Weekend Intensive, Part 2

First I'm bummed because the Suns lost Game 1 to the Spurs in double overtime today. Arrrgh. Had to get that off my chest.

Anywho, Day Two of the Weekend Intensive. We had the same group of people today, right now I can't remember their names. Gregg better not read this or he'll yell at me! They were nice people and as noted treated us as another infertile couple. (OK, make a gratuitous invitro fertilization joke here. At least we don't need the turkey baster like the lesbians. Note to self: Don't eat gravy at Stacey and Dorothy's house. OK that's gross; I should delete it. Phffff, not!) So...oh OK right. Day Two.

Day Two was more interesting then Day One, because we were going to meet two other couples. A young woman who gave up her baby for adoption and her mother, and a couple who adopted a child through the IAC.

The birth mother was first. Her name was Ty, and she was a very nice, likable, funny girl. Someone you'd want to be friends with. Very "Juno" (more on Juno later). She was in college and seemed to be getting on with her life after the adoption, which took place about two years ago while she was only sixteen. They were an average middle class Catholic family. Her parents were still married. Her mom was a very straightforward, practical type of person. They were kind of "Gilmore Girlish" but without being annoying. Ty began telling her story of how she found out she was pregnant when she was sixteen. At first she planned on keeping the baby and marrying her then boyfriend. Her parents saw this was going to be a disaster in the making, and convinced her to contact the IAC, who I think they found online. Anyway, she talked about the emotion she went through during the process. She seemed determined to go through with it, and was happy with the family she picked. In her case, she declined to let them in the delivery room and just had her mother there (understandable to me). She also requested the second day of her hospital stay to be adoptive parent free. She wanted to spend the day with her family and her baby. Now I'm really glad she brought this up. If this happens to us, I'll understand it and not worry about it. This is the only time in her life she will spend with the child. She should have the day to herself. Once that time was over, she gave up the child when she left the hospital. There were a lot of tears, but she said she understood why she was doing this. After she went home she just wanted to get along with her life. She mentioned her two visits to see her baby since. The adoptive family seemed more interested in contacting her for visitation then she was to them. She just described that she was in college, starting a writing career, and if she wanted to see the child all the time she would have kept him and parented herself. They had some pictures in a book the adoptive parents had made for them. I could see the grandmother was especially proud, and they seemed OK with the entire thing. After they left the room, I wasn't the only one who mentioned she didn't seem like the typical birthmother.

The couple that adopted seemed to be the more realistic experience. Their birth mother was a complete mess, and if she didn't give up her child it probably would have been taken from her eventually. The most important thing I got out of them was that they matched for the first time after being in the book for only a week. After a few weeks of conversation with the birth mother they realized this was a bad connection and voluntarily unmatched. I asked them how hard that was because I am concerned we may not be strong enough to do that. She said it was difficult, but necessary. She just knew this was a bad situation because the mother might get all the way to the hospital and change her mind. They could tell it was going to be bad and felt good about unmatching. That reassured both of us. We know now we can do that if we feel we need to. On a side note, they matched agian the next week, so I'm not sure these people were typical either. But they sure did look happy...