanted to make sure that i had everything in order in case we were to be audited. it was a rainy and dreary day and i had forgotten to pack a lunch so i ran down the road to subway and was feeling pretty good so i decided to grab a box of these new delicious raspberry cheesecake cookies at subway for the branch to share. had my lunch, went back to work.

i went to the bathroom (tmi- perhaps, but this is part of the story) and while i was back there i started thinking, "we have 4 new employees; i should probably send out a refresher email that if mark or terri calls for me that it is urgent- this way i wouldn't miss their call and someone wouldn't tell them i was unavailable- because short of being unconscious at the credit union, there was nothing that would keep me unavailable from that phone call! so then i begin contemplating what our birthparent's names will be and if I would use an A or S or K to signify their name...whatever; wash my hands and i leave the bathroom.

i walk out the back and one of the girls, anita, says, "hey sass, a mark akers just called you..." i know there was more but i took off running and the only other thing i heard was "call you on your cell phone". so i have just run the equivalent of 10 yards to my office and i am sucking wind (duh, i am not known for my athleticism) and i hear my phone ringing so I take a deep breath, and acting as though i hadn't just depleted my lungs of oxygen from the marathon i just ran, answered my phone ever so suavely.

mark proceeded to shoot the bull with me about my day, blah blah, and then he said, "well cassie, today is march 9th" at which point i thought, great, he's going to talk about our renewal that is coming up for our 1 year approval... "yeah mark, i know" "and i really need to see you and chris just as soon as possible. we have a situation. either tomorrow morning or today..." "today will be fine. let me call chris. (dialing) chris, mark's on the phone and he needs to see us, can you leave? i'll meet you there! mark see you in just a few!"

i stand, i cry, and i go to tell my manager that it is time for me to leave because finally, FINALLY we have a "situation" and lo and behold, she's not there! she had to run out to drop her car off at the shop so when i called her she asked me to give her 15 minutes... does this woman even KNOW how long 15 minutes is? but i obliged and when she got there i took off out the door and called my mom to keep keep me calm as i drove to the bethany office (which i must say seemed to be at least 20 minutes longer than every other time i have driven there!)

so i get to the office, and chris was already there and mark sits us down and tells us that terri, the director, is just dying that she had to go out of town, but she wanted to be there with us, so she was going to conference call in, until it was time to board her flight. mark gave us a free question at the very beginning and it was, "boy or girl?" boy.

now i feel it is only fair here to stop and explain something. i never expected to get a boy. i fully had expected to adopt lillie faith and she was going to be a biracial or african american little baby girl. never ever in my head did i expect to have a boy. b-o-y. do you know how scary having a boy is to me? i am girly. i don't like dirty things, i am annoyed with sports programming, i hate video games, boys do not have as cute clothes or bows, you can't pain their fingernails... do you know how intimidating that is for a priss like me? it's not that i wasn't open to a boy, it's just so foreign to me and that is scary... not to mention all the boy parts... whew.

so mark starts with carter's story. the birthmom, M, is young and has another child. so he has a biological brother. she chose to make an adoption plan because she couldn't handle having two babies (her other child is young) and she has dreams and goals for herself. she hasn't had a great life growing up. she chose us when she saw our profile and was adamant that we were his adoptive family. not anyone else. in fact, she didn't even want to look at other profiles when she saw ours. here is where i jump in again... remember that prayer journal i have been keeping for her? i prayed specifically on a number of occassions that she would see our profile and know beyond a shadow of doubt that we were the family for her child. god is so amazing.

at this point mark stops us and wants to know if we have any questions. no dude. we're good. we have all the information we'll need. yes of course we have questions; how much time do you have this afternoon? so we ask a few questions, which was futile, because he kept telling us we would get to that part later. pshhh. so then he tells us about the birthfather, S, who is a little younger than chris and me and has also had a rough life. he really wanted to keep our sweet boy, but when it came down to it, someone close to him told him that one day he would be a good dad, just not then. so he made the decision for his child that he would give him the best life and signed his waiver. that was march 4th.

mark stops again and wants to know if we have any other questions. yeah- when is M due? we're getting there... sheesh. eventually mark lets it slip that carter had a negative toxicology screen... no drugs! and i was like, woah. (just like joey lawrence on blossom, woah) he's born? when? what? huh? explain! so since he spilled the beans mark told us that yes, M had delivered sweet carter on february 24, 2011, in the tri cities area and he was 6 lbs 10 oz and 19 inches long at 37 weeks. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

so we of course wanted to know right then when we could go pick him up but mark told us to just go home and pray about it and see if it was the right decision and to let him know the next morning at 830. we had prayed all along that we wouldn't be presented with a situation that we had to turn down and there was nothing at all in carter's history that made us think we needed to stop and tell mark that he wasn't the child for us. God clearly has big plans for carter, M and S. the rest of the evening was filled with hundreds of calls, texts and emails as we ran around babies r us and target picking up necessary items we needed to go pick up our sweet boy the next day...

thursday, march 10, 2011

to be continued....