Homestudy

One of the owners of the agency did our homestudy yesterday.  It was very informal.  She was here for 3 hours just sharing her adoption story and her experience over the years.  She has adopted 2 children herself and has one biological child.  Her last child was adopted at age 5 after being rejected by 2 families.  Very sad story, but she is now 24 and is doing great.

It was just like any other conversation with a visitor that had not been to our home before and was just getting to know us.  We did talk "business" a little bit as our birth mom calls it.  The agency owner explained how the relinquishments of rights would work the day after the baby was born.  They give the birth mom 24hrs and then she signs and so does the dad.  She said that the hospital would give me my own wrist band and since my relationship is great with the birth mom and she wants me at the birth I should plan on being there 24/7 and sleeping on the couch in the delivery room.

We did learn, and it concerns me, that the hospital does a temporary hold when a birth mom has had CPS involvement in the past, which our birth mom does have.  The hospital policy is that they remove the baby and place them in the NICU, which is a more secure area on another floor.  Their thought process is that the baby is protected there and that the birth mom wouldn't be able to leave the hospital with the baby.  They don't do this 100% of the time, but she told us to prepare for that.  There's really nothing we can do to stop them from doing that.   We can just hope that my presence will deter them from thinking the baby is in danger.  I really don't want our birth mom to feel that they are taking the baby from her in any way.  She was adamant on her birth plan that we filled out for the Dr that the baby stays in her room and although she didn't say it, I know it's because the last one was removed.  I don't have a lot of control if this does happen and the agency director told me that if I try to fight it at the hospital it will make it worse on everyone.  She said if they insist I just have to agree and then I can wheel the birth mom up with me to the NICU.  It really doesn't make any sense, but unfortunately it's their policy.  For now Farmie and I are contacting everyone we know at the hospital to see if we can bend the rules.  If that doesn't work Farmie told me he'd just use his charm :)  That cracked me up, but I'll take it.  If it avoids having our birth mom feel like she's being treated differently I will do whatever we can.

After relinquishment is signed we can take the baby home when everyone is ready to leave.  I'm not going to push our birth mom or rush anything.  I feel so protective of her right now and I'm sure it will just get stronger as we get closer to the baby being born.