Part 31.

As luck would have it, the world keeps on spinning whether you get out of bed tomorrow or not.  Life goes on whether or not you’re ready.

After an afternoon and evening filled with a container of Keebler Rainbow Chocolate Chip Cookies, an NCIS marathon and buckets of tears, I woke up to a black hole where my heart once was.  I felt like I woke from a terrible dream – and I hoped it was just that – at dream.  But it wasn’t.  It was real – every tear, every moment.  My worst fear came to life – our adoption had in fact, fallen through.  I wanted to close my eyes and sleep another day of pain away – not even bother getting out of bed.  But, the world doesn’t wait until your ready to face it again – it thrusts you back in whether you’re ready or not.  You’re forced to get out of bed, be a human, and go to work…eventually.

My eventually would have been days, weeks, and maybe even months.  I could’ve holed up in our bedroom and forgot about the world for what felt like a long time.  Lucky me (sarcasm) – the very next day was moving day for the company.  In most circumstances, that could have been achieved without me there, but I had my uncle’s truck which was integral in the process.  I had no choice but to drag my zombie-butt out of bed, take a shower, and go to the office to perform physical labor as we attempted to single-handedly move our offices without any professional help whatsoever. As I walked out of our bedroom to head out for the day, I passed the closed door of the nursery.  I paused briefly and thought for a moment about looking in, but turned back to the stairs and headed straight to the car.

I’m not sure any of the staff was expecting to see me that day – and they certainly had no idea what to say to me – one day after Ben and I’s adoption dreams fell to absolute crap.  So we just worked.  We worked our butts off that day.  I put my head down and worked.  I compartmentalized (in all honesty) all the pain and dumped it all into hard physical labor.  It’s exactly what I needed.  We had a lot to do between move-in day and hosting graphic designer candidates in the office in a week.  So I put my grief to work.

I guess what Penny Tweedy (played by Diane Lane) said in the movie Secretariat was accurate,

“…besides work is good for grief.”

When I looked up from the work, I was sitting at a table with Josh and Matt (the owners of the company I work for).  We were at the 1 week anniversary of our adoption falling through – the week passed in a blink of an eye.  It was still painful to think about and I still cried a lot, but I had begun to heal and come to terms with being back in the “waiting” stage.

Josh, Matt and I were reviewing the Quarter 1 reports that I had prepared for them and talking about what lies ahead for the rest of the year over some breakfast.  We had just finished reviewing some of the reports when I noticed my phone ringing on the table.  When I looked down at it the name that popped across the screen said, “Rebecca Bruce.”  Our agency director.

I grabbed my phone and said, “Sorry guys, this is the adoption agency.  I need to take this.”  I got up from the table and walk out to the front door of the restaurant into the lobby between the door to the outside and the door to the restaurant.  I answered, “Hello?”

Rebecca:  Jessica?
Me:  Yes, Hi Rebecca.  How are you?
Rebecca:  Great thanks.  Can I ask you a question?
Me:  Sure what’s up?
Rebecca:  You haven’t returned anything yet, have you?
Me:  What?
Rebecca:  You haven’t returned any of the baby stuff yet have you?
Me:  No, why?
Rebecca:  Because you’ve been matched with a new birth-mom – and she’s having a girl, too.
Me:  (in total disbelief) You’ve got to be kidding me.
Rebecca:  No, I’m not.

I immediately started crying (I’m crying now thinking about it) and walked outside to the brick courtyard.  I muttered through the tears, “This doesn’t happen.” and Rebecca replied, “I know.”

She immediately started telling me everything she knew about the birth-mom and the baby – which was very little.  It happened very fast for the agency, too.  Then Rebecca said, “…and Jessica, she’s due June 15th – so not very far from Amelia’s due date.  Looks like you’ll have a baby soon.”

Holding back the tears, I said, “Yes.  We’ll take her.  Yes.  We want her.  I’m not going to even ask Ben.  Yes.”

Rebecca said she’d send all the paperwork over for us to sign and that they’ll talk to us soon.  One month from now we’ll be parents.

I hung up the phone, took a deep breath, and called Ben.

When he answered the phone, I immediately started sobbing.  I couldn’t even get words out.  Ben kept saying, “Babe are you okay?  What’s going on?  Is everything alright?  What happened?  Babe???”

Finally, I was able to take a deep breath and say, “Honey, we’ve been matched again…with another girl!” and then immediately back to the crying.

He was in as much disbelief as I was.  I filled him in on what we knew and told him I already said yes.  He didn’t seem to mind.  I let him go, because I had to get back to the meeting so we could finish up before another meeting in the afternoon.  But before we hung up, we decided to keep this one close to the vest and not tell many people yet.  We didn’t want people to ride the roller coaster like we have – so we decided to not even tell family yet.  I did, however, need to tell Josh and Matt so we could prepare for me to be on maternity leave in almost a month!

I walked back into the restuarant and sat back down at the table across from Josh and Matt who were deep in conversation.  They looked over at me and Matt asked, “Everything okay?”

I immediately started crying and through the tears said, “We’ve been matched with a new birth-mom.  We’re having a girl – June 15th.”