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Goodbyes and Hospital Stays

How One Young Woman Made Her Hospital Stay Worth Remembering

Christine laid her head on the pillow, and a damp cloth was quickly passed across her forehead. Quiet urgency moved the nurses and staff around the room as they busily prepped her for the birth. Her labor had kept her up most of the night. It was now 4:30 a.m., and obviously Christine’s baby, like most newborns, was coming into the world with no regard for time schedules.

The birth of Christine’s baby was no more painful than a typical delivery. There were no complications, and except for a slightly extended labor, her experience was different from the average birth in only one respect: hers was the beginning of a separation, rather than the beginning of a life together with her new baby. This is the story of how Christine made the birth and delivery of her child a special and memorable experience, which she reflects upon whenever she thinks about the child for whom she created her adoption plan.

Creating Lasting Memories
Christine created an adoption plan, as many birth mothers do, that allowed her baby to go directly home from the hospital with the loving adoptive couple she had chosen as her child’s new parents. In her adoption plan she also chose to invite them to be with her during her delivery. “Having Gary and Dianne there was a blessing,” she says. “Having them there to help coach me through my labor and birth of our child made all of us happy because they would later be able to tell our child that both her birth mother and adoptive parents had been there for her the day that she was born.” Christine understands that not every birth mother would have chosen to do this, as some prefer to have only immediate family present at the birth. She also understands that not all birth mothers will choose to conduct their hospital stay exactly as she did, but she suggests that planning your hospital experience allows you to make decisions ahead of time and discuss them with the parties involved.

Saying Hello and Goodbye
Christine had decided in her plan that she was going to hold, feed and change her child after its birth, in an effort to say hello to her child before having to say goodbye.

Christine sighs as she recounts the tender moments that she shared with her baby and its new parents during those first few hours after her birth. “Gary handed the baby to me and let me clean her up a bit. We put a little diaper on her, and I had to use some baby wipes to wipe away my own tears,” she says. “The staff took some pictures, and Dianne broke out a cake she had made for the baby’s birthday. It was great that they were so sensitive to my feelings.” Christine had been told that many birth mothers create small, personal remembrances of their experiences in the hospital, and when deciding on hers she had asked Dianne if they could celebrate the day with a cake.

Christine also talked about how important it was for her to send her baby home with a memento. “I gave an envelope to Dianne containing a letter to my child and a locket containing a picture of me,” she says. In some plans the birth mother will even provide a picture of the birth father, a birth father letter or an audio tape or videotape of herself for her child. That took a lot of my pain away, knowing my baby would still know me. And because mine was an open adoption plan, we are planning to keep in touch.” Additionally, Christine made footprints and handprints of her child and saved her baby’s hospital name tag, hospital baby blanket, a copy of the birth certificate and the pictures the staff had taken as mementos of her experience and to help her adjust to her loss. (Some birth mothers videotape the birth) Arranging for these few special touches made her decision easier for her to accept, because it made the whole experience something she could reflect on comfortably.

Is There Life After Goodbye?
Christine’s life after the separation is on track. She’s back in school now and doing all of the normal things she did before she was pregnant. She often writes letters to Gary and Dianne and receives letters and photographs from them on a regular basis. She has visited her counselor a few times since her delivery and has been attending a birth mother support group whenever she needs to talk about her experience. Her friends in the support group are very understanding. Christine was determined after her delivery to move on with
her life, and she says this was the hardest part of her adoption plan. “There were a lot of times at first when I felt as though I just wanted to run and get my baby and come home,” she says. “But when I would take a few moments to review the diary I kept and reassess my reasoning for choosing adoption in the first place and remember that the decision to create the adoption plan was entirely my own decision, I would begin to feel better knowing that I had done the right thing for both myself and my child.”

Of course, what Christine did was not easy. Although she sometimes thinks about what her life might have been like if she had kept her baby, she tries not to dwell on it. “There’s nothing to do when you make a decision like this but look ahead and try to sort things out,” she says. “If I let myself think about what my life could have been like with my baby, I lose sight of what I really need to be doing with my life. I just take solace in the fact that I know that none of my available options were perfect or without some sadness or loss, and realizing this I just chose the option I thought was best for me. I realize that someday I’ll have an opportunity to have kids again, and when I do, next time
I’ll be ready.”

Christine’s self-portrait might seem like a granite building, standing strong on firm ground, but she would not have made it alone. “I owe most of the strength that carried me through all of this to my counselor,” she says. “She was great to work with. If it had not been for her, I would have been lost most of the time and probably would have come away from the adoption feeling ripped off. Instead, I have learned to come to terms with my decision, and I have learned how to move on with my life. But it has not been totally easy for me. My body still has not forgotten that I had a baby. So sometimes the sadness and loss are worse, because my body reminds me that I am supposed to be feeding and nurturing a child.”

In spite of Christine’s rough start, she has finished on top. She made up her own mind, came to some positive conclusions, and made a courageous, selfless, and loving decision to create an adoption plan for her child. By planning her hospital stay—and the events she wanted to have take place there—she created a lasting memory that honors the birth of her child and her decision.

“I gave an envelope to Dianne containing a letter to my child and a locket containing a picture of me.”

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