Mirtia and Randy's Open Adoption Story

We are Randy and Mirtia and would like to tell you our story about finding our child. We started like most families going to fertility doctors to try and have a baby. After four years of trying fertility treatments we suffered through two miscarriages and many failed attempts to conceive. What got us through these hard times was knowing that no matter what happened, we would always try to adopt a child someday.

Towards the end of our fertility treatments we started the adoption process with an adoption attorney we found. We told our attorney that we wanted a closed adoption, because we had so many fears about an open adoption. We completed our homestudy and got our lifebook together.

About 4 months later we received a call saying that we had been selected by a birth mother, and that the baby was due in about 10 days. We couldn’t believe how incredibly lucky we were to be picked so soon, and we were very grateful. Our birth Mom and her boyfriend also wanted a closed adoption, but wanted to meet with us one time before the adoption took place. We met at a restaurant. Randy and I were nervous but excited to meet them. We thought they would have so many questions to ask us. Much to our surprise they didn’t talk to us at all. Our attorney asked them if they had any questions for us, but they did not. The only thing the boyfriend assured us was that they did not want any contact with the child, and that they would never try to see the child later on, and that they would definitely never change their mind. When we left the meeting we felt sure that this adoption was going to take place, but felt strange about the fact that they did not have any questions for us.

About a week later we received a call saying that our birth mom had just given birth to a baby girl, we were asked to come to the hospital the next day to see the baby. When we got there, we wanted to see our birth mom and see how she was doing. We had brought her some flowers. Of course, we also could not wait to see our little girl who we named Jacqueline. We were sad to hear that our birth mom did not want to see us. Her boyfriend brought Jacqueline into a room we were waiting in and let us hold her. She was perfect and so beautiful. We both fell in love with her instantly. We told the boyfriend thank you so much and please tell our birth mom that we are praying for her.

We left the hospital feeling happy but concerned about our birth mom. On our way home from the hospital, we received a call on our cell phone from our attorney. She asked us if we wanted to come back to the hospital because our birth mom and boyfriend were leaving and did not want to leave Jacqueline alone. They asked us to come back and stay with her. We were happy to come back, even though our birth mom had not yet signed the surrender. The next day and half were spent at the hospital with our new little girl, who we had fallen completely in love with. However, something strange had happened to Randy and I. Instead of feeling excited that we were going to have a closed adoption, we starting feeling so much compassion for what the birth mom was feeling. We could not imagine the pain she was going through, and thought to ourselves, she just has to see this beautiful child again.

As we spent time in the hospital with Jacqueline we told this little girl all the plans we had ahead for her. We enjoyed feeding her and watching her sleep and the hospital staff was just wonderful to us. They referred to us as her mom and dad.

On the night before our birth mom was to sign the surrender, we were feeding Jacqueline in our hospital room around 9:00pm when the phone rang. It was our attorney and she told us that our birth mom had called her and said that she had changed her mind and that she was coming back to the hospital to get her baby and she wanted us to leave. We were in shock and devastated. We never saw this coming and had allowed ourselves to become emotionally attached to this beautiful child that we thought was ours. Randy and I started crying and so was the nurse from the front desk who had already heard the news. The nurse told us that this was a terrible thing that had happened, and that we will need to take some time to grieve our loss. She suggested we write the birth mom a letter and tell her how we felt. We did just that, we told our birth mom in the letter that we understand what she must be feeling and that to please think about having an open adoption with us where she can visit Jacqueline when she wants to. At the end of our letter we said to her that if you decide to keep Jacqueline, please take very good care of her because we love her so much too. We never heard from our birth mom again. Randy and I went through a very difficult time. It was even harder than our miscarriages, because we actually had held this little baby in our arms.

However, with every bad situation that comes along, some good comes from it. We realized that a closed adoption is way too hard for a birth mother to deal with. We believe our birth mom never really thought things out or had the counseling she needed to help her deal with her decision to place her child for adoption. She was not prepared for the feelings she would have after she gave birth. From that day on, we realized that a open adoption was a much healthier way to adopt for the birth moms sake.

We waited again for our book to be picked, but a year and half went by and nothing else came our way. We started looking at adoption agencies but most of the agencies did very few domestic adoptions and some agencies put you in a lottery or on a waiting list before they could even take you on. Then a friend of ours told us about the Law Offices of Todd M. Kolarik Esq, and we learned about how many successful adoptions they do each year. We called and spoke with Crissy, and she said she would take us into the program.