As part of 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.
We welcomed our 1st daughter, Lauren, July 2001. Looking back, the road was bumpy with lots of twists and turns. All these terms, profile books, birth-mothers, birth-fathers, adoption agencies, and attorneys. We just wanted to be parents.
April 2001, we received a phone call from our adoption agency that a birth-mother had selected us. She wanted to meet us for lunch. Panic set in. What do we wear? Where would we eat? What would she be thinking?
It was so strange. Nervous energy filled the air, but there was an instant connection. We would always be bonded through Lauren. The three of us even went shopping together to purchase the outfit Lauren would come home in. Cassie (name changed to protect her identity), Lauren’s birth-mother bought it — we still have it.
We were honored when Cassie asked us to be in the delivery room. The experience was both indescribable and unbelievable.
9:30 pm July 20, the phone rang, and we were off to the hospital. Lauren loves to hear that we were ready for bed and within minutes had to jump into the car and rush off. 12:15 am July 21, our perfect little being, Lauren arrived. Our hearts were so filled with joy. For the next few days, we were welcomed to feed, change and hold Lauren in her room. I kept praying that Cassie wasn’t going to change her mind. We had gone through a previous failed adoption – those twists and turns, again.
The day Lauren was discharged was bittersweet. As I held Lauren, Cassie said goodbye, kissing her head and face whispering to Lauren that she loved her so much and told her to be good for us.
Our hearts broke for Cassie; she was losing a part of her family while we were growing ours. We promised to raise Lauren to know it wasn’t that she wasn’t loved or that she was just “given away,” we knew there other choices she could have made. Instead, Cassie wanted Lauren to have more than what she could have provided for her at the time.
We have the extreme pleasure of still having a close relationship with Cassie. We talk, go out to dinner, we even Facebook! Frankly, we couldn’t imagine our lives without her. She IS Family!
This adoption crossed racial lines – we are white, Lauren is black. Transracial adoption comes with its own set of unique considerations. Are we prepared to answer and address those questions and issues? Were we doing the right thing? We listened to a song by Lee Ann Womack, “I Hope You Dance.” “And when you get the chance to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance!” We were doing the right thing and have been dancing ever since.
— The Grudus Family
