Jim & Lisa's Open Adoption

We are Jim and Lisa and would like to tell you our story about finding our child. We started like most families going to fertility doctors to try and have a baby. After four years of trying fertility treatments we suffered through two miscarriages and many failed attempts to conceive. What got us through these hard times was knowing that no matter what happened, we would always try to adopt a child someday.

Towards the end of our fertility treatments we started the adoption process with an adoption attorney we found. We told our attorney that we wanted a closed adoption, because we had so many fears about an open adoption. We completed our homestudy and got our lifebook together.

About 4 months later we received a call saying that we had been selected by a birth mother, and that the baby was due in about 10 days. We couldn’t believe how incredibly lucky we were to be picked so soon, and we were very grateful. Our birth Mom and her boyfriend also wanted a closed adoption, but wanted to meet with us one time before the adoption took place. We met at a restaurant. Jim and I were nervous but excited to meet them. We thought they would have so many questions to ask us. Much to our surprise they didn’t talk to us at all. Our attorney asked them if they had any questions for us, but they did not. The only thing the boyfriend assured us was that they did not want any contact with the child, and that they would never try to see the child later on, and that they would definitely never change their mind. When we left the meeting we felt sure that this adoption was going to take place, but felt strange about the fact that they did not have any questions for us.

About a week later we received a call saying that our birth mom had just given birth to a baby girl, we were asked to come to the hospital the next day to see the baby. When we got there, we wanted to see our birth mom and see how she was doing. We had brought her some flowers. Of course, we also could not wait to see our little girl who we named Jacqueline. We were sad to hear that our birth mom did not want to see us. Her boyfriend brought Jacqueline into a room we were waiting in and let us hold her. She was perfect and so beautiful. We both fell in love with her instantly. We told the boyfriend thank you so much and please tell our birth mom that we are praying for her.

We left the hospital feeling happy but concerned about our birth mom. On our way home from the hospital, we received a call on our cell phone from our attorney. She asked us if we wanted to come back to the hospital because our birth mom and boyfriend were leaving and did not want to leave Jacqueline alone. They asked us to come back and stay with her. We were happy to come back, even though our birth mom had not yet signed the surrender. The next day and half were spent at the hospital with our new little girl, who we had fallen completely in love with. However, something strange had happened to Jim and I. Instead of feeling excited that we were going to have a closed adoption, we starting feeling so much compassion for what the birth mom was feeling. We could not imagine the pain she was going through, and thought to ourselves, she just has to see this beautiful child again.