Monday, Sept 28, 2009

If I would have known it was our last day together, just Josh and I, it would have been different. We didn’t do anything special at all that day, it was just another normal Monday. Maybe we went to the store or to the library, I don’t remember. If the weather was nice, we played outside. We probably went on a walk. Nothing special, no last One Big Activity with Josh. Such is life in a domestic adoption situation. We knew the call was coming, we just didn’t know when, exactly. We had been talking with Josh about the trip – where we were headed, what we would be doing, about a baby.

It was late in the evening, about 7:30. Chuck had been swamped at work and was finally on his way home. Josh and I had eaten dinner and he was messing around in the kitchen while I was doing dishes. I didn’t think anything of it when our agency person down in FL called, we had been in contact a lot lately.

Then. Oh, then. Then I learned that the baby we had been matched with for almost 3 months had been born that morning. His mom had spent the day alone with him before making the call that she was ready for us to know. She took the time to get to know him, to tell him her reasons, to examine and memorize him. Finally, she was ready for us to head down to meet him.

Within 2 hours we were on the road. We had been packed, minus last minute things, for weeks. Josh was bouncing off the ceiling because we were finally going to Florida. I made a flurry of phone calls making last minute hotel arrangements, dog arrangements, and we ran around town dropping off bills and grabbing a snack on our way out of town. We walked out of the house at about 9:30 that night for the last time as just the three of us. The trip down was really a blur, between taking driving shifts, middle of the night gas stops, and Josh who only kind of slept. (hey, you try sleeping all night in a 5 pt harness!)

We would arrive in Florida the next afternoon…