November - Celebrate Adoption
Heart
Perhaps it is the the changing of the seasons, or the promise of an amazing turkey dinner with my family, has always made November one of my favorite months. I remember the leaves on the aspen trees as a kid in Colorado, they were magical, it helped form my great fondness for this time of year. November provides this perfect quiet respite between the end of summer and the beginning of full-on winter and flurry of activity that surrounds Christmas.
Being a particularly introspective person, I have always reflected on the things that I am thankful for, the list is quite long to be sure. We live in a time and place where plenty abounds, and gratitude and thankfulness should also abound.
In 2015, November took on a much more important meaning. I found myself with my wife at Grant Hospital in downtown Columbus, OH in March of 2015 cutting the umbilical cord for my son Zander. That day in March Zander's birth mom gave me one of two of the greatest gifts of my life. The nurses in that delivery room worked like I imagine a group of Navy Seals do, silently working in precision. They all had jobs to do, and I remember the absence of talking. I remember vividly as the nurse took Zander and cleaned him and put him under what looked like a huge McDonalds warming light, he peed then cried, I remember her words, in that room devoid of words, "all systems go". I was so scared and relieved all at the same time. I had never held a minutes old newborn, but before long the head nurse had me bathing him and putting a diaper on him.
The nurses took great pains to disavow me of any of my preconceived notions that I would break Zander despite my meat hook hands and zero experience. Somehow in the span of a few hours Sarah and I went from not having children to having a son, seemingly in a way that only God could have written this story.
Five years later, in a small hospital in San Dusky, OH, God wrote the next chapter in this story for us. At the very beginning of the pandemic, in April of 2020, our daughter Ever was born. We have not met her birth mother. Ever was born via C-section 3 hours before we arrived. As we arrived, mass confusion due to the pandemic ensued. I was allowed 45 minutes to hold and feed Ever, and then only Sarah was allowed to stay with Ever. Sarah remained in the room with Ever for 3 days, they were all alone and I could do nothing to help. When we were finally cleared to take Ever home, in true pandemic chaos, the hospital forgot to remove her monitor and we were forced to return to the hospital, under some duress, to get the the monitor cut off.
Both stories come flooding over me all the time as I think what a miracle it is for us to have a family. It is more amplified in November because November is "National Adoption Month". We started our journey to adoption back when we still lived in New Mexico, we learned some life lessons working with the state agencies, and decided we had to find a private adoption agency to work with. My wife Sarah was born and raised in Ohio, so that was the first place we looked. Ohio has some of the best adoption laws, and we were so lucky to find Adoption Circle up in Columbus to represent us. The people at Adoption Circle were amazing to work with, but especially our social worker Kim. She had this amazing ability to help us navigate all of the rough patches and uncertainty.
As November reappears each year, I tend to spend time thinking about the moments in the hospital, the time we lost out on adopting Hudson, the many months we spent wondering if we would ever be chosen. I cannot help thinking about several things in relation to this time. My wife Sarah comes to mind in such a vivid way, when you get married, they tell you it is a partnership, what I think most often gets forgotten is how that partnership changes. That partnership is never 50/50, most of the time the ratio fluctuates wildly. I think about how incompetent I was with Zander the ratio was 99 Sarah, 1 Tom. When Ever was born it was 100 Sarah for 3 days. I cannot begin to express how Thankful I am for Sarah and her willingness to adjust her ratio to compensate for my ineptness.
I am also so Thankful for the two moms who chose us to parent their unborn children, they chose life. We bear the immense responsibility of amplifying those lives. We are so blessed that Zander gets to have a relationship with his birth mom and half siblings. Ever has yet to meet her mom, but I am sure that will happen, when God is ready to write that chapter. The choices these young women made, have forever changed our life and the lives of these two kids. These two young women made the hardest decision of their young lives, they chose life, they chose adoption, they gave a man and a woman who desperately wanted to be parents the opportunity to parent, and they have given us even more reason to enjoy November.
Thank you Adoption Circle, thank you to Zander and Ever's birth moms! Happy National Adoption Month!