Our Beginning

My first blog post begins midstream, much like everything else it seems. The blog tracks my journey as a single adopted parent; a journey which began 2 years ago when I received a call from my social worker that a 4 day old little girl was in the hospital and needed to be checked out in 5 hours. While my heart began to race, I had been a foster parent for almost a year and had become familiar to the bizarre and often heart wrenching calls of children in need. I had come close just two weeks prior to agreeing to take a 2 year old that had just been pulled from her mother. After a year of waiting to be a mother (decades more than that really), I had grown impatient and was ready to get this party started. After doing a quick gut check though, I decided to pass on the 2 year old as ultimately she was very likely to be returned to her birth mother and I was hoping to be a fully adoptive parent; more than a temporary haven.

So, with the social worker saying think about it, we'll call you back in 20 minutes to see what you decide, I once again was doing a gut check to see if this sounded like my little soul mate in waiting. With a big swallow and a series of quick calls to clear the rest of my week, I called the social worker and said I would take the little girl. I got the directions to the hospital, the name of the social worker to meet, and a very brief medical history indicating that the child had tested positive for drugs and that the young mother was drunk when she came in to deliver the child. "By the way", the social worker said, "the baby isn't named, would you like to name her?" Name her? of course, but I hadn't even thought about it. After a quick google search of girl names, I called my brother on the way to the hospital asking him to search the meaning of Lila- "divine play" he said. I like it. So as I pulled out of Target with infant clothes, a car seat, and some bottles on my way to the hospital, I decided my little girl would be called Lila.

The emotions and adrenaline that I felt as I pulled into the hospital and found my way to the Neonatal ICU is very hard to describe. I was somewhere between a state of shock, exuberance, and terror. As I walk in after a scrub down, looking at all the feeble infants, i see a gorgeous strong baby and hold my breath hoping that was my little girl. Sure enough- it was her. I vaguely heard the nurses saying something about how kind and brave I was, and did I have anyone to help with her? I mumbled something about friends not being able to get off work with such short notice and that I would be fine. There were pictures taken, documents signed and the two of us were wheeled out of the hospital as the start of our journey together.

The day will forever be the turning point in my life and one in which I experienced guiding angels and answered prayers.