Dearest Amaya,
You are loved with
such fierceness, in an extra special way, by more people than perhaps
the average person.
First, you are loved
fiercely by God, who knew you long before you were born. He loved you so
much that he brought you into this world without letting any humans decide this
or that about you.
Second, you are loved
by your tummy mommy, her family, and your birth daddy - with such
fierceness that they would make THE most difficult decision of their lives in
order to give you what they thought was the best for you, even if that meant
not being your mommy, daddy, grandma, and grandpa.
They knew that like
your tummy mommy, you were Hope for the world. And in your case, you were
Hope for another family.
Third, you are loved
fiercely by your mommy, papi, and all of our family. You were loved by us
before we knew you. We loved you even more when we first heard about your birth
parents. We loved you even more when we met them. And, dear Lord, we were
immediately, completely, hopelessly, devoted to you when we met you for
the first time, just 2 hours after you were born.
As well, the only way
we would be able to adopt was with the help of our community. Over 200 people
helped us to make it financially possible to bring you home. As Mrs. H at
our parish put it well, when we brought you home you were not just ours, but
"Everybody's baby." They love you in an extra special way too.
This is our, all
inclusive, story. The story of how you came to become a Garcia, and the joy of
our community in a way that goes beyond the average baby. Which makes you
the Amazing Amaya.
On May 25th 2015,
mommy and papi announced that they were adopting.
Mid-July 2016, we had
finally raised the money we needed, and completed the adoption home study
process. We were on the waiting list. We were in for the long haul, as the
prior year the average time on the wait list before being matched had been
18 months.
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| Your cousin, Z, helped us drop off the profile books, the final step for our adoption process. |
On October 24th, 2016
mommy and papi got a call from The Cradle that a man (S) and woman
(E) wanted to look at our adoption profile to learn more about us. We got
to read about them first, before giving permission for them to see our profile
book.
Most of what we
learned about E and S was just demographics and health history: E is
Irish-American, Catholic, and her favorite food is "anything made out of
potatoes." When I read those things, I was like "This woman and I are
bound to be friends." S was Pakistani-American, has a Muslim
background, is well educated and plans to become a lawyer.
Both were in their late twenties - which is the
average age of people who place children for adoption with The Cradle. E &
S were two long-time friends who had given a romantic relationship a go and
unexpectedly became pregnant. E is pro-life and knew that this child needed things that she could not
provide. So she set on a mission to find the perfect parents for you (not that
we are perfect - but that we are meant to be with you!) Tummy mommy and
birth daddy wanted their baby to have a stable home, with a mom and dad that
are together - a situation they could not give you themselves.
It was hard not to
fall in love with this couple. We could tell how much they loved you - and that
was intoxicating. As well, we had so much in common, even just on this initial
sheet of information. Luckily, we had a few people in our lives that were
willing to "fall in love" for us, so that we could attempt to
maintain our guarded hearts - because nothing was yet for sure.
I had also told my mom
(your Granny Shanny) that we wouldn't be telling her anything until we
actually got matched with a set of birth parents. Wouldn't you know that
immediately after I got the information from The Cradle, I was on the phone
with her, and we shared tears of joy just at the possibility that we might
have you.
Of course, we
immediately told The Cradle to show E & S our long profile. This meant that
we would be one of 4 or 5 families E & S would look at for their baby. The
profile book had information about our lives, home, and dogs - a bunch of
information to help your tummy mommy and birth daddy choose what family you
would become part of.
Papi and I also
immediately felt all the things:
Feelings of
"meant to be" (This is a match made in heaven!),
A little bit
of competitiveness (I mean, how could they NOT pick us? We're adorable!),
Feelings of fear and
inadequacy (We have a pit bull. What if they think he'll hurt the baby? Or what
if we came off as TOO religious or TOO Catholic and they think we'll be uptight
and judgmental or self-righteous? What if they think that, since we had to
fundraise to afford adoption, that we can't offer our baby the things he/she
might need?)
What is more, we also
knew that the due date of this baby was November 19th, just a little under 4
weeks away. And we needed to get a "first 3 months survival kit"
of baby stuff together if this was a match. At the same time, we couldn't
tell many people about what was going on, because nothing was for sure.
So I was running
around getting baby stuff for a baby we had a 1 in 5ish chance of getting
picked for. Which was tough. Every item I found I caught myself daydreaming
about whether we would be having a little boy or a little girl. If she
would have hair. If he would be bigger than newborn size. Trying not to connect
this stuff to this baby in particular, and yet part of my heart just knew,
despite the chances, just KNEW that this was our baby.
Papi and I basically
drove ourselves crazy for days. We could hardly get any work done, just
thinking about the possibility of having you.
We were told that E
& S had a meeting with their counselor on
Thursday night, October 27th, which was when they would start
reviewing all of the profiles. That night, daddy and I coped in our own ways:
Papi holed up on the couch cuddling with our dog Sweets, binge watching
Stargate. Meanwhile, I painted your bedroom for literally 8
hours straight, ending around midnight, while also binge watching Stargate.
 |
| Mommy painted for eight...hours...straight. |
As it turns out, your birth parents had moved their meeting to Friday. So we freaked out extra on the wrong day. But still, we
were told that the birth parents would not be giving their answer on which
family they had chosen until the following Thursday, November 3rd.
We had been
praying the rosary each night. But on October 31st, on a whim,
we decided to pray the St. Jude Chaplet, the patron saint of Hope.
The next morning
of November 1st, All Saints Day, several days before we expected to hear
any news, we were on our way to our parish for a meeting to plan that
week's Religious Ed class. That's when we got the call: E & S had
picked us to be your family!
Our counselor told us
that E & S had selected us because they liked that we have a
strong Catholic faith life, that we have a community that supports and
wants us to adopt a baby, and because we have dogs. Basically, all of the
things that we thought might possibly turn someone off to our profile were the
things that attracted them to us.
Our counselor also
told us to "stay grounded" and to be "cautiously
optimistic," as there is always the possibility of a change of heart by
the birth parents.
We scheduled the first
of our 2 planned match meetings for November 7th, at 5pm. We were so
nervous!
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