The things you remember

It's strange, the things you remember.

I remember standing in my closet that January day, staring at my clothes and asking myself, "What does one wear to the birth of one's child?"

I remember wearing the same clothes for three days because my silly husband forgot to put my bag in the car. My makeup case, too.

I remember thinking we would be there for a long time, so I remember packing a tote bag with my needlepoint, cards, books, newspapers -- things to wile away the time. I never touched any of it.

I remember the drive from Norco to Houma. Highway 90 was under construction and down to one lane both ways. We were stuck behind a State Trooper the whole way.

I remember trying very hard to read the newspaper on the way, and failing.

I remember sending Marty off to run errands while we waited. We had blown a tire a few days before and he had brought it to Sears to get it fixed. He also needed to go cash his paycheck.

I remember my brother showing up to wait with me. I didn't know then that it would be one of the last times I would ever see him. I remember my niece showing up to wait with me too.

I remember frantically calling Marty to come back to the hospital because he was about to miss it.

I remember standing outside the doors to the maternity ward, waiting, praying, not breathing at all. I remember waiting for Marty to get back, still afraid he would miss it.

I remember the nurse coming out of her room carrying a huge load of linens and signalling me with just her head, "Come on. Go on in." No words were said.

I remember walking into the room and seeing Gail holding this little bundle as a nurse smoothed the new linens on the bed, being so afraid I would hear her say, "Go away. I've changed my mind. I can't give her to you."

Instead, I remember hearing her say, "Are you ready to hold your daughter?"

Then the nurse saying, "Wash your hands first!"

I remember everyone in the room crying. Even me.

I remember handing her back to the nurse, oh so reluctantly, and thinking, "Doesn't she understand how long it took me to get here?"

I remember dying to get to the payphones to call everyone. (We had cell phones, but you weren't allowed to use them in hospitals back then.)

I remember spending the rest of the morning waiting to see her again, hoping the nurses understood who we were and why we were there (they did).

I remember hours later, walking into the little room they found us in the back of the NICU, and seeing our baby in the warmer.  I remember sitting there and sticking our hands in the holes, one of us taking her hand and one of us taking her foot.

I remember the nurse coming in and asking if we had held her yet. When we said no, she scooped her out of the warmer and handed her to me.

I remember Marty having to run to the car to get the camera. And I remember Marty grabbing a nurse to take our picture, and recognizing an old high school friend.

And I remember this joy.

It's been almost 13 years since the day my daughter was born, in the same hospital where I was born, to another woman. It's been 13 years since her birth mother --  her first mother -- put her into my arms and turned me from a heart-broken woman battling six years of infertility into a mom.

And I will never, ever forget it.

November is National Adoption Awareness Month. 

Birth Mother's Day

She and I had never met.

One day she just called. Out of the blue. Said her name was Gail. Said she had heard about us from a friend of a friend and that she liked what she heard, had liked what she read about us in the letter I so painstakingly composed and typed all those months ago then mailed, along with a wish and a prayer, to every single person I could think of.

Somehow, she got one. Read it. Liked it. Then she called us.

Then she chose us.

After that, she would call every few weeks or so to keep me up-to-date,  to tell me that she had been to the doctor and that everything was progressing fine. No worries. No problems.

I would ask about her little daughter and the rest of the family, about her job, mundane things. I tried. But the conversations were stilted, forced. As one would expect between total strangers. Then we would hang up and she would go back to her life and I would go back to mine.

Sometimes I would breathe a little easier, slightly reassured that she had taken the time to call at all. Most of the times I would not, knowing that things could change at any second. That one day, she could just not call at all. Or ever again.

Towards the end, we talked a little more. About how things would go. How we wanted them to go. How we hoped it would go. She did her best to reassure me.

She was one of the first people I called after the other woman, the one who had asked for money and food and clothes and time and energy and called all the time, reunited with her shithead of a boyfriend so they could raise their baby girl together.  The state had taken their other three children, after all. This was the only one they had left.

And she was going to be born healthy because I had spent months skipping work and disappearing to take her mother to my own doctor for regular examinations. He had dumped her and left her for six months, so somebody had to do it.

I would have no say so in whether she stayed healthy after her birth, however.

"I'm not changing my mind," she promised. Over and over and over again.

Gail said that too.

Then one Sunday afternoon she called and said she was going to the hospital. She thought her baby was on its way. Her water had broken. 

Holy shit, we said.

Thrilled, terrified, excited, terrified, worried, panicked, terrified, amazed, hopeful, prayerful (and did I mention terrified?) we jumped in the car and drove bat-out-of-hell into the night and into uncertainty. An hour later, we crept around a corner and gently, nervously knocked on a door to meet a stranger for the first time. Gail, a mother and a mother-to-be.

She was sitting up in bed, alone and maybe terrified herself, wondering what was happening and who are these people?

We introduced ourselves. We tried to make chit chat. We tried to act as though the most natural thing for people to do is introduce themselves when they're about to have a baby. Together.

We failed.

And then there was no baby. God, ever the practical joker when it comes to me and my life, wasn't done with me yet. Yes, her water had broken, but she had not gone into labor. We had to wait.

And wait.

And wait. 

For five days.

Gail stayed in the hospital, hooked up to an IV, and waited to see if she would go into labor on her own. If not, they would induce labor on Friday.

So, we went home, then back to the hospital the next day. But there was still no baby. So we went home again, then back to work. Marty went back to school, back to coaching. I went back to interviewing and updating basketball standings. And tried not to worry.

We failed at that too.

On Friday, January 26, 2001, she called us again. She was much louder this time. She was in the throes of labor and wanted to know where in the hell were we. We were on the way, I promised. Don't let anything happen until we get there.

Please God, don't let anything happen until we get there. Or after. Or the next day. Please.

Finally, shortly after 10 a.m., a little baby girl the color of boiled shrimp was born, hand first, with a hair full of black curls and a temper. Marty and I were waiting  in the hallway, clutching each other.  Waiting to breathe. Waiting to be told. Waiting to be called into the room. And praying that we would.

We were. And then we were nervously knocking on a door and creeping around a corner, hoping we would not be told to go away.

And there was Gail, now a mother of two.

"Are you ready to meet your daughter?" she asked.

Oh how I was.

And before I knew it, Gail was filling the hole in my heart and making my every dream come true,  just by handing me this tiny little shrimp-colored bundle wrapped in a blanket and letting me keep her. Forever.

And just like that, we were all a family.

Forever.

Lora's sister Ashlee, Lora, me and Gail

*The day before Mother's Day is traditionally Birth Mother's Day! We send our love and our blessings to our daughter's First Mother, her birth mother, Gail.