Bringing Me To Tears

I cried for Eldest's birth mother today. Nearly seven years later and I still shed tears for her. The story goes like this:

When we got the call that we could potentially parent Eldest, we'd had three situations fall through for us already. You could say we were cautiously optimistic. In Arkansas, where he was born, the law states that the birth mothers can sign before the baby is born. She has ten days after the baby is born to change her mind and get him back, but the clock doesn't start ticking until she has signed and she can't sign under the influence of anything (including pain meds for the delivery). Sooooo, she can sign before she goes into labor and the clock starts ticking immediately at birth. And we actually had to wait 12 because her 10th day was on a weekend so they gave her the weekend plus Monday.

By the way, this, to me, is a huge pro-life kind of a law. If she can sign consents before the BABY is born, the BABY is in fact a BABY. Go figure. Here she could still have aborted him and called him "tissue." Off topic. Climbing down off my soapbox.

Well, she did sign. But we were still a hair gun shy. We didn't buy a single thing. Not even diapers. We went into her room and met her and she made us believe it would probably happen, but we still didn't really think we'd come home with a baby. Not really. Not enough to run out shopping while we waited for them to be dismissed.

Yes. We were new parents. We should have been excited. And we were. But not so much that we went out and bought a "coming home from the hospital" outfit. I didn't want anything that I'd memorialize should she change her mind.

Hindsight. Probably a bit overboard.

So when she called to tell the attorney that she and he were being released, she asked if we had an outfit for him to leave the hospital. I hadn't thought that far. I scrambled through the clothes we'd borrowed and found something that I thought would fit this teeny guy. It was a red sleeper with Mickey Mouse on it. Obviously worn.

She sent him home to us in that outfit. And with him came the most adorable little white sailor suit. Someone had obviously picked it out for him. I can only hope it was one of her friends. But today when I saw the sailor suit I cried for her. To love him so much and let him go and to have to send him away to people who didn't even buy him something new to come home from the hospital in...

So hating myself right now. Why didn't we just take the plunge and buy an outfit on hope? We had a special one on court day which was the day I had earmarked as a "big day," but the other was a big, momentous day, too.

So today, seven years later, I'm shedding guilty tears. I hope she knows what a big day that day was for us. Regardless of appearances.