Road to Baby Tristan: An Infertility Journey: More Bull, More Bull, But No Baby... Yet!

September comes along, after doing some more research (since it had been 2 years since we had done this) we ended up going with the county to start our adoption process. Due to certain laws, we needed to become certified foster parents first and then we would be able to adopt once the child had been with us for 6 months. We were far away from that point though. Before we could even think of all that we had to go and do an orientation. This orientation was on Tuesday, September 24^th from 6-8:30pm. We were only in the first week of September. Ugh! The excitement is making me impatient.

Still dealing with my anxiety attacks, a lot less from when I had first started with them, I was able to just focus my time in school and work. School had a large chunk of my time, even if I didn’t want to.

The Orientation finally came. They provided us with a huge packet and said that we should start filling all this out if we want to continue. They said that we would have to four courses we would have to attend as well, but prior to that my husband and I would have to also go through a psychological review.

I was nervous, what if they said we can’t adopt until I stop going to the psychiatrist? I had to keep calm.

The packet included so many overwhelming forms. From an adoption/foster parent application for each one of us, to physical paper work that we needed to do at our doctor’s office, to a bunch of contracts and forms that needed to be read and agreed to with signatures.

After the orientation I started on filling out the forms right away. This packet needed to be done by the time our last course took place. They told us that once our last day of course came, we needed to get the house ready with all requirements before the inspection to approve us for a Child in January 2014. The first course was going to start on Saturday, November 16^th from 8:30-4:30pm; the following three would take place on November 23^rd, December 7^th, and December 14^th. Also, sometime around there we would have to squeeze in a first aide class and a CPR class. October came and went, still working on the packet as well as getting stuff for the house. We needed to do a big project on the house before anything, which was to do a Pool Fence around the pool... and it couldn’t just be any pool fence, it had specifications… VERY SPECIFIC. It had to be rod iron, with spacing no more than 4 inches apart, and no more than 2 inches above the ground, as well as it being 5 feet high. Yup! Very specific… and to tell you the truth, I don’t think I’m going to go into so much detail in regards to ALL that we had to do, it was just pages and pages and pages of it, and I would be here for days typing it out and you having to read all of it. Lol!

We started our first day of class. 830-430pm OH MY GOD! So SO LONG! But we got through it. The next one was just the same. We were able to get our CPR and FIRST AIDE class done the day before Thanksgiving as well. Yay! We were getting everything done. We had a break in between for the holiday and then the 3^rd class came. We already had all our packets ready, the nursery (one of the requirements to have a crib and adequate stuff for the baby) was almost ready and lastly our physicals were scheduled.

My husband had his physical first. I had it the following day. Yup! Everything Good! He was set to go. I get a call from the doctor’s office and wanted to tell me that the doctor was ready to go over my results and that he wanted to make the appointment.

Why? My husband got all his results over the phone, why did I have to go in? I made the appointment for the following day.

I get to the appointment, nervous as hell. Why is it always me? I had to take some Lorazapam, since my anxiety was fairly high. The doctor comes in and tells me that he got my results, all of which were great. Really? All he wanted to tell me they were great? Well, I mean don’t get me wrong, I’m excited they are all great, but why didn’t he just tell me over the phone like he did my husband…

“But, we did see something that I am concerned about.”

What?????? He just said everything was fine!

“You have what seems to be Stage 1 Kidney Disease, and I would like to run more tests to confirm.”

I couldn’t help but cry. I didn’t care if the doctor was right there in front of me. He knew all the struggles I had gone through all these years. So I doubt it surprised him.

This wasn’t a regular doctor’s appointment, yet, it became so hard to understand how a normal effin checkup for our ADOPTION could become so effin hard!

I leave the office with some exam forms to do some more tests. I call my husband, he could barely understand me, he couldn’t believe it. Ugh! Now I had to tell my family. WTF?!?!?!

My parents had invited us over for dinner, so we let them know that night. I couldn’t stop myself from crying. It had been a long day, thankfully the Lorazapam was working and I was able to control myself a little longer.

As we went to bed, I started thinking… this isn’t the end… I just have to take care of myself. If I was able to deal with Cancer and so much worse things, I can deal with this. My husband was so proud of me. I was going to take this as a blessing… it’s stage one. I can get through this. Plus the doctor had still Ok’d me to adopt AS LONG AS I promised him I would take care of this situation and followed directions.

The last course came in December. All our packets were done. The first one we got and then the second one we got during our second course. That’s it. All we had to do now is wait for January for the inspection of the house and get everything ready! That in itself was stressful. There was SO much more to do, but I knew we would get it done.

January 2^nd came, and we receive a call from the inspector. January 14^th would be the day that we would be inspected. And if that inspection passed, any minute after that we would get a call from our Social Worker saying that she had Baby Tristan ready for us. Oh my god! Those 12 days went by so quick yet so slow. It felt like we didn’t have any time to finish up the house, yet, if felt like it was taking forever for the inspection to arrive. Makes sense? Ha-ha! We had SOOOOOOOOOO much help from my amazing in-laws and parents that we really could have never finished in time without them. They not only helped us in labor, but also helped us financially. Prepping the house and all the expenses for the adoption had cost us a pretty penny. About $6000 to be exact. Also, back on November 10^th (on our 6^th anniversary), my best friend had thrown me an adoption shower as well. My entire family and friends had been such an amazing support. We are so blessed to have such support and love.

Finally, it arrived! January 14, 2014 was here! My husband and I worked until 12pm that day (half a day) and then came home to do last minute things. My mom helped us that day. My mother in law prayed for us and wished us luck; my phone and his phone were going crazy with texts wishing us so much luck. We had this! We so had this!! I knew we did! We both did!

4pm. Appointment time. He (the inspector) arrives at 4:03pm (yup! I remember because I was standing by the window looking at the clock). He comes in and does a very very thorough check on everything! The inspection took 1.5 hours! He sits down and starts writing his report. My husband and I are giddy, he puts pass on everything. We had done it!!!!!!!!!!!! Everything cleared!!!!

“I am passing you, everything went great, but I won’t be giving you your license. Without this license you can’t get a call just yet. You just have to do one minor thing and you need to put KEY locks on the three windows facing the pool. I won’t be in the office tomorrow, so I won’t be able to send out your license until Thursday. You need to have the license on hand before we can do any call to you saying there’s a child available. Just email me the picture that you added those locks and you are good to go!”

Are you joking??????????? All this work and we don’t even get the pleasure of getting our license that day????????? I wanted to cry, but didn’t. I was so upset, and my husband for once showed how upset he was as well. It was somewhat of a stab against us. The windows he was referring to already had THREE LOCKS on them! None with key but there were 3 locks preventing them to open. For crying out loud, I couldn’t open those damn windows!!! Those locks were so hard! Yet, it still needed another lock? This was bulls$%#! This was complete bulls#$#!

As soon as the inspector left, we run into the car and head over to Home Depot. My in-laws met us there. They are the sweetest. They gave us some nice words to think about, but we were still upset. It just wasn’t fair. God knows how much work and time we had put in to getting all this ready, and it just wasn’t fair.

We get home and my husband has a hell of a time adding these three locks to the windows. He had to saw them, Dremel them, and bend them but finally was able to put them on. Literally, an hour had passed by since the inspector had left, and they were already done. Why couldn’t we just get our license today?

He called the following morning, to our surprise, and let us know that although he wasn’t in the office, he approved the pictures we sent him and he would be sending out our license on Thursday. He had also let our social worker know that we could receive a phone call from her with a child any time after Saturday, since that would be enough time to receive the license in the mail!

Oh the joy!! We could be parents any minute! January 18^th was Saturday. We would probably get called by the end of the month!!! OH MY GOD!!!!!!!

The wait was killing me.

-To Be Continued-