Semicolon Stories

January 19 – Getting Ready for Baby | Mae’s Adoption Journey

January 19, 2012 at 8:19 pm Danielle B 1 comment

We kept eagerly awaiting a phone call from the agency for our court date. We’d heard it could be as soon as Friday, just two days away. Yet without any formal plans and not yet having heard from a lawyer, we sat tight and got ready for a baby the best we knew how.

Thank the Lord for Mom Friends

Step one  – an email to my friend Leah. She was my first friend to become a mom, and three kids later I knew she was veteran. Plus, she was always much more tech-savvy than me, so I knew she was my go-to person. Once we agreed to take in this little baby, questions flooded my mind. How much should she eat? How often should she sleep? When she start baby food? Does she drink water? How do you make a baby’s routine and schedule? How do we buy a car seat? The logistics of raising a child hit me – I had no clue what to do. So I called Leah.

She gathered several links and sent me an email with link after link of nutrition and development guidelines, car seat safety (even telling me which one worked for my car!), diaper deals and more (My fave was a link for weekly emails telling me what the baby should be doing each week of her life!) I finally had more peace. Okay, I could do this.

Around that same time, my friend Kelley emailed me encouragement and reminded me of how cool it was that our baby girl was born in September, just like her daughter. I’d gone through Kelley’s pregnancy with her and even watched her in the delivery room. This baby girl’s birthday landed just one day earlier than Kelley’s daughter’s. Kelley reminded me of how cool it was that going through the experience with her gave me an idea of what things were like for our birth mom’s pregnancy – at least the timing of things. I was once again reminded that God was all over this, and that these “coincidences” were all part of his plan.

Name Game Guessing

Meanwhile, my brother and sister-in-law sent in name guesses. Andy was never one for surprises and so not knowing the baby’s name was absolutely killing him. I’d given him a hint after multiple requests that her name would start with an “M.” At least that distracted him enough to start searching for names. He sent me his top guesses:

Andy & Ashley’s Top Baby Name Guesses:

1.)     MONROE (HA HA HA)

2.)     MAVERICK (that’s for mike)

3.)     Maria

4.)     Mariah

5.)     McKinley

6.)     Morgan

7.)     Maleah

8.)     Maya

9.)     Moira

Wiring Money & Buying Diapers

Last items on the agenda of the day: wiring money and buying diapers. I bought my first set of diapers and wipes…. in bulk. And then it was time for the bank.

Money transfers were nothing I was familiar with, but thankfully our agency gave great instructions and Bank of America was extremely helpful. We’d opened up a separate account just for adoption expenses and were very blessed by the generosity of family, friends and extra work to have just what we needed when the unexpected call came. And my was it unexpected.

Scott & Patti were fellow adoptive parents and had encouraged us years earlier to not worry about the money piece of adoption. Their experience was that God provides, and especially when He calls you to adopt.  So as I signed the papers and watched the clerk process the money transfer, I realized how futile money is when it comes to adoption. Sure, it was needed (like it or not.) And we’d absolutely been blessed. But there was no dollar amount that could be put on what was happening in the adoption of a child. Nor becoming a family of three. I was glad I hadn’t let the scary numbers and worry about funds stop us from applying. God had absolutely provided for what he’d called us to do.

Entry filed under: Biracial Adoption, Burgess Adoption, Maeby, Memoir. Tags: adoption, adoption costs, adoption story, baby links, baby names, fast adoption, god provides, wiring money.