The Waiting Game

Welcome back to Day 23 of Our Adoption Adventure. Click here if you want to read it from the beginning.

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         The next morning we had new hope and determination to bring the babies home. We knew newborns and mothers could be discharged from the hospital 24 hours after delivery. It had been longer than 24 hours since they were born. Both boys were healthy and eating and ready to go home.

         The kind nurse, who appeared more serious than she did the day before, greeted us when we arrived at the maternity floor. She said,

“We have a room for you so you can have some privacy when the babies are with you.”

She led us down the hallway toward the newborn nursery.

“The room has a trundle bed, two single beds when the bottom one is pulled out. You are welcome to spend the night there for as long as you are here.” She said.

         She led us to a room next to the newborn nursery. It attached to the newborn nursery and shared a common wall. We might not have taken her up on her offer to spend the night adjacent to the nursery had we thought through that situation. But it was nice to have a place to go where we could be alone with the babies and change them and feed them. Also, we had a place to be when Emma requested the babies to come in her room.

( *** I need to interrupt this story to give some free advice. If you are ever offered a room for the night that is ATTACHED to the newborn nursery at a hospital, I would pass. You know where this is going. ***)

         Certain we would not need to spend the night, because we knew the babies were ready to be discharged, I said,

“Don’t you think the babies will be going home today? I didn’t think we would need to stay another night.”

We arrived at the room. She opened the door and stepped inside to talk to us.

“Oh you haven’t heard.” She said quietly.  “Emma’s mom talked to the doctor and told him Emma has not made up her mind about the adoption and she needs more time. He put in the order for her to stay another night.”

My heart sank. “What? I don’t understand. Has she changed her mind?” I asked.

“We don’t know,” the nurse said. “We think her mother is trying to convince her to keep the babies. After you left the hospital yesterday her mother threw your vase of flowers up against the wall. We have never seen anything like that.” She said looking worried.

“I gave that doctor a piece of my mind though. I let him have it! I told him when those precious baby boys show up here in the ER, like we see every day, that it would be on his shoulders.” She said angrily.

          If the nurses were concerned, I was more concerned. The mama tiger in me wanted to protect those babies with everything I had. “Lord, this can’t be how you want this to end, is it? I prayed.

         After seeing the babies, feeding them and holding them, we resigned ourselves to staying another night to wait for Emma’s decision. We tried to talk to Emma, but she was never alone. Mostly her mother or other family member was in her room talking to her. She looked stressed. Her smile was gone. Her forehead was wrinkled with worry. We had no idea what she was thinking or what her decision would be.

         The room we stayed in all day was small, and did I mention it was attached to the newborn nursery? The length of the room was as long as a twin sized bed, seven to eight feet long. The width was shorter. The bed acted as a couch during the day. The room had a wooden rocking chair, which I grew to love because I rocked the babies in it when it was our turn to have them in our room. A TV was mounted on the wall. When we pulled the trundle bed out to sleep later that night, we laughed. There was no place to stand in the room. We had to step on the beds to get to the door.

         I couldn’t bare the thought of another day of tension, conflict and worry. I read my Bible in the room. We prayed together and went back and forth from begging God to let us adopt the babies, to giving the situation over to Him. It was out of our control. All we could do was wait and pray. My husband also watched sports on the TV to try to take his mind off of the consuming stress. We called home to relay the news and asked for continued prayer. The minutes seemed like hours and the hours seemed like days. It felt like we had been there for a week and it was only the second day.

“But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior. My God will hear me.” Micah 7:7

“I waited patiently for the Lord to help me. He turned to me and heard my cry.”  Psalm 40:1

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Have you ever had to wait for something or someone that was completely out of your control?

*** Join me here tomorrow for Day 24. ***