The first in our series covering National Adoption Month, the Horn Law Group is sharing the adoption communities’ stories of sadness, frustration, and ultimate joy. These stories are PERSONAL – some direct from those we’ve helped, some from our HLG family, and some from the people we’ve met along the way.
Please enjoy. Share our stories with your community. Comment with your words of encouragement. Contact us to share YOUR story. Thank YOU for celebrating National Adoption Month with us.
Because of adoption, I am a mom… three times over. While the journey was long and sometimes heartbreaking, I am so grateful that I was able to take the ride.
When we decided that adoption was the best option to grow our family, we immediately decided to pursue a private domestic adoption. We started by doing all of the typical things that you do when you begin the process – completed our home study, got fingerprinted, answered lots of questions about our household, our finances, and our ideal parenting styles, and completed a Profile to showcase ourselves to prospective birth-mothers and birth-fathers. Then… we waited. We waited for the phone to ring, for someone to tell us that they wanted to meet us, for someone to choose us to raise their baby. The waiting was hard. At any minute, in the blink of an eye, our entire lives could change.
I’ll spare the nitty-gritty details. So, fast forward through a roller coaster of hope, heartache, excitement, and a couple of failed adoptions, and we were ready to give up. Then… the phone rang. A potential birth-mother wanted to meet us. To protect her privacy, let’s call her Anne. She saw our Profile Book and loved us. We met Anne at a diner in Philadelphia just a few short days later, and it became immediately apparent that fate brought us together. Unbeknownst to me at the time, we met at a diner that my grandparents used to go to weekly when they lived in Philly! We had lunch together, and the conversation flowed freely. When it was time to leave, we offered Anne a ride home. We laughed and cried together on the way.
After that meeting, she chose US. She was due to give birth just a few short months later. Over those few months, we spent time together and kept in frequent touch.
One night, when we were having dinner with family… we got the call that Anne was in labor. We rushed out of the house and drove to Philly to be there for the birth. We arrived just in time! Our daughter was born via c-section, and I had the privilege of being in the delivery room when she was born. It was an amazing, and humbling experience. I was the first person to hold our daughter – a precious, tiny bundle of joy, weighing just under 5 pounds.
Initially, Anne had told us that she did not want to meet the baby, or even hold her. But, a day after she was born, Anne changed her mind. She told us that she wanted to spend some time with the baby. She did but called to tell us that she thought the baby missed us and that we should come to spend some time with both of them. We did. And, at that moment, I felt so blessed. The four of us spent most of the evening together – talking about pop culture, the baby’s future, and how we will manage on little sleep. We took turns holding and feeding the baby, and it felt like old friends reconnecting with one another.
The next day, Anne was scheduled to be discharged. The only clothes she had were the ones she came into the hospital with. I wanted her to feel comfortable as she left the hospital, so I literally ran to the Marshall’s around the corner… in the pouring rain… to buy Anne some new clothes and shoes. When I returned to her room to give her the items, she had just gotten out of the shower. She was appreciative and emotional. I helped her get dressed and thanked her for trusting and choosing us. I wished her well and told her I loved her. We gave each other a long, tearful hug and parted ways… all of our lives having been forever changed.
— Margaret A. Moriarty, ESQ. | Horn Law Group, LLC.