We Could Have Missed this

8/31/2022

Written by: Christian Gregory

As I’m writing this, it’s August 26th, 10:15pm. But in my mind, I’m in April.

At 10:15pm on April 26th I was packing. I’m dwelling on what I’ll wear. It’s really just a distraction from reality…from the incessant ache in my stomach that’s plagued me for months. I fear it’s just a part of me now. A perfect, Indiana spring day is in the forecast.

But that doesn’t matter really, because hospitals are always cold. Is it the sterile, drafty rooms or the anxious shivers? I’ll feel cold no matter what I wear. I’ll decide in the morning. I have all night to think about it. I know sleep won’t come. What do you wear when you’re going to meet your son? When you won’t be the one in a hospital gown?

April 27, 2022 was not like any other morning. The skies were clear and the air was crisp. A crescent moon decorated with Venus + Jupiter hung in the dark, morning sky. Like a cosmic wink from God declaring this day magical from the very beginning. I drank coffee as we drove and tried to memorize everything I saw, knowing this day would forever hold a significance, no matter the outcome.

Clutched in my lap in an envelope inside my purse was our hospital plan. It was just that, a plan. Not concrete, not binding. But I like plans. Birth mama would have skin-to-skin, I would cut the cord. The symbolism is not lost on me.

At 2:15pm on April 27, 2022 the veil between heaven and earth parted and time stood still as my son, Oakland Woodrow Gregory, was born in the most dramatic fashion. Suffering a broken clavicle, meconium aspiration, born with a true knot in his umbilical cord. Miraculously perfect, yet simultaneously so sick. There was no skin-to-skin for anyone. There was no time for me to cut the cord. His skin was gray, and his breath was shallow. But he was here. My longest prayer, my heart’s deepest desire, incarnate.

My husband and I have spent the last couple of years doing required training through our adoption agency. We have logged over 60 hours of education between books, podcasts, webinars, and panels. We’ve done classes on parenting a child of a different race, relationships with birth families, depression after adoption and many others. But one topic that comes up repeatedly no matter what course you’re taking is the importance of bonding with your new child.

Books and articles speak about the significance of skin-to-skin. I bought special pajamas specifically targeted for it. I had been preparing my body to breastfeed. We knew the importance of being our son’s sole caretaker, because his psyche knows that he was separated from his birth mama and he needs to know who his people are.

The hospital was gracious enough to give us our own room so we could be there with him during his entire hospital stay. My husband was taking two weeks off work just to focus on our growing family. We’re homebodies, we were excited about the next few weeks of focusing on our boy.

With each slowly passing day in the NICU, I silently mourned that we were missing those sacred moments with our newborn pressed against our chest. The cords and tubes didn’t allow for it.

After a couple of days pumping, I abandoned my dream of breastfeeding because it was really just interfering with the time I could be with him. We weren’t his sole caretakers by a long shot. A dozen doctors and twice as many nurses were at his beckon call.

His first car ride wasn’t going home but instead was in an incubator secured inside Riley’s LifeLine ambulance. I grieved that my child was sick the same way his birth mama did, and the same way any mother would. But I also grieved what I thought was the failing to bond the way textbooks say to.

We held him all day, our movements limited by his tether to all the machines. We changed every diaper. We held his feeding tube above his head with one hand and rocked him with the other. He wasn’t a fan of pacifiers, but he loved my gloved finger. A quirky alternative to breastfeeding, but I was happy to be needed.

We were there during every round that the hospitalists and specialists made. And when I finally laid down at night, I researched every symptom, I took notes and sought out alternative therapies. Doctors and nurses asking if I was in the medical field because of the way I spoke with authority on his care was the greatest affirmation that I was doing right by him, as his advocate and as his mama.

During our first post placement call with the agency, our counselor asked how we felt bonding was going despite not even being home with our child yet. My husband and I both just chuckled, met with the realization that it’s better..easier than we expected. It’s not coincidence or luck. It’s the fruit of God’s perfect design.

Almost two thousand years ago Jesus sat on a dirt floor in front of twelve men that called Him Lord and washed their feet. I have the knowledge of this living parable, I’ve read the words dozens of times. But now my soul holds the wisdom. I now know what can’t always be said, but must be experienced. Something happens in our hearts when we sacrificially care for others, when our prayers for them collide with our love, in action.

I loved Oakland before I knew him. Before I knew when he’d come…who he would look like…what his story would be, I loved him. I promised his birth mama that I would love him as if he were my own flesh. I knew it would happen. I wouldn’t have chosen this story for my son. I would have picked an easier route. But oh, what I would have missed.

In first Thessalonians, Paul is speaking to the church of Thessalonica, but what he says in verses 7-8 speak right to this precious gift of adoption…

“Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our lives as well.”

I’ll love him as his own mother. My God will be his God. My life will be forever bonded to his. Not of my flesh, but certainly of my soul.