Part 4 of 6
For Dominic.
It was in the late afternoon of August 28 when your
birthmother contacted me and said she was going to the hospital because she had
been having labor pains. Your father and brothers and I grabbed our luggage
that we’d only partially unpacked, said a quick good-bye to the B family, and drove into downtown Houston. We went
directly to the hospital that she’d told us weeks earlier was where she planned
to give birth. But, upon our arrival, we could not find her anywhere! The
hospital staff had no record of her, and she was not answering my messages as I
tried to contact and find her. For an hour, we sat in that hospital lobby,
wondering where she was and what had happened.
Finally, our adoption social worker called us and told us
that we were at the wrong hospital. He
had found out only a few minutes earlier that in her desperation, your
birthmother had gone to a different hospital, one closer to her home, knowing
that the birth was imminent. By now, over two hours had passed since I’d heard
from her and I was heartbroken that I was not with her, helping her through the
ordeal of your birth. We also knew that it was likely that we would now miss
that most special moment…the moment of your arrival. Leaving home two weeks
early in order to be present for that moment in time, only to be denied it,
left a painful sting. We loaded back into our vehicle and drove north through
the busy downtown area as the sun began to set.
As we drove to the correct hospital, my phone rang. It was a
friend of your birthmother. She said that your birthmother had asked her to call me to tell me that you had been born. Then she said that your birthmother was having some kind of emergency and that the doctors were with her. Due to the bad cell phone connection,
I could barely understand what she was saying, but I could tell that it was
serious. Your birthmother’s friend said that she could not stay at the hospital with your
birthmother because she had to go to work. This meant that your birthmother would be left at the hospital alone until we arrived, and it made me feel so sad to know that she had no one else there with her.
Soon after, we arrived at the hospital and ran straight to
labor and delivery. We were greeted by locked double doors and a phone on the wall. I
picked up the phone and a nurse answered. I explained to the nurse who we were
and why we were there. In turn, the nurse briefly and abruptly told me that
your birthmother had experienced life-threatening complications and was no longer responding. The nurse said that the doctors were still working on her, and that when they were finished, she would be moved directly to ICU. Because your birthmother had not had the chance to inform the hospital staff of her intentions and who we were before her medical emergency, we were told that neither we nor our
social worker could have any contact with her or with you. We were not even
allowed to look at you through the nursery window. Our only hope was that your birthmother would regain consciousness and be able to set the record straight.
And so, this is how the night that you were born ended. We
were all left alone with only God’s angels to surround us. You were alone in
the nursery, under the care of the nurses; your birthmother was alone in ICU
fighting for her life; and your father and I, your brothers, and our social worker were
left sitting alone in an empty hallway, looking out the window at a dark
night. Everything was completely out of
our control now and we had to surrender it all to God’s holy will. My heart
sank as I tried to hold back the tears. This was not the birth story that I had
imagined. Feeling completely helpless, we turned around and went to our hotel,
heartbroken.
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