CEO and Founder Michele Fried found another sweet nugget on her facebook page. She asked Tee Schoell if we could share the post she wrote about the day chosen as adoptive parent. If you would like to share with us the story of the day you got the call, please submit your story to to newmedia@adoptionstar.com
Tomorrow is Malcolm’s birthday. I was just reflecting on my life 7 years ago . . . from this very moment. It blows my mind. Here is how that week went for me . . .
Malcolm was born Thursday, Nov 2nd, in the early wee hours of the morning. We did not match until after Malcolm was born, so we had no idea. Earlier that week, my boss came to see me after work on Monday. We had a standing arrangement that we both understood the day would come when she could not afford to keep me, or I could not afford to stay; we had agreed to give each other plenty of warning, so that I could train a replacement. On Monday, she told me that Friday would be my last day. 7+ years of service, less than 5 days notice that I was being laid off. I was devastated.
It took until Tuesday before I had the courage to call our adoption agency and tell them, sure that they would refuse to show our profile to any prospective birth parents until I had a new job. To my relief, they were willing to keep showing our profile . . . but they had been meaning to talk to us about it. Our profile had been shown over 19 times, and we were never picked. They wanted to suggest some small changes.
Wednesday after work, I drove out to Buffalo to meet with someone from the agency. “A few small changes” turned out to be about a thousand changes, small and large, including some suggestions I had very conflicted feelings about. I was still reeling from my impending lay off, trying to hold it together at work with a smiling face for the kids and parents I was teaching, and now I was facing a complete overhaul of our adoption profile . . . and the emotional conviction that we would never get picked, and that I would never be a mother, and that I would never find another job, and that I would never be able to stop crying. I had to pull over twice on the drive home from Buffalo that night because I was crying too hard to drive safely.
Little did I know. . . . Little did I know that two years later I would start an internship that would lead to my dream job . . . little did I know that I would never need to remake our adoption profile, because the agency would end up showing the old version just one more time the very next morning . . . little did I know that an extraordinary young woman was hours deep into labor only a handful of miles from my house, bringing my sweet son into the world . . . little did I know that she would love our profile, that she would love us, that she would choose us, that she was trust us with the gift of parenthood.
Seven years ago from this very moment, as I type, I was sobbing my eyes out on the side of the thruway, overwhelmed with a despair that I could see no end to . . . and I was less than 48 hours away from holding my son in my arms. It felt like the end of the world. But it was really the beginning of the most extraordinary, joyful and beautiful journey of my life.
Read More about Our STAR Families:
- Pre-Adoption Baby Showers: To Do Or Not To Do?
- From No Way to Yes Together
- True Story from 2001: A Special Adoption Story
- Carmela Meets the Adoptive Family
- A Young Adoptee Takes a Journey Back to Adoption STAR
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