Cedars, December 2018

December 2018 5 COVER whether you’re single, whether you’re married, y’know? And that doesn’t mean everyone is adopting — but in some ways you should be doing that ministry. But we had a home and a place that we could adopt, and that was what we felt like the Lord was leading us to do.” Shortly after they began praying seriously about whether or not they should adopt, Cedarville president Dr. Thomas White announced to the faculty and staff that the university would begin an adoption reimbursement for em- ployees. Adam and Hannah definitively decided that they would adopt, they just had to decide when. One day, after praying about when to begin the adoption process, Adam found a letter tucked under the door to their apartment. “For the adoption” was written across the envelope, and $250 was inside. And so they started the paperwork in February of 2016, through Building Blocks Adoption ser- vice. It took almost eight months before they made it onto the waiting list. The pre-adoption process included a fire inspection for their apartment, medical exams and fingerprinting, as well as a home study, “the beast” of the application process, as Adam refers to it. The adoption agency sent a social worker to their home to interview them — to ask about their rela- tionship with their family, where they’ve lived, where they went to school, and other in-depth questions. The home study lasted three separate visits, one a month. By early August, they were ready to look for a birth mother. The agency would email them with a birth mother’s profile, providing all the details they had; her age, how many kids she has, health issues, why she wants to adopt out and when the baby is due. If Adam and Hannah want- ed to be considered, they’d ask the agency to send the birth mom their online profile. “You want to respond quickly because you wanted to be one of the first people they saw,” Adam said. “So I’d have notifications on my phone on … I’d be in a meeting with a guy and my phone would buzz and I’d be like ‘sorry, I have to respond to this.’” There were almost 50 families looking to adopt a new- born, so Adam and Hannah had to market themselves. They wrote and printed a profile book, which detailed everything from their family life and culture to their favor- ite TV show. If the birth mother was interested after view- ing the online profile, she could request the physical photo book. It was a way for a birth mother to get to know Adam and Hannah as intimately as possible before deciding to meet in person. They sent their profile to almost every birth mother they could, and met in person with six of them. Still, all of them gave the same answer: “no.” “Why don’t they like us?” Hannah asked Adam. When they rushed Deb to the hospital in November, they were convinced they would come home with a son. After going home without a baby, they went back to sub- mitting their profile to mothers, even though they weren’t emotionally ready. “We thought it would take another year,” Hannah said. Ten days later, they got a match. The mother was due in another 10 days, on Dec. 20. Did they dare hope for a baby for Christmas? They met in person a few days later at a Mexican restaurant. It was an unusual meeting, by the Southerland’s standards. The mom had a list of questions to ask, some re- lated to the adoption, others included their favorite holiday. “Will you even tell her she’s adopted?” the mom asked. The birth mother and father — it’s unusual for the fa- ther to be involved with an adoption — wanted to be certain that the baby would not grow to hate them. And the baby couldn’t hate them if she never knew they existed. “We don’t want her to think we didn’t want her … we do love this baby.” Adam and Hannah told them that they planned to tell the baby she was adopted early, and to tell her they love her. The Southerlands also said that, if they were comfortable with it, they’d like to have an open and continued relation- ship with them after the adoption. The idea of a continued relationship with their baby or the adoptive family was alien to them; they were convinced they would be saying goodbye to their child forever. Meet- ing with Adam and Hannah was the first time they consid- ered it. And even though the mother declined to trade numbers with the Southerlands, the adoption agency told them she decided to officially match with them the same day. They could only communicate with the mom through the adoption agency. After they sent a thank-you for match- ing with them, they had very little communication. It was a very different relationship from the five-month close friend- ship they had with Deb. “We were used to being needed,” Hannah said. Even though they wanted to get excited, they were ready to be heartbroken again. Dec. 20, the baby’s due date, came and went. The agen- cy told them the mom still had not gone into labor. Maybe tomorrow. Dec. 21 came and went. Maybe tomorrow. Christmas. Maybe tomorrow. At 2 a.m., Dec. 29, the agency called; the mom was on her way to the hospital. Adam and Hannah grabbed their go bags and left. The labor was quick. By the time Adam and Hannah arrived, the baby was already born. “I kept telling myself ‘this is not my kid,’” Hannah said. “This is her baby. We’re just here to support as much as pos- sible.” They spent some time with the baby, then stayed over- night with a friend in Columbus. When they went back to the hospital, the doctor told them that the birth mother was ready to be discharged as soon as she woke up. By 1 p.m., she left, leaving the Southerlands in charge of the baby. Their first choice for a girl’s name was Georgia Wren, but af- ter they met her, they decided she looked more like a Wren. Even though they and the birth mother had signed pa- pers making the Southerlands Wren’s legal guardians, they still weren’t her official parents. The process would still take several months, during which the mother could change her mind. They found that the mom had left a note for them with a nurse. She left them her phone number and thanked them for their support. She wanted to stay in touch. Wren still hadn’t been discharged from the hospital, so Adam and Hannah stayed one more night in a hotel. The next day, they wrapped up the baby and drove home on snowy, winter roads. It was the most nerve-wrack- ing drive Adam had ever experienced. “We didn’t even talk much, it was just really peaceful,” Hannah said. “Well, Adam was white-knuckling the car. But I was in the back, staring at Wren.” It all happened so fast — from the disappointment just a few weeks earlier, to meeting Wren’s mother for the first time, to suddenly driving home with a newborn baby daughter. Still, Wren’s mother could change her mind and choose to keep her, up until the paperwork was completed. “What’s worse than leaving a hospital without a baby? It’s taking a baby home for four weeks and then having to give the baby back,” Hannah said, laughing. “That’s worse!” But their attorney assured Adam and Hannah that at this point, after the mother left the hospital without a baby, it was incredibly unlikely for the mother to change her mind. On Aug. 22, after six months of being legal guardians, Hannah and Adam officially became the parents of Wren Noel Southerland. Now 11 months old, Wren is energetic and loud as she crawls around her parents’ apartment. It’s delightfully dif- ficult to focus on a conversation with her parents as she gleefully knocks over a water cup and tries to steal tablet pens. Paolo Carrion is a junior journalism major and the Arts and Entertainment section editor for Cedars. He is learn- ing how to cook, and his roommate is very proud of the sriracha-glazed chicken he made for dinner that one time.