False Alarm

Okay so my day has been more than a little frustrating. (Not to down play yours Leisha, I'm sure yours was worse.) So the email I received from B said that they would be inducing her at 7:30 this morning. I frantically called my caseworker when I got the email (around 10) and asked for details. He said that he hadn't heard anything (which I already knew because we'd talked already this morning) but that he would get together with B's caseworker and see what was happening. He also suggested that I get directly in touch with her caseworker to see how things were going. So I dropped her an email this morning with our cell phone numbers (even though I work with her through volunteering so I know she already has them.) She emailed me back within minutes that she'd update me as soon as she had any news.

I tried to be as patient as possible, but at 4:30 after going out of my mind waiting to hear something I called the agency again. I mean we needed to know if Travis needs to be here today or tomorrow or later than that. I'm trying to figure out if I need to reschedule work meetings or what. Our caseworker was out and hers was in a meeting. I left voicemails for both of them just saying that we were really wondering what was going on and desperate to make sure things were okay. I also tried our caseworker on his cell phone. (After singing his praises this morning he was strangely unreachable all afternoon.) I called again at 6:oo and finally at 6:30 begged a receptionist at the agency to have someone PLEASE call me and let me at least know that things were still okay.

So just a few minutes ago the receptionist called me back. Her message was short and disappointing. "Well, she's not in the hospital, she actually came to group tonight. They have her scheduled for Thursday next week to be induced." (That, by the way, makes no sense at all to me, he'll be a week late by then. He could come on his own before that.) Anyway I tried to make sense of it all but the receptionist didn't have any details. I've re-read her email a dozen times. She for sure said that she was going in at 7:30 this morning to be induced so he'd be born sometime today or possibly tomorrow. So who knows what happened. I'm not upset that she didn't get induced today.

The thing that is so frustrating to me is that no one called to tell us. Surely they knew about this sometime before ten minutes ago. Why on earth did I just have to freak out and go through an entire day of hell like this? Hours and hours and hours sitting on pins and needles waiting for what? Apparently nothing. And yet no one had the courtesy to even let us know that it was a false alarm. I know our caseworkers are busy but we've been hanging for an entire day waiting for something to happen. Why couldn't they call at noon and say "well something happened and they had to reschedule."

Forgive me if I'm selfish and having a pity party right now. I don't care. This hurts. It hurts enough to know that some little girl is in there laboring to have my child and all I can do is sit and wait by the phone for someone, anyone to call. It hurts that I'm missing out on the experience of carrying my own child. It hurst to know that it's in someone else's hands and that she can change her mind at any time through this process. It hurts. And yet here we are, the last to know that plans have changed. Maybe that shouldn't hurt, but it does. I can't explain it to anyone who hasn't been through it so don't ask me to try. To know that you were the fifth or sixth people to know you were getting a child. To know that a slew of others will know that he's here first, will get to hold him before you even know he's arrived is a slightly bitter cup. It's even worse to know that you could be forgotten.

I love our birth mom so much. I love all my birth moms I work with. I love birth moms in general. I think they're the strongest, most selfless women on the planet. Right now I'm angry at the administration. At the secretaries and receptionists and caseworkers who didn't call. Leisha I'm sorry you made the trip all the way down to the courthouse today for nothing. But I do understand how hard it is to have the situation so completely out of your hands. To have something so important and vital in your life rest on the whim of someone else. And to know that there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. And even worse, that through the red tape and administration they might actually forget about you.