My plans to do embryo adoption have taken a backseat.
On October 13, I received a phone call at 8:30am from a social worker letting me know there is a safe surrender 4 day old baby girl ready to be picked up if my husband and I were still interested. We, of course, said YES! He took the Amtrak train back home from San Francisco and I left work early. We had to pick her up by 3:30pm for placement if not they would look for another family or place her in foster care.
We were there at 3:00pm.
It was an extremely busy, yet exciting day. We had to shop for a car seat to take her out of the hospital, figure out what formula to buy, diapers, wipes, and the whole 9 yards! We were so exhausted and wired at the same time.
Anyways, long story short. We brought our little girl home and were given a few days worth of supplies of baby stuff from the RNs in the nursery. You can’t imagine how grateful I am to them for all their help and patience teaching me how to hold a newborn, diaper change, and feed. We got in with a pediatrician the following day to get her checked out. She’s perfectly healthy.
Not much is known about her mom other than it was a teenage pregnancy, had intentions of giving her daughter up for adoption prior to delivery, and left the hospital right after birth. Nothing is known about the dad.
The catch for a safe surrender baby is that the mom has 14 days from the time she gives up her daughter to come back to claim her. If she misses that deadline, she has 60 days to appeal in court. After this waiting period and no sign of the mom, we can proceed to adopt her. So as of now, the mom has 6 more days to come back for her newborn. My fingers are crossed she doesn’t.
So besides all the worries I have about her being taken away and exhaustion (feeding every 2-3 hours), things have been pretty darn good. I haven’t done much shopping so we are lacking clothes and other misc items, but I hope to shortly get that in order.
Today we had a newborn photo shoot. I feel very fortunate to have been able to squeeze into someone’s schedule to get this done especially since this isn’t a pregnancy of mine that I could have booked way in advance. I think they came out well as my little girl slept through the whole thing and they could mold her as needed.
So, what about IVF? I think I will re-visit it next year. Assuming I don’t lose my little girl in the next 6 days or so, I know I will be very busy trying to bond. Now that I have my “hopefully soon to adopt” daughter, I feel that I can solely try for my own and not go the embryo adoption route.
Anyways, I just wanted to provide an update. More to come. Yes…there was drama at work about this.
IVF: Drugs, Needles & Hope 