Repeating Myself

If you keep a journal long enough I guess, eventually you begin to repeat yourself. Bear with me, today is a special day. I'm all weepy.

Meredith - I've been following your blog and thought of you when I read this over - September could be late August. lol Get shopping! Not that you need much encouragement there. :)

The Weather Network here runs little clips of “weather events” that have occurred in recent history as a lead in from commercials. They run about a 15 sec clip accompanied with a month, year and place. A few weeks ago I caught one and I didn’t need the caption to immediately know the exact day it was taken. It showed blinding rain and winds. The kind of rain that make you pull over when driving because ALMOST nothing is important enough to risk forcing your way through. It was tagged with “Kitchener, Ontario” perhaps an hour from where Kamryn was born. I knew when it was because I drove, like a COMPLETE madwoman, for over 7 hours through that storm (admittedly it wasn’t coming down like a hurricane for the entire 7 hours but there were plenty of scary periods).

We’d had a late night the night before, a Thursday (oh if we only knew how long it would be before we would sleep properly again lol). Less then 10 days after being matched with a baby due in mid-August euphoria was high. We were due to make the 7 hour drive to ************* (just north of Big City) on Saturday to meet our potential birthfather who was flying in from England. We’d rented a car for the trip because we felt neither of our ancient beaters was up to the task. I was flittering valuable sleeping time away making lists of what we would need to bring with us and dragged myself to bed around midnight. I turned my cell phone off and left it sitting in the family room when I went up to bed.

The next morning I was up early and out the door. Tossed my cellphone in my bag, grabbed and umbrella cause the weather was icky and ran for the bus. Once the baby arrived I planned to take 11 months off work and really needed to buckle down and get my office, files, job organized for whoever was coming in behind me. Today was the day – having spent the previous week daydreaming, shopping and generally dreaming about impending mommyhood.

So I’m sitting on the bus, minding my own business and trying to plan out my day when my phone begins to ring. My cell phone NEVER rings. Almost no one, even today, has the number. I constantly forget to even turn it on. Figured it was Daniel with a last minute request for me. But no, it was “the birthmom.” I tried to keep things light as my mind panicked and raced over why she could be calling. They changed their mind? Birthfather didn’t want to meet us anymore? We shouldn’t come this weekend because it wasn’t convenient? I’m totally panicked when she says “congratulations, you’re a Mom.” Okay I lost it. I was crying and shaking and talking REALLY loudly (on a public bus mind you). Kamryn had been born at 3:18 am. Sarah, Kamryn’s birthmom had gone into labour at 11 pm but didn’t call because she figured it would take awhile and it was the middle of the night. When it became apparent that it wasn’t going to take a while she tried desperately to get a hold of us but of course my cell phone (her only direct link to us) was in our family room and off while I dozed upstairs.

I didn’t know what to do, I was halfway to work on an express bus (express busses only run one way; getting home on the bus at that time of day would literally take over an hour). The whole bus was clapping and congratulating me (once I hung up the phone and the world was starring at me, I had to explain to my fellow passengers) – I still get teary thinking about it. So I went to work and tried to call someone to come and get me. DANIEL had had knee surgery the month before and was in physic therapy (not that he could drive anyway but I thought I should at least tell him). His cell phone was off! I called my parents – no answer! In the rain, my mother had gone to drive my Dad to the golf course – silly man plays no matter what. I was bouncing off my office walls when a colleague told me to sit down and have a glass of water and think for a minute. Good advice. I called my girlfriend who lived almost an hour away and who promised to throw emergency baby supplies in her car and rush right over. Finally I got a hold of my mother who I didn’t tell what was going on (as I didn’t want her to get into a car accident). I just asked her to come and pick me up at work because I needed to go home. When she arrived I told her I would drive and to please move over I had some news for her. She cried when I told her.
When I caught up with Daniel at the physio therapists office he looked at me like I was speaking in a foreign tongue and told me to please wait he had to make an appointment for his next therapy session. He really didn’t get it. It was hilarious to see the non understanding on his face.

We had to get to ************* now, the weather was getting worse and we didn’t have a vehicle. We threw our partially packed stuff together and grabbed all the baby stuff we had collected over the week and headed for the rental agency to see what they could offer us. We had originally reserved and Escape but that was for the next day. On their lot they had a VW beetle and a Ford Explorer Sport Trac. Okay I though a Ford Explorer Sport Trac was and Ford Explorer with a sporty look to it. lol When they drove it around I about died and asked to take a look at the beetle – maybe we could make it work. Not a chance. So there we were with the Sport Trac – open bed in a driving rain storm. It was big enough inside the cab to get all the luggage inside though and we prayed that on our return – with a baby – that the weather would be nice enough to leave the enormous amount of stuff we were taking with us (we didn’t know how long we would be stuck there) in the back. All ready to go and DANIEL accidentally locked the keys in the truck. No problem you would figure since we hadn’t left the rental agency. Well you might think that but they didn’t have keys! We had to wait for someone from their central garage to come and help us. I was going nuts.

Once we got the truck opened it was a pretty uneventful trip to ************* – with the exception of the driving rain and my kamikaze driving skills. Took us about 8 hours with a stop for lunch and a pumping break for me (I was pumping in preparation for breastfeeding). We didn’t have a hotel because that was the same weekend the Pope was in Big City for World Youth Day and there wasn’t a hotel room to be found for miles. We got there just after 7 pm. Tiny hospital. Kamryn was waiting at the nurses station and EVERYONE was excitedly waiting for us. She was so perfect with an incredibly round head and just enough hair. She’d scratched the living daylights out of her little face though. Poor kid. I got to nurse her within 20 minutes of arriving and they had a room for us (arranged by Sarah who was amazing!) so no worries on the hotel. We stayed in the hospital 5 extremely stressful days while they worked out the paperwork (it was a mess but that’s a story for another day). On the day the hospital said no more we can’t keep you – the Ministry of Child and Social Services finally approved us as adoptive parents (totally last minute, we thought Kamryn was going to foster care and I must have cried all day). We left the hospital at 6pm and it took us 9 hours to drive home. Nothing like walking into a highway rest stop with a 5-day-old baby to get shocked looks from people (not that we had any choice). We had planned to drive and get as far away from ************* as Kamryn would let us and then stop. Although the last hour and a half was AWFUL (I HAD to drive as Daniel couldn’t. Problem was nor could Daniel nurse and that’s what she wanted) she let us get all the way home. Got home at 3 am with our precious baby. Can’t believe 4 years have gone by.