Our Adoption Story

I remember filling the adoption paperwork. ‘Would you accept twins?’ At the information meeting, they said it was so rare it would probably not mean anything anyway. Still, we said yes. Being an identical twin myself, I knew we would probably do an okay job, as my experience would help.

When we got ‘the call’, on Feb 25, 2008, adoption was far from my mind. We had been waiting almost two years. We had bought all the necessities two years before, which were now hidden in a room upstairs, door carefully locked, out of sight. I picked up, and I will always remember the words of our social worker: ‘I have good news, you have twins! A boy and a girl!’. The rest is pretty much a blur… I remember bursting into tears while automatically writing down information on a piece of paper… the name and location of the hospital, their birth weight (which I wrote down wrong), the time of their birth (the same morning)… I called my husband right away to share the good news. I think he yelled so loudly that everyone at the company heard him. Needless to say, we didn’t get much sleep that night. We were overjoyed, excited, and absolutely terrified.

We drove to the hospital the next day, a two hour drive. The social worker took us to the special care unit, where the babies would stay for two weeks because of low birth weights. The doctors estimated their birth at 36 weeks. If we were afraid we would have problems bonding, it didn’t last long. We fell in love instantly with those two tiny babies. We had already chosen their names… Christopher Mark and Elizabeth Rose.

For two weeks, we drove there almost every day, while trying to get everything ready for an extra baby. My husband used most of his vacation time and we were worried he would run out too fast. The staff was wonderful with us.

Meanwhile, the babies were having problems maintaining their temperature, and not eating very well. I’ll always remember the nurse who came to tell us that ‘our son’ had got very cold, and had to get on antibiotics. Those two words “our son” were wonderful to hear, yet we were worried. Not only for the babies, but because technically, they were not ours yet. The birthparents had to sign their surrender of parental rights. There’s nothing worse than worrying for your babies while wondering if they really are your babies. It was a very hard time.

It was a long three weeks before the birthparents signed, by then we were in a hotel waiting for interstate paperwork so we could go home. It was a bittersweet moment. We were so happy and relieved, yet we ached for their birthparents. They cried through the entire signing, according to our social worker. As our children grow up, We’ll make sure they know how much they were loved.

We finalized the adoption 7 months later, on Sept 30, 2008. It was a great day.

Adoption isn’t really in our mind anymore though, we’re just like every other parents of twins – exhausted, dealing with spit ups, dirty diapers, crying babies, and fighting with schedules (or lack of). It’s hard to believe that just four months ago we were not sure we would ever be parents. We knew we would only have one child, which saddened me, but there was no way we could have afforded another adoption, considering we had spent so much on infertility treatments beforehand. Every day I look at my babies and realize how lucky we are. I’m finally a mom, and to two beautiful babies. When people ask me if we’ll try to have our own children, I can’t help but smile, ‘we already have them’.