Dan and Melissa stood in the waiting room, too nervous to sit down. They were waiting to meet a baby boy. The minutes slowly clicked by. Was there a problem?
Almost three days earlier, the couple had been notified that Niki was being induced. “Get some sleep tonight,” the case manager said. “It will be your last night of restful sleep for a while.”
“We couldn’t sleep,” Melissa said. “Instead, we packed, cleaned the house, and then drove the three and half hours.”
As the birth mother, Niki, went into labor, she spoke to the waiting parents on the phone. She said she wanted them to be part of the birth experience.
Niki’s labor lasted 30 hours.
“Poor Niki,” Melissa said. “And of course, we didn’t sleep that night either. Our phones kept going off with updates, and we worried about Niki.”
The couple was informed when the child was born and then accompanied by a caseworker from Heart to Heart, they spoke to Niki on the phone.
“She wanted to tell us about the labor and talk about the name we picked,” Melissa explained.
“We did it, guys,” Niki told them from her bed in the delivery room. “Congratulation, mom and dad.“
Niki was even concerned enough for the two people who would parent her child that she handed the phone to the doctor so he could discuss the birth and the baby’s condition. When Niki started hemorrhaging, she called for her cellphone to send Dan and Melissa a picture of the baby before more medical procedures began. Later, when Nikie was in recovery, she Facedtimed the potential adoptive parents.
Even as Melissa tells about this Facetime call, her voice cracks with emotion.
High blood pressure kept Niki in the room for another 12 hours. Everyone spent another restless night.
Finally, they were told to meet at the hospital.
“Nikie walked into the room, pushing a bassinet. There is no way to explain the love, the emotion,” Melissa said. “There was no hesitation on her part. She gave us hugs and handed us the baby. ‘Hey, mom and dad, here he is.’ She wanted us to feel that we were his mom and dad right from the beginning.”
The only time Nicki cried was when the couple gave her a necklace with two hearts.
Due to higher than normal bilirubin levels, the baby needed to remain in the hospital. Mother and baby stayed in the room together.
“I’m happy they got that time together,” Melissa said.
The birth parents, adoptive parents, and baby spent some precious time together, and now they communicate through HeartsConnect.
