Semicolon Stories

January 15 – Activation Celebration | Mae’s Adoption Journey

January 15, 2012 at 10:27 am Danielle B 3 comments

By around 8am the next morning, I had an email in my inbox. My heart started racing as I anticipated questions that were to come.  I thought about our previous meeting with the birth mom all night. She must have too. I got my “game face” on and opened up the email. To my surprise, a short note started out with

“I believe you and Mike will make great parents … and I feel blessed to have met you both.”

Wowza, and that was it. A night ridden with questions of how long this process would take, and wondering if the birth mom connected with us were answered within just a few hours. She had peace about us raising her little girl. She wanted us to be her parents. And after just seven days after we’d heard of the possibility to adopt a baby girl, she was going to be ours.

I called Mike into our bedroom and showed him the email. We hugged, mouths open wide at the shock of how fast everything had gone. And then finally the smiles we’d both been holding back came out. We were beaming.

Sharing the News

My friend Amber who was staying at her house with her hubby has always had a knack for coming into town at just the right time. She’d been with us to weddings, showers, birthdays, family funerals – all usually unplanned. So it was fitting that she was with us when we received an email from a birth mom asking us to adopt her daughter. We shared the news with her and then hid out in our room for a bit to type up a long novel to many close friends and family members.

Some of them had known about the events of the week, but some of them had no clue about what was going on. So to explain our upcoming life change that would be happening in a matter of three weeks … not nine months … we started out with an email. Replies flooded in with “Congratulations!” and “OMG!s.” This was the real thing.

Celebrating with an Activation Celebration

The Lord works in mysterious ways, and one that continually blows my mind is timing. Weeks earlier some of my closest buds Amy & Ashley had asked if they could throw a shower for me. I initially said “no way,” following all the adoption manual’s cues when it came to this sort of thing. Any sort of shower was highly discouraged until the baby was home with us – there were so many things that could fall through. They advised we wait.

However, the girls insisted and still asked to do a little something. It didn’t have to be a “shower.” They came up with the idea of an “Activation Celebration.” They knew our activation papers were coming soon and that when we did get the call, gift cards would be handy. The original thought was that if we were chosen by a birth mom in a different state and needed to travel, at least we’d have a way to buy the baby some needed items. So I agreed to them throwing an “activation celebration” where we’d have just gift cards as gifts … and no baby games.

I felt so honored and started looking forward to the celebration. The girls had been planning it for several weeks before the date. Little did we know that the very date they chose for the celebration would fall on the same day I would receive word from a birth mom that sealed the deal motherhood was knocking at my front door – and soon. Like in a week or so.

Let’s Party And Keep A Lid on It

Although the shower had some of my closest small group friends there, only a handful of them still knew about the baby, much less the email I’d received earlier that morning. My moms were there too, but they also kept quiet. All of the news throughout the week had been so tentative, we’d proceeded with caution each step of the way. So, we followed suit on this evening. Just to be safe. We celebrated a “Baby Burgess” and had an amazing time with Thai food, wine, cake and nursery room mobile making. And as each time somebody mentioned Baby B, some of us kind of smiled. Because we actually had an idea of what she looked like… and knew that in all actuality, she was already here.

Entry filed under: Biracial Adoption, Burgess Adoption, Maeby, Memoir. Tags: adoption journey, adoption story, baby girl, birth mom, close friends, custom nursery mobile, decision to adopt, shower for adopting mom.