Bringing Him Home

Thursday was much of the same, visiting with Zain and K, giving them all the time they needed together.  We discussed being discharged Friday morning and decided that K would call us into her room when she was ready to say goodbye.  While our excitement grew knowing that we would be bringing our little guy home, our hearts broke for K and her family.

Friday morning we woke up around 5 out of excitement, packed our things up, brought in the car seat and diaper bag, and waited for the phone call from K. The hours passed and we became nervous, wanting to give her time with him, but so ready to be heading home.  Several hours later she invited us to her room and as we walked in she was holding him in her arms. Derek and I just sat and watched as she kissed, hugged on him, and told him how much she loved him.  She handed him to me and I put him in the newborn cart so that we could say goodbye.  To say it was an emotional time would be an understatement.  I hated seeing her in pain as she had become someone I now loved.  As we left the room, we reminded each other that this was just the beginning of a beautiful and bigger family with a sweet little boy at the center.  

When we made it back to our hospital room with our new son, Derek and I collapsed and sobbed. It was the first time we had been alone with him and every emotion came crashing down.  It was so overwhelming knowing that we were praising God in our room and she was mourning her loss just across the hall. 

I put him in his “going home” outfit and put his white hospital onesie in a gift bag along with his id bracelet and some other gifts. I asked our discharge nurse to give it to her later in the day.

We were discharged several hours later and started the 4 hour drive home as new parents. We couldn’t wait to get home and introduce him to all of our sweet friends who had been praying for him!

The journey to building our family was finally over, but the adventure of Team Smith had just begun!

The Honest Truth

While adoption is a beautiful thing, there are some times during the journey that aren’t very pretty. Our time at the hospital was incredible, but we had some rough patches.  There were some nurses who just didn’t care for us because we were adopting and wouldn’t include us in anything involving Zain and K. There was even one who kicked us out of the room and tried to talk K out of her decision.  At times, we felt unwelcomed by the staff and it was very annoying when it came to caring for Zain in the hospital.

Other things were more trivial. Derek and I had packed for 4 days, but K asked us to stay the entire time she was there, so we ended up running out of clothes. We were eating every meal at the cafeteria and living out of a suitcase. Staying in a small room where we couldn’t really relax was exhausting and I was so stressed that I ended up being sick most of the time.  Being away from family and friends was also extremely hard.  Our support came from knowing that our friends and family back home were praying like mad people!

The good times far outweighed the bad and even during those rough times we could still clearly see God working. Even our agent was amazed at the outcome of our situation. She said that our particular situation was one of the riskiest our agency had ever done. She actually told us that she was amazed that it had actually happened.  That’s God for you! He took a situation that from a worldly perspective just shouldn’t have worked out and made the outcome something beautiful. 

The Day After

The morning came and we were in her room with Zain by 7:00am. The day was full of sweet visitors, mostly K’s family. We were able to meet and get pictures of  Zain’s aunts, uncle, cousins, and great grandmother. His aunt who worked at the hospital was even the one to fill out his birth certificate.  Our agent came by to check on everyone and said she would be back tomorrow to sign the paperwork.

The day was wonderful as we got to learn so much about her and her family. Being in a hospital room together for an extended period of time will definitely do that! Derek and I held Zain all day until we went back to our room around midnight that night. Again we crashed after grabbing some food from the cafeteria and sending emails our for prayer. It was another incredible day!

Wednesday was a day full of ups and downs- it was the day she signed her consent papers. She asked that we stay in the room with her while she signed which was highly unusual. We were overwhelmed by her trust in us. I had another “out of this world” moment as I was holding Zain watching her sign her consent papers. I couldn’t hold back my tears as I just prayed for her then.  But I was even more moved when her father whispered to me that he was so proud of us.

There is just no way to describe how connected we felt to her family during our stay. It was almost like a marriage where you can just feel God connecting two families together. It was seamless and beautiful to watch happen.  Even though we had just met them I knew that her father would protect us no matter what happened and her mother was full of such compassion for us during her time of loss.  K wanted us to be a part of everything and made sure that the nurses knew it! They blessed us so much during this incredible, but sometimes uncomfortable situation.

The day involved K signing her consents and a celebration dinner that night. It was Derek, K, Zain, and myself huddled around a table enjoying a nice dinner, dessert, and sparkling cider. It was truly a time of celebration and laughter! At the end, K wrote on the empty sparkling cider bottle the date and why we were celebrating. This was probably one of my most favorite times!

Meeting Zain!!!

We drove up Sunday night and found a hotel to stay in. To say the least we didn’t get much sleep.

The morning of K’s c-section we drove to the hospital at 7:00 am. We ran through the parking garage, and the hospital towards the maternity wing and when we asked what room she was in, we were told she wasn’t there. Oh, the panic! We found that we were at the wrong hospital. There were several by the same name.

We rushed to the other hospital about 15 minutes away and texted K letting her know we wouldn’t be able to see her before they took her back into pre-op. We were pretty upset, but it was all in God’s plan.

When we finally made it to the right hospital we sat in the waiting room with K’s father and daughter. She was asleep on his lap when we came in. Her father, G, was so sweet to us. When we sat down the first thing he said was, “you know, you’re gaining a whole family, right?” We agreed that that was exactly what we wanted. He asked us what we did , what our family was like, and how we had gotten to this point of the process while we waited to hear from K.

Shortly after K’s mom M, came back and told us that he had been born at 7:45 on September 24^th, weighing 7lbs 14 ounces, and 19 inches long. Both he and K had done beautifully! She told us we could go back and see him and I remember being so nervous.  We walked down the hall to a small post-op room that was more like a closet. In the room was K, looking worn out but beautiful, her dad holding her daughter, her mom, three nurses, and Derek and I. We were crammed into the room and we kept bumping into each other.

It’s so much of a blur, but as I walked into the room, M turned around towards me holding Zain. She handed him to me saying, “here’s your son,” and I just cried and cried.  Although I was overjoyed to finally meet this sweet boy, I was even more overwhelmed by the symbolism of his grandmother handing him to me.  I can’t imagine how that must have felt for her.

He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Perfect in every way!  I passed him to Derek who cried as well and then we all took turns loving on him. It was just one of the beautiful moments during our hospital stay with K and her family. We were there while they weighed and checked him over and we took probably 4,000 pictures. We hugged K and held E as she stared at her new brother.

As we were all leaving the room K asked if we had decided on a name for him yet. We told her that we’d love to name him Zain Alan, which is Derek’s family name. She asked how we were going to spell it and after we told her she said she loved it! Zain Alan it was!

I passed Zain to K while she was being checked over and the nurses gave me an id bracelet. I felt so honored that K would share that with me. We were then asked to leave the room while they prepared Zain and K to be moved to an actual room. We waited in the waiting room with G, M, and E and made phone calls to our parents. We were all so excited!

As we sat together in the waiting room, G asked what we decided to name him. We again said Zain Alan and he also asked how we spelled his middle name. Now I’m thinking to myself what is so important about how we spell his middle name?! But after telling him, he thought for a moment and said, “hmm, well that’s how I spell my middle name, and my son’s and his son’s.” It was another incredible moment! What a beautiful way for God to bring our families together through the naming of our son!

We all spent the day together in K’s room taking pictures and holding him.  We got to see his first bath, feeding, and diaper change, something most adoptive couples don’t get the chance to see.  We felt blessed just to know him, even though we weren’t sure of how this journey would end.

That evening we were given a room to stay in by a sweet nurse who hid us away and after such a long day we were happy to have a place to recharge.  We crashed after sending photos to our closest friends and family and prayed for whatever was to come the next day.

Shower of Babies!

What a beautiful celebration it was! My friend Amy threw me the cutest baby shower with my closest friends and family there.  

I couldn't arrive at my own baby shower without a big prego belly so I stuffed a pillow up my shirt and waddled in. It was so much fun making an entrance! 


We played games, ate too much cake and punch, and opened sweet gifts. We had such a blast goofing off and laughing! There was a diaper cake and transracial cupcakes! Too cute!






At the beginning of the party each guest had to guess if we would be getting a boy or a girl by wearing a necklace for a girl or a tie for a boy. It was too funny to see everyone wearing a tie that knew we had been matched with Zain! I wore both a tie and a necklace, so I would at least be 50% right. 



















Even though the party was wonderful my mind was about 4 hours up north with K. I kept wondering how she was doing and what she must be feeling. I had even told the girls at the shower that we weren't planning on going to the hospital anymore because she hadn't contacted us. They cried with us and prayed for God's glory. And then it happened.

I was checking my phone as we were packing everything up and heading out the door and she left a message asking us to come on up to the hospital. I broke down in tears and everyone came running. I got to share the good news with all of my closest girl friends that we were headed up to meet with K that afternoon and she still wanted us to be there! If God had waited 5 more minutes to orchestrate that I wouldn't have gotten to share that with them. It was a wonderful ending to a wonderful party!

Adoption Isn't Easy

Something was wrong. I could feel it in my gut.  It was Friday, two days before our drive to meet her again.  I had texted her but not gotten a response.  I got sicker as each hour passed thinking the worst. I just knew that she had changed her mind and didn't want to tell us. I kept wanting to call and tell her that was okay, that we were with her until the end no matter what.  My heart broke for her. Her c-section was days away and I couldn’t imagine what she must have been going through.  Our hearts poured out prayers for her and her family in those last days.

Saturday came with still no response and Derek and I had resolved that we were just going to try and enjoy the ride. We knew that we were right where God wanted us to be- next to K.  We just couldn’t see what came next. We spent the day distracting ourselves with shopping at goodwill’s and flea markets and just enjoying our time together.

We had planned to meet K and her family on Sunday evening and stay in a hotel. We’d then meet her at the hospital Monday morning to meet the little guy, but that was before the texts stopped happening. We felt like something about the situation was changing and it scared us.

In an adoption, the adoptive couple has little control of anything.  It's probably the scariest thing of it all. When you have biological children there are some things you can count on - you probably know gender and race ahead of time, you're pretty certain which hospital you'll be at, your family and friends can visit, and you know without a doubt that you'll be leaving with your child. Adoption just isn't like that. It's more of a grab bag- this race, this gender, this location, this name, this birth mom, and the chance that you'll be leaving empty handed.  All you can do is fill out the paperwork and hold on. 

In order to protect our hearts we decided that if we didn’t hear from her by the end of my baby shower on Sunday then we would call our agent and tell them we weren’t going to the hospital. We would give her all the privacy she needed and in turn guard our hearts.

Hurry Up and Wait

The two weeks before his birth were an exciting and trying time for me.  Each day brought us closer to seeing her again and meeting Zain, but each day my heart felt heavy with worry. A match does not mean a placement and she has every right to change her mind at any time.  The phone would ring and my heart would jump thinking it was her changing her mind. We prayed for protected hearts and tried to focus on our relationship with her, knowing that God had brought us together with her for a reason. Even if that meant us leaving the hospital with an empty car seat.

Our friendship grew through several texts a day and it literally felt like part of my heart had been left behind with her. There were several times she went to the hospital with high blood pressure, contractions, and even once when she fell and each time I had to talk myself out of driving the 4 hours to check on her.  It definitely puts you in a weird position. It’s almost unexplainable. You’ve been matched with a complete stranger who says they want you to raise their child and you’ve got two weeks to get to know them as quickly as possible all the while hoping she doesn’t have a change of heart. It’s like walking a balance beam; all we could do was pray and hoped we didn’t lean too far.

Our parents and close friends became our prayer warriors for us.  Their prayers kept us from jumping off the edge when it became too much and they helped us celebrate the thought of having a son.