Five years ago today we thought our baby was being born!
From page 116:
"{ring
ring}. Esther’s cell phone went off at 3:00
that morning. It could only be one thing.
Jonathan
called – he was taking Valerie to the hospital. This was it! Battlestations!
Battlestations! We washed and got to the hospital (having already driven the
route – you see? smart…) about an hour after the call.
The
only part of the hospital open at 4:00
Monday morning was the ER. Esther and I were the only people there. Strike
that, we were the only conscious people there. Two men were asleep on the
couches. They must have been homeless or visitors or both: they weren’t
bleeding and they didn’t seem to be waiting on anyone.
I got
impatient and walked to the other rooms. After fifteen minutes a nurse (maybe a
nurse, maybe not, but some kind of lady-in-scrubs) finally appeared at the
window. We explained that Valerie
checked in some time in the past hour – she was going to have a baby. She made
a call and showed us to the elevators. Maternity was on the third floor.
I
wonder what ever happened to the two men on the couch.
The
waiting area of the maternity ward consisted of a faux-leather loveseat and a
large sectional shaped in a right angle. There was a coffee table, lots of
out-dated magazines and the omnipresent television on which someone was selling
knives.
A few
attendants walked through the lobby – we tried to stop as many as we could to
let them know we were here for Valerie. They said they would do what they
could.
Around 4:30 a man walked into the waiting area. He
wore a sweatshirt and sweatpants. He was tall – taller than me and I’m
6’3”. He was big – well over 300 pounds,
maybe 350. He looked like a friend we knew from our old church named John.
Thick glasses, salt-and-pepper hair cut short; a beard. A few teeth missing.
It was
Jonathan. He asked if we were Esther and Mike and we said yes. He told us
Valerie was fine and it was another false contraction. They were getting ready
to send her home.
So that
meant we should go home too. We thanked Jonathan and took the elevator back to
the emergency room and out to our car and to the motel.
We were
never supposed to meet the birth parents. I guess we were lucky Valerie wasn’t
leaving at that time. “I don’t want to meet the adopting couple; I don’t want
to see the baby.” We respected her wishes and wanted to honor them. Valerie
must have known we were in the waiting room – some nurse or attendant must have
said she had some “friends” out here waiting to hear how she was.
When
the doctor or nurse told Valerie it was a false alarm, did she ask an attendant
to tell us to go home? Did Jonathan say, “I’ll go tell them. Don’t worry.” Did
he describe us to her? Or did she stop him, “I don’t want to know.” That’s
silly – we sent her photos so she knew what we looked like. But if you think
about it, photos don’t really say much. A thousand words. How can a thousand
words really capture someone’s personality?"
***
"Abby's Road,
the Long and Winding Road
Join Mike and Esther
as they go through IUIs and IFVs, as they search for an adoption agency, are
selected by a birth mother, prepare their house, prepare their family, prepare
themselves and wait for their daughter to be born a thousand miles from home.
Abby's Road is available at Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/Abbys-Road-Long-Winding-Adoption/product-reviews/0692221530/ref=cm_cr_pr_top_recent?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending
at Barnes and Noble here: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/abbys-road-the-long-and-winding-road-to-adoption-and-how-facebook-aquaman-and-theodore-roosevelt-helped-michael-curry/1119971924?ean=9780692221532
and at Smashwords here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/457270
Copyright 2014
Michael Curry
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