Happy Beginnings!

My husband wanted to share his thoughts and words of the adoption process through today, Isabella’s “Gotcha Day”!  Enjoy!

`Happy “Gotcha Day” to our beautiful gift, Isabella “Bella” Noel B-R-U-N-O!!! We are so very blessed to have you in our lives. You bring joy to EVERYONE that crosses your path with that constant, beautiful smile and contagious laugh.

Please excuse the remainder of this post as it is very, very long, but thank you for reading.

“Happy Beginnings”

1 Year, 5 Months, 19 days – the total amount of days since the formal adoption process began until today, the day our legal system views Isabella in the same way as if she shared our DNA. I would like to share with you our adoption journey for Bella.  As with all adoptions, our adoption journey wasn’t easy, it wasn’t “convenient”, it wasn’t affordable, it wasn’t our “right”, but it was her “right” and it was soooooo worth it!  There may be some adoptions that were easier, but there are plenty that are far, far tougher than ours.  I share these details with you only so that someone from the outside of this process gains some perspective and appreciation.

The journey begins with the desire and conviction to adopt a child that is not your own. That is far harder than it sounds.  For some, this desire comes whether or not you are able to have a child on your own, but for others, it requires much self-reflection and the ultimate decision comes after you are faced with the realization that you may not be able to pass on your DNA.  I’d venture to say that almost everyone pictures themselves having a child of their own one day, one that resembles a combination of you and your spouse.  So, for some, the choice to adopt is very humbling as you must get past that hurdle.  For us, it has been a mixed bag of the two.  Anyways, once you have made this life-changing decision, you must start the formal process.  It goes a little something like this (but every adoption story is different)…

First, you must get a certified social worker that handles these types of cases. This is the next humbling step to adoption.  Unlike a natural pregnancy, you must prove that you are fit to be a parent, in whatever terms the “state” deems that to be defined.  They will require you to fill out a detailed application, get background checks, fingerprints taken, and get several friends and family references that will be contacted.   You then begin your home visits with the social worker.  He/she will come to your house, speak with you in detail, and observe your home and living situation.   Obviously, the stress of this can vary greatly.  For us, we were blessed with a great social worker that made us feel comfortable as we were being reviewed to see if we were fit to be parents.  Either way, this is a bit terrifying and intrusive.  You are required to have 3 of these visits prior to being allowed to be “in the mix” of prospective parents.  These visits cost about $500 each.  That is, once you pass the other items, background checks and your friends and family reference interviews.

At this time, you typically create a book about yourselves. For us, we created a Shutterfly book that contained pictures of us, our family, our friends, a bit about each of us (Mary wrote my section and I wrote hers), comments about how we planned to raise our child, and a sincere letter to the potential birthmother, fully realizing the extremely humbling, tough, and noble decision she was having to make. You buy several of these books so that they can be passed around to all the potential birthmothers that the adoption agency has access to.

In our case, next came the adoption agency. With this comes another application and survey which lets the agency know of any stipulations you may have in your potential birthmother.  This includes her drug usage during pregnancy, medical conditions, family health history, physical traits, gender, age, etc.  None of these parameters are guaranteed and the adopting family assumes all risks, but this is used as your “filter” in the search for a match.  With this also comes a big non-refundable payment.  Let’s say $15,000.  The individual payments are really a blur as, at this point, you have pretty much written a blank check.

Then, you wait, and wait, and wait, and wait, and wait…. And you wonder and wonder how many potential birthmothers have seen your book (if any) and why they didn’t choose you.   Sometimes you find out some minor details in this regard (not sure if this helps or makes it worse), but most often, you don’t hear anything.

Then you get the call (or text or smoke signal or whatever else your adoption agency or social worker decides to use). Our time was May 17, 2016 at 1:14PM.  Mary and I were walking through Animal Kingdom in DisneyWorld, our “babymoon” of sorts, when we got the text message finding out that our birthmother had chosen us.  We were notified and given the option to “put our names in the hat” for this potential birthmother a few days earlier.  What a surreal moment! It doesn’t truly hit you at this point in time as it is hard to really comprehend that it has finally happened – your dreams are coming true and your baby-to-be is living in this selfless woman’s womb!  You are already in love with her or him.

In Disneyworld in Animal Kingdom after finding out we were chosen as adoptive parents!

What comes next… The next part is all business and really hard to swallow.  You receive a cost forecast of adoption and applicable fees.  These include agency costs, birthmother support during pregnancy, birthmother support post-partum, family support, etc., etc., etc. For us, this was approximately $48,000.  Ouch! At this point, the money is “at risk” (could be completely lost if the adoption falls through for ANY reason) and is simply an estimate, realizing that it could cost even more than this (or less).

Then, we got to drive out of town about 3.5hrs to meet our birthmother and her two children. They didn’t speak English so communication was interesting.  I imagine how humbling and sad that meeting was for her – confronting the reality face to face of her tough decision to allow someone else to raise her child.  Her two children were young enough to not understand what was going on.  They were from a different state far away and they were living in an apartment that the agency found and we paid for.  She was provided all the necessities and comforts for her family, though the situation was nowhere near ideal for her.  She was hiding the pregnancy from her family due to unknown reasons, but I imagine the act of “giving up your baby” when you are unable to care for him/her, though so amazingly admirable, is frowned upon by many people in the birthmother’s inner circles – family and close friends.  We brought her some necessities and showed her love and thankfulness through our time spent and love shared with her family.  We continued these visits, some just Mary for girl time, until the birth came around, including doctor checkups where we were able to witness an ultrasound, simply watching movies, grabbing a bite to eat, going to the park, getting her very first pedicure, and playing with the kids.

As the due date nears, you are asked to pay the remaining balance of the projected costs and any unforeseen costs that arose along the way. Everything is still at risk – your intimate connection with your baby-to-be (by this time, we’ve named her and have started to prepare her nursery even though they tell you not to do much in case it falls through), your life savings, and, with it, the financial feasibility to be able to adopt again if it does fall through, thus likely our ability to have a child anytime in the near future.

July 9, 2016 – We are at a close friend’s (one of our adoption references) pool party and BBQ and we got the call! The birthmother believes she is in labor and has been so all day. We’re told these are often false alarms so don’t leave yet.  We decided to leave the party anyways and go home and get ready just in case.  We then got a call that it was legit and they thought the baby would be born any minute now.  Seemingly, our strong birthmother labored all day in her apartment with her two children.  We drove as fast as we could from our town to the birthtown 3.5hrs away.  Unfortunately, Isabella was born just about 30 minutes into our drive.  We received pictures from the agency, and wow, what a feeling!  Our baby was officially here! Isabella Noel ****** (she doesn’t get our last name yet).  She was absolutely beautiful and perfect in every way!  We arrive at the hospital and are directed into the hospital room.  The birthmother was laying down, Isabella in her arms, and she is looking deeply into Isabella’s eyes with light tears in her eyes.  We just stand there, having ZERO idea what to do.  It’s a pretty awkward situation.  Think about it.  Is this our baby? Should we be excited?  Should we ask to hold her? What is proper etiquette?  What seemed like an eternity later, the nurse asked if we wanted to hold her.  We said yes, and, with the birthmother’s permission, they handed Isabella to Mary.  The birthmother immediately started sobbing crying.  Imagine how hard that is!!!!  Mary handed Isabella to me while she comforted the birthmother.  This moment was the happiest moment of our life, but we really could not enjoy it yet, at least the way we’d pictured it.  Things settle down and the hospital gets us a room and we are able to get some alone time with Isabella and she is able to stay in our room while the birthmother gets some sleep.  It’s probably 1AM by now.  We were responsible to care for the birthmother’s two kids during this time – babysitting, feeding, etc.  It’s quite difficult to enjoy time with your wife and new baby while also juggling these extra responsibilities.  Thankfully, Mary’s sister came and helped care for the kids.  What a lifesaver!  On top of all of this going on, the A/C in our car died on the way there.  July in Lousisiana – you HAVE to have air conditioning!  Thus, I spent a lot of time in a local mechanic shop.  In fact, I spent much more time at the shop and taking care of the kids then I spent with Mary and Isabella.  The birthmother was released from the hospital about 14 hrs after giving birth.  She went back to her apartment. The hospital let us stay one more night while I tried to get the car fixed.  No luck there so I rented a car.  We moved into a hotel room the next night and they were so hospitable.  Shout out Holiday Inn.  During this time, I’m working to get the car fixed, keeping the children fed, fixing the birthmother’s tv (during this time, I was able to share my gratitude and love for her and her family via the iTranslate app), etc., Mary is back at the hotel enjoying our baby girl, but I’m sure she is wishing for some hopeful family time.   One scaryyyyyy, lingering question remained during this time.  Will the birthmother sign over her rights?!?!  In our state, she cannot sign over our rights until the 4^th day after birth.  What is going to happen?  If she changes her mind, we have to give Isabella back and we lose everything.  It’s as simple as that. You can imagine the thoughts going through her mind during this time.  She is really, really sad.  After counseling sessions, etc, she is set to meet up with the attorney and adoption agency on the morning of the 4^th day to decide to sign or not.  Then we got the text! She signed over her rights.  We can leave town and take Isabella home! What a joyous moment! We completely feel for the birthmother, but we try very hard to enjoy our own, special moment.  We drive straight home to a house full of family and decorations from dear friends.  Our new life is just beginning.

Isabella “Bella” Noel Bruno! Her name has a strong meaning for us. Noel – this is synonymous with Christmas in which we have the tradition to give gifts to one another thanks to Saint Nicholas.  ”Bella” stands for “beautiful” in both Isabella’s ancestor’s native language (Spanish) and Mary and I’s significant ancestor’s native language (Italian).  Thus, Isabella is our “Beautiful Gift.”  That, she surely is!

Because the father was not around, we had to pay a court curator to try to find the birth father. They had a name and an approximate location.  They search using social media, phone listings, a newspaper listing, etc.  They have to wait a certain amount of time to give the father a chance to come forward and contest the adoption with us before he or the court can terminate his rights.  About 60 days later, we found out that the father’s rights have been terminated.  Only one hurdle remains, the state adoption legal system.

After an adoptive child is placed in your home, though you have full responsibility and care for the child, you are sort of “co-parents” with the adoption agency. You began social worker visits again (1 within a week of getting home, every two months, and then the last one right before your court date / “Gotcha Day” – ~$200/ea).  The social worker is ensuring you are doing all the necessary things to care for the baby, some requirements that seem quite unnecessary, but you have to do it all.  You live in fear.  You live in fear that anyone in the process finds something that they deem inappropriate.  They have the power to ruin your world.  They have the power to have your baby taken away from you.  I’m sure this doesn’t happen to good willed people, but it still scares the hell out of you.  You delay projects, you go out of your way to meet all the requests they have and those you find online, etc.  You have to prove you are fit to be your child’s parent.  Those that give birth to their own babies don’t have to prove themselves.  Why do we? No, I get it, it is required to protect these beautiful children from horrible people, but it still TOTALLY sucks!  We didn’t do anything to deserve this.  Whatever, we will do anything for our baby girl!  We got this!  The Man upstairs has this!

We have our final social worker visit, we pay our thousands to our lawyer, and we have our court date scheduled.

February 3, 2017 – Today! Isabella’s “Gotcha Day”!! We were sworn in and asked questions to ensure we’d treat Bella as if she were of our blood! Don’t worry, Judge, she was born in our hearts a long time ago! What a gift!  Overall, it was a great experience.  The judge had actually adopted two of his own children!  She is now officially Isabella Noel BRUNO! Our baby girl now shares our last name!

In the end, our adoption costs approximately $55,000, but our angel is priceless. She was worth every inconvenience and penny along the way. With that said, do you realize how this blessing is so far out of reach for most people?!? It is really sad.  We are completely blessed to have found a way to make it work financially.  There are so many people out there that wish they could adopt a child, but have little to no financial means to do so, even though they have the hearts and willingness to do so.  Whether or not you believe in the “Right to Life” of the unborn, I believe we can all agree that abortion is not the happy ending in any case.  If you spend time fighting for your belief that women have the right to choose life (or death) for the baby in their womb no matter the circumstances, I will not discuss that in this forum (I welcome actual conversations in person), but I do challenge you to think about it this way: do you spend more effort, time, and resources advocating for the convenient “sad endings” of said “choice” vs the inconvenient, yet “happy beginnings” that adoption brings?  That’s right, not happy “ending”, but “happy beginnings!” Does that order of priorities stand in line with your principles?

Prayers to birthmothers with unexpected pregnancies or pregnancy complications, prayers to those women that make the unfortunate decision of abortion, prayers to couples yearning for a child to call their own, prayers to those that carry their baby in their womb, prayers to those that carry a baby in their hearts, prayers for those seeking to rescue a child and provide them with a loving home, prayers to all past, present, and future adoptive birthmothers, prayers to all adopted children, prayers to all of those providing love, care, and support for a child that wouldn’t have had that right without their sacrifice.

Thank you to my wife who was able to welcome the thought of adoption, thank you to each one in our family who has supported us along the entire journey, thank you to each of our friends and parents who were our adoptive references for our character checks, thank you to my parents whom embedded the positive perspective of adoption throughout my life (I will never forget their adoption bumper stickers), thank you to each and every one of you! Please continue to keep Isabella and our family in your thoughts and prayers! We sure hope to grow our family again one day, God willing!