24 hours

24 hours ago we became something else.

Jack Bauer would be crying like John Denver at the 24 hours we just had.

We are not officially parents. The baby we hold, cuddle, sniff like pups, change, feed and adore like fawning minions is not ours. not until Saturday at 5pm... when consent and surrender papers are signed. we don't like the word surrender, it just feels so Cowboys vs Indians, but that's the word the social workers use.

We think her name is Clementine Grace Delilah Alice Jane Gorham Ginger Hussey, but we're just waiting for her to tell us which one she wants to open with.

Babymama is profoundly shy- so all dreams of filming the baby being born, cutting umbilical the cord, instant-love- inducing psychosomatic lactation (for me and Andrew), skin on skin attachment opportunities went out the window.   It just became about a healthy birth, a happy baby and a generous brave babymama --

We only broke down 4 or 5 times, when they put the maternity ward band on my wrist, when we were told Babymama had already signed consent papers --which unfortunately she cannot actually do- but knowing her resolve was firm in giving baby to us was such a massively huge gift that Andrew and I both lost it in a hallway.

We waited. Twizzlers were consumed. Names were debated, tabled, resuscitated, test driven and rejected.  Texts flew. Babymama, me, Babymama's mama, all texting like teens between contractions and centimeters and petucin and epidaurals... this truly is a baby born by text.

Babymama was determined to deliver yesterday in order to be home today for her son's 5th birthday. The son she had in the 11th grade.

We waited, we hung out with Babymama's mama and we ate in the Akron General Coffee Shop-- Cheeseburger Chowder, anyone? Five different kinds of fries. Salads are  olives and croutons. good times.

Andrew and I bought Martino a birthday gift so Babymama wouldn't have to go to Toys R Us immediately after giving birth and leaving a newborn in the hospital. As we waited an eternity to pay for a gift bag- everyone's real nice and real sllloowwww here- I received a text.

I had her.

It was 4:30.

I am not a corny person. But the sun actually came out just at that moment.

Babymama texted me again.

She's so white.

And truly, she was the whitest black baby I've ever seen, perhaps since Barack Obama.

When Babymama asked me to come to her room to see her, it was like meeting the pope- the really holy Polish one, not the current Vincent Price-like one. I sat with babymama and her mama. It was awkward and painful and desperately sweet. They gave me a bag of baby clothes that they had picked out for her. 

We talked, mooned over the tiny booties and Minnie Mouse t-shirts and then I just flat out asked them to please let me see the baby. It was 6pm and we hadn't seen her yet. Babymama's TV was on. Reality.

Babymama smiled and nodded. I ran out. Babymama arranged via the social worker for us to have a 'bonding room'. We checked in and waited an agonizingly long time to get to hold her...

We held her for about 15 minutes before we were questioned about whether to ask babymama to breastfeed. Another agonizing decision. Do we do what's best for the baby's health and wellbeing but give babymama a chance to dangerously bond and fall in love? We don't want to be bad people, just bad parents.  We said no.

No social workers, no adoption agency people were there to guide, advise or yell and holler,  it was just us falling all over ourselves trying to figure out what the hell to do.

Then babymama wanted to see her. We walked the baby over, having just had 15 minutes with baby ourselves, and seeing babymama study this wee baby and cuddle her fingers and toes with a bio-love I've long marvelled at brought out my latent tiger momma. I hungrily and anxiously watched her pore over her baby. She knew how to hold her and feed her. I felt so old and white and useless...

Finally we asked that we let our family say good-bye to baby before visiting hours ended. They let us take her but Babymama, so beautiful, shy and young, huge dark brown eyes glancing around the room, asked me if she could hang out with the baby after my family left. She looked at me balefully. 'I'm leaving tomorrow, without her, so can I share her with you tonight?' We beamed. 'Of course! Of course!'

Shirley, babymama's mama (and younger than me) told us to go back to the hotel, and get our last good night's sleep- she told us it was an order. We smiled, bungled and said, maybe... we knew we weren't going back to the hotel. We weren't leaving our (her) baby. We did skin on skin and cuddled and swaddled and cooed and took pictures. We became those people instantly.

We took her to our 'bonding room' for another hour, then felt so fabulous and magnanimous about ourselves that we had the nurse take baby to babymama.

And we didn't see baby or hear anything from babymama all night long. It was brutal. We paced, kept asking the nurses who came into our empty nest what was happening and they said, 'She's with her mother. Nothing to be done'. We tossed and turned and fretted. Our phones were dying, our charger back at the hotel.  It didn't matter because there were no more texts. Was babymama reconsidering? How could she not irreversibly bond with this gorgeous little bewitching creature?

A long night of woe passed in the empty bonding room. I made mental notes- fuck adoption, let's go buy an egg and rent a uterus in India. We lost our dog, cat and house in three months- and here we are in Ohio, losing something that was never ours.

Powerless doesn't begin to describe the feeling. Especially while trying to sleep in a hospital bed that crunches with every turn. Andrew finally fell asleep, eyes full of worry and grief. I watched him sleep, heard nurses laughing in the break room and fell asleep until 6am. Three nurses changed shifts and still we had no baby. Tammy (12-6am) told us that Babymama asked baby to come back to her after being bathed. Tammy told Babymama we were waiting for baby. Babymama told her we were at the hotel. Tammy assured we most certainly were not. Babymama said she'd text us. She didn't.

6am. We got dressed and had a droopy oatmeal in the cafeteria surrounded by glowing eyed, zombie-skinned exhausted residents. I texted social worker to tell her we figured it was all over...then I texted Babymama because I just couldn't help myself. 'How are you? How is the baby?'.

No response.  We sank into our weak coffee and tater tots. murmuring morning TV made it all so much more bleak.

A text came. Social Worker reminding me this is not my baby, and to let babymama make her peace.

A text came. Babymama was getting ready to leave. Waiting for her mom and discharge papers. Thanking us for letting her have one whole night with our baby. She called her our baby. And then a request for cash. As I was running for the ATM to drain my checking account, everyone grabbed me. Stop. Wait.

We argued about how much to give her when we got a text- she accidentally sent that to me. The text was meant for her father. We gave her what we had, and she looked at us fully, for the first time. She was smiling. She was sad beyond measure but she was grateful for her time with Delia. Her TV was on. Reality.

She named her Delia. After her grandmother Odelia.  Babymamas get to name their babies on the birth certificate, and then it changes hands when all is finalized around 6 months later. And then she gave us the baby. And she left. I don't even want to peek at what that feels like.

Delia has not left our side since. Andrew is snoring on her right now. They both seem quite content with the arrangement.

We may not get to keep her, but we are parents. All the nurses in Maternity are rooting for us- even the ones who thought we were baby's grandparents. 

xokd