If you are new here, we recommend  you take a minute to read our story from the beginning. I would start back at the beginning of this journey and work your way forward! Click next in the upper right-hand corner to advance after reading each post.

Thursday afternoon 12:45 pm (January 22nd): It felt like a foreign place…like I had never been there when in reality I had hundreds of times before. We walked to her room and the Social Worker looked at Adam and I and asked us if we were ready? How could we be ready? What would we say? What do you say to a woman that has a child that you want?! I was trembling. The three of us entered her room and she was sitting on her bed. We said hello and I walked to her bedside. I think my instincts of greeting a patient as I had done many times before upon first entering their room kicked in. As I neared her though I began to cry, making me stop in my tracks. I said “I guess I’m not sure how to do this”, to which she replied “me, either-how can anyone know how?”. I responded with saying “why don’t we get to know one another by just visiting then?”. We pulled two chairs up next to her bed while she sat on the edge of her bed. The Social Worker stayed with us the entire time. I started by telling her about us, how we met, got married, what we do, how we live-basically our story. I told her about our babies, including our last two little girls, Noelle in 2013 and Lainey in 2014. She told us about herself, about how she grew up, what she does now and she shared her dreams for her future. This was an unplanned pregnancy, the father unknown. She had soul-searched since the very beginning of the pregnancy and knew she could not provide for this child the way she would want to. She stated, “I have so many friends that should have made this exact decision for their child and they didn’t….and I don’t want to be like that”. She knew what she wanted. While this was clearly the most painful decision she had ever made, she was at peace with it.

At about 2 pm someone came in to visit with her about the birth certificate. They told her they needed to get it completed as soon as possible and that she could put whatever name she would like on it and that it would later be changed once the adoption was completed. It is at this time that our miracle was truly, truly shown to us. The birth mother’s response to this staff member? “Well, they are her parents…so, they are the ones that should choose her name and her last name should definitely be Carter on her birth certificate.”. Adam and I both looked at each other with tears going down our face. AH.MAZ.ING. There are no words for how we felt at that time. No words. Absolutely none.

The woman looked at Adam and I and asked us what we wanted to name her and we responded by saying, “well, umm….hmmm, err….we, uhh….didn’t know we would need a baby name, today…ummm…..can we have a minute?”. After she left we asked her birth mother what her middle name was and if she would like us to use it in the baby’s name or if she had any ideas, thoughts or recommendations, to which she responded by saying “I really think you should come up with a way to combine Lainey and Noelle together, you know, your other daughter’s names.”. I was floored. This woman was giving us this gift, her child….and actually picked up on that small detail from our story when we were talking! I asked her if she thought it would be weird if we actually just named her Lainey Noelle and she said “absolutely not…I think that is what you should do!”.

She had yet to meet Lainey Noelle at this time. We asked her if she would like to and she was still hesitant. We shared two things with her from our (very brief) education we had received so far from our home study. First, we were taught that a mother had to say hello before she can ever say good-bye. The Social Worker that is doing our home study also shared a story with us of a mother that placed a baby for adoption years ago that was not allowed to see her baby at birth. For decades this poor mother has dreamed of a “faceless” baby every night. Lainey’s birth mother decided to meet her. It was beautiful. She unwrapped her and counted her toes, kissed her, held her and loved her like only a mother can do.

After about an hour of Lainey, her birth mother and Adam and I being together it was time for Adam, Lainey and I to go to our room (yes, OUR room!). We told the birth mother to please come to our room to visit whenever she would like, to which she responded “no, I need to grieve”. As we were taken to our new room by our nurse (at about 3 pm), the other nurses and staff that were just then becoming aware of the miracle that was happening before them began to cry. Ours is a small hospital…only 21 beds but we were taken to a different hallway. It was incredible to think that in our hallway it was the best day of our lives but in the other hallway, someone was having the worst day of theirs.

*more to come

Go to the Next Post In Our Adoption Journey

If you are new here, we recommend  you take a minute to read our story from the beginning. I would start back at the beginning of this journey and work your way forward! Click next in the upper right-hand corner to advance after reading each post.

Thursday morning (January 22nd):

Now, I only go to the hospital in the morning before clinic if I have an inpatient, which is infrequent; however, earlier that week I happened to have an OB deliver so I had both a Mama and babe to see. At about 8:20 on Thursday morning I arrived at the hospital and first noticed there was a baby in the nursery (that wasn’t the baby I was there to see). It is not uncommon for babies to be in the nursery during rounds in the mornings but in general they stay in the room with their Mama as we practice rooming-in at our hospital. I went about my business, seeing my patients and sat down at the nurse’s station to chart.

Some of the staff were mumbling quietly behind me. The nurse’s station is never, ever quiet but this morning it was. I finally turned around in my chair and asked what was happening? Someone quietly said that the baby in the nursery doesn’t have a Mom. I was shocked and started weeping for this sweet child without a name. Crying, I asked the doctor that delivered her what I could do to be able to be considered by the birth mother for this baby. Knowing my emotions were running high, he reminded me we needed to keep everything in perspective. He was right. Everything needed to be done correctly and the birth mother needed to be the one in charge. I knew I needed to leave. Being there would only jeopardize any chance we had of even meeting this child’s birth mother. I left the hospital crying and called Adam telling him, through sobs, about a baby in the nursery with no mom. He now says he could barely understand me and at the time all he said to me was, “call an attorney”.

I had no idea what to do or who to call. I went straight to the clinic, grabbed my nurse and went into my office. I quickly told her what happened while searching for the surrogacy attorney’s phone number that I had spoke with over a month ago. She answered my call! I asked if she remembered me and she did. I told her I didn’t know what else to do, who else to call so I called her. She then explained that there are only two attorneys in the state that are certified by the American Academy of Adoptions—and she was one of them and that she said she had a lot of experience counseling birth mothers. We quickly talked about what was happening and she questioned me about where we were at with our home study. If you’ll remember we did start that process back in December but got spooked by the many unknowns affiliated with adoption so we put things on hold for a bit. But, the point was that we had started the process. And, both my rap sheet and FBI record had already returned clean (Adam’s FBI form needed to be redone-darn dyslexia! He switched around a couple of numbers in his social security number!)! It is important to remember that the FBI clearance can take several weeks and until this very basic step is completed a person cannot take a child into their home!

The attorney advised me to contact the social worker through which we were doing our home study and stated that she would call our hospital and visit with the social worker there about the situation.  I called my Mom and Adam called his parents asking them both to call the family and ask for prayers. I called the social worker through Adoption Consultants that had been to our home in December who stated that since I had been cleared through the state and the FBI and since we had started the home study process that we could move forward with things if the opportunity continued and that if anything came of this we were just to update her and we’d get the home study done after we had the baby. Meanwhile all of my exam rooms were full of patients to be seen! Gah! What a morning it was shaping up to be!

The birth mother was presented with all of her options but she knew what she wanted, having soul-searched her entire pregnancy. Having had other children she knew first-hand how important bonding is between parents and a new baby and she wanted her baby to have parents that day! This is why she wanted a private adoption. She also wanted a couple with no children and one in which the Father would be very involved. She had the opportunity to speak with several attorneys, only one of which was able to truly answer her questions. The attorney she was most comfortable with was the one we had contacted!

In between patients, I received a call back from this attorney stating the birth mother wanted to meet me and that the social worker would be calling me to discuss setting up this meeting. She also said that she happened to have a clear afternoon and was going to get in her car and drive the three hours to come meet with the birth mother and us! She explained to me that from that point forward she was actually going to be representing the birth mother. She would certainly speak to us but her job would be to be sure the birth mother’s wishes were met and that if anything came of this we would need to hire a different attorney to represent us to avoid a conflict of interest. It just so happens that the other certified adoption attorney in Nebraska was her mentor 15 years ago when she started her practice and therefore she would contact her and tell her our story so we had an attorney in place in the event we needed one. 

The hospital social worker than called asking if I (not Adam) could come meet the birth mother at noon. Now, remember it was just three hours earlier when this all started! I think I knew then that something magical was happening. That God was there and completely in control. I called Adam and told him to come to my office and told my nurse that I was going to finish all of my patient notes and reply to all of the patient phone calls I had before I went to meet the birth mother as I hoped I wouldn’t be back for a long time. I hoped I would be going on maternity leave! 

I was scared and excited all at the same time! The social worker stated that there was a lot of “buzz” happening in the hospital about this child in the nursery that was being placed for adoption. She felt it best that she meet us at the door and escort us to the room to see the birth mother. What a tough spot this social worker was in as she intimately knew of Adam and my situation but ultimately she was there to do her job….which was to care for this birth mother and her child, which she did wonderfully. She also told us that the birth mother had decided she did want to meet Adam….

*more to come!

Go to the Next Post In Our Adoption Journey

I’ll start this by saying if you haven’t read our story we recommend  you take a minute to do so. I would start back at the beginning of this journey and work your way forward! Click next in the upper right-hand corner to advance after reading each post.

We had decided that no matter what route we took we would need money. If we chose to adopt or wanted to even consider the option of surrogacy we knew we needed at least $40k, probably more. As we just recently paid off our last credit card we were fearful of going back into debt. One sure way to get some of the needed money would be to sell our home…which we love. But it is just a home and we knew that. Honestly, selling our home was not as worrisome as if we could find a decent place to rent in our small community! We announced on January 17th that we wanted to sell our home and within 24 hours had five families that wanted to look at it! In hindsight, it is as if God was perhaps testing us. Were we willing to give up our most precious worldly possession for a child?

It is no secret that we (especially me) were at our lowest of lows. We decided we needed grief counseling. I wasn’t sure where to find a good grief counselor so I called Hospice at Good Samaritan Hospital in Kearney to see if they had any recommendations. Their social worker quickly called me back with a recommendation of a counselor in Kearney that actually had experience with couples with recurrent pregnancy loss! I called her and got us an appointment set up immediately for Wednesday, January 21st. We didn’t know when I scheduled the appointment, but this particular counselor was also faith-based….exactly what we needed. Our faith had been so tested that it was fragile. Both of us (even Adam who normally has amazing faith!) were struggling with God. Neither of us were angry per se but just were struggling with understanding the why’s and how comes of our situation.

When we met this counselor not only did we discuss our grief but we talked with her about the difficult decision we were facing regarding adoption versus surrogacy and our fears associated with both.

This is where I will share a secret with you. In the past five weeks we had three separate women approach us offering to be compassion surrogates! Two had been patients of mine (one locally and one near Tecumseh where I used to practice) and one was another amazing local woman. All of these women are done having their families and offered us the gift of carrying our child…so we could feel our baby kick, experience prenatal appointments, watch our child be born, etc! Prior to this, surrogacy was honestly not really on our radar. At $100-150k it was not something we felt we could financially manage, however a compassion surrogate eliminates the agency fee and the surrogate fee which brings the cost down to the mid $60k…making it somewhat comparable to the approximately $52k we were estimating for adoption. As this was all foreign to us we decided we needed to speak with an attorney specializing in surrogacy for advice. I discovered that there is only one attorney in the state of Nebraska that does this and spoke with her. She was very informative and we tucked her information away in the event we needed it.

Now, when each of these women privately contacted me with this selfless, amazing offer….well, I guess I’ll just say we wept. We wept at the kindness that people really do have and the possibility these women were providing to us. We can never, ever repay these women for the hope they gave us during those very dark days. I mean this with my whole being. There is nothing we can say or do to show our appreciation. So, you know who you are….thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We will never forget the gift of hope you gave us.

 Okay, back to the counselor…she spoke from the Bible stating that Jesus wants us to seek wise counsel from multiple places and that although it will likely surprise us how He does it, He will show us the way. She recommended that when we make our decision as to our next step that we try to make it with the thought in mind that we want no regrets. Adam and I spoke on the way home about how this is something we had done to that point (as referenced in this post) and so, why stop now? We had given it our all prior to this and were thinking that maybe since three different women had stepped forward that this is what God wanted us to pursue…surrogacy. There were, of course, many worries about this plan-ie: to use my eggs or not, how many cycles of IVF would we ask the surrogate to do, what if the surrogate miscarried, how many embryos would we implant, what if the genetic testing that would be performed on the embryo prior to IVF showed a problem like trisomy 21, etc. Would we ask another woman to move forward with a potentially complicated pregnancy? And, what about multiples?! We had an appointment scheduled for the next day (Thursday) at 12:30 to visit with the specialist in Denver about our surrogacy options (again, little did we know that just thirty minutes prior to this appointment we would need to cancel it!).

I messaged my Mom on Skype that night and told her I just wished God would drop a big sign in our driveway saying what He wanted us to do. She jokingly asked if I wanted him to deliver it via UPS or USPS? I said either would do!

Once again we prayed that night (Wednesday night) for God’s guidance and I also read in Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths”. Little did I know that within hours He would be literally rolling out a red carpet directing us down the right path!

***I am so sorry that this is not the full story of Lainey Noelle but it is coming, I promise!!! Life with a newborn is busy as many of you know!

Go to the Next Post In Our Adoption Journey