Counting down

daniandbri

I have posted here a few times and lurk often. We are getting to the final days and anxiously counting down the days until our little guy arrives. Any advice from those of you who have already adopted? i'm fortunate that I will get to be in the delivery room for his birth, but a little unsure of how all of that will go (my son was a c-section). I know that this will be a very personal time that birth mom and I will spend together.

maryoosa

Our son's mom nearly had a precipitous birth, so we weren't in the room for delivery, but were there 5 minutes afterwards and my partner cut the cord.

I have to say that the hospital experience was the bumpiest part of our adoption journey so far.
Even though we have a tremendously open adoption with our sons mom- neither us nor she knew what the hospital would be like and it was really hard. She was rooming in  and nursing the baby. We camped out at hotel and only spent a few hours each day visiting with her and her son. Our agency provided no support to us or to her at the hospital. The hospital itself didn't quite know what to do with the whole adoption situation- meaning our agency and her social worker specifically hadn't connected well with their social services staff. There were tons and tons of awkward moments in staff interactions, in family interactions etc.

Discharge was a hot mess. Leaving the hospital was even more challenging.

It was just a really really hard 3 days- and I'm sure significantly harder for her than for us.

I'd have a talk with your lawyer or your agency about what support is available to you. If you are adopting in the same city/state that you live in, I highly recommend bringing a friend along with you- we could have used someone to hang out with during the times when we weren't in the hospital while we were worrying each other to death. 

justjinny

How exciting for you! I wasn't in the delivery room because our son's birthmother had a c-section.  We were waiting at the hospital when she came out of the operating room and it did feel really cool to be even that much involved. I felt emotionally & socially wiped out by the time we discharged, partly due to lack of sleep, but mostly from meeting so many new people from the birth family.  It was like getting engaged to someone you just met, then going right to their family reunion and needing everyone there to like you... that variety of stressful.

It sounds like maybe you live reasonably nearby the hospital if you will be able to make it there in time for the delivery.  If you can, I'd see about visiting the hospital prior to the birth.  It would have been nice to see where we would be going and have an idea of what to expect.  We weren't sure if we would be staying there or at a hotel, but the nurses ended up giving us a room of our own at the hospital which was nice.  The staff seemed very well trained on handling our situation and treated us & our son's birthmom nicely - never judgmental or too awkward.

I had packed a small care package for our son's birthmom and it make me feel good that she made use of some of the things.  It was just simple things like slippers, socks, lotion, nail polish & some snacks, nothing pricy or serious but all useful & fun stuff.  I felt happy seeing her use some of the things and it was good knowing that I did something small to give her some comfort when she wasn't feeling well after her c-section.

daniandbri

Thank you all. We're getting super anxious. Mom is starting to dilate and had contractions last night but they stopped. I will definitely be checking into a getting her something small for her. Thought maybe a magazine or two and some small things.