I Can Do It All By Myself - My Adoption Story

I started working at A Helping Hand Adoption Agency the first week of May, 2007. On May 2, 2007, a little boy weighing a little over 5 lbs. was born in Guatemala. The following week, I was sitting in my office when I heard Maria, one of the Guatemala advocates begin praying out loud saying, "Dear Lord, thank you for these two precious baby boys, these two referrals we have received from Guatemala, we ask your blessing on these two little boys and ask that you please help us find families for them. In Your name, AMEN." Another girl in the office and I asked about them. She said, we got two referrals of little boys who were born last week and we have no families who are ready to accept them.

FAST FORWARD to September. It was brought up in the office that A Helping Hand still had a little boy who was available but who was now being overlooked because families wanted newborns. I went to Philip's office, another Guatemala advocate who had just begun the process of adopting a little girl himself, started asking questions about adopting from Guatemala and asked if I could see the referral information. He gave me the information I needed and told me where I could find the medical information and pictures in the database. I quickly sat at my computer to take a peek at the file of Eddy Alejandro Godinez-Sazo and I immediately knew that this little boy was supposed to be my son. I just needed to convince my husband.

I still have the e-mails we sent back and forth to one another. I remember many conversations we had about adoption, this little boy in particular and the financial aspects. I knew I had said all I could say and it would be my husband's final decision. I finally told him, "You know how I feel about this little boy, I want him to be our son, but if you do not want to do this, then I understand. I promise you I will not bring it up again" and I knew that as hard as that was going to be, that would be what I would have to do. I was beginning to think that I was going to have to let go of my dream of adoption while at the same time feeling that God had put me at AHH for the purpose of finding this little boy. Two days later, Husband came and said, "What do we have to do to make that little boy ours?" My mouth dropped open and I jumped out of the chair and gave him the biggest hug EVER!

On September 11, 2007, we filed our Application to Adopt. On September 14, 2007, we filed our initial paperwork with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service and were on our way to making this little boy OURS! After months of paperchasing, completing a home study, having physicals, fingerprints, criminal record checks, waiting on DNA testing, stressing through Guatemala's decision to close adoptions and trying to get through PGN, waiting for a Guatemalan birth certificate, and then waiting on the U.S. Embassy, we finally received all of the approvals we needed from the U.S. and Guatemala to bring this little boy home. One year and one day later, on September 12, 2008, we raced Hurricane Ike to the Texas border and arrived at our old Kentucky home with our new son - Edison Alejandro Underwood!

If you want to read more about our adoption journey, written as it happened two years ago, please visit my old blog: To Eden for Edison http://www.toedenforedison.blogspot.com

The first few paragraphs and my initial blog are the wonderful parts of Edison's adoption story from my perspective. Unfortunately, a turn of events took place during the adoption and once we returned home and our lives took a totally different path than what I dreamed. My story doesn't end with "and the five of them lived happily ever after." Actually, a nightmare began for me when we were in the middle of the process and continued non-stop. Now, two years after Edison joined our family, I feel I am finally recovering and can move on with my life.

WARNING: Some readers may not want to read the rest of this story. These are the facts as I interpret them and most people will agree it is what happened. Not everyone who was involved will agree but I still say facts are facts. I can try to leave opinions out but I cannot tell this story without my feelings. When it was all said and done, it is another confirmation to me that God indeed had a plan for ME through Edison's adoption...and I know I was a part of His plan for Edison.

Soon after we started the adoption process, something changed in my husband's demeanor. He was no longer affectionate and loving toward me as he had been in our 21 years together. I kept asking him what was wrong and he would say "I'm just tired." I thought he was depressed, kind of facing a mid-life crisis, because he was turning 40. I tried to cheer him up by surprising him with two tickets to watch the Indianapolis Colts play on his birthday in November. The trip was a disaster - I just didn't realize what was going on yet. At the end of November, I made a bi-lingual book on Shutterfly to mail to Edison's foster mom so she could begin introducing him to his new family. No matter how hard I tried, I could not get Husband to smile for any of the pictures. I began to worry that he was having second thoughts and didn't want to go through the adoption. He assured me that was not it.

In February, we took our daughters on a mission trip to Guatemala. Part of the week we spent doing mission work and the end of the week we spent meeting Edison. Husband was very cool toward me the entire week but he was working hard and I chalked it up to him "being tired." I have video and pictures of when he first met Edison that haunt me and everyone else who looks at them. I think a link to the video can be found on my previous blog linked above. I later learned that many people started expressing their concern when they saw the video that Husband was not "into" the adoption. At the end of March, Husband told me he wasn't happy and he thought we needed to separate. My first question was "what about Edison?" and I will NEVER, EVER forget the words he said to me. He said, "I don't think we need to bring him into this." I glared at him and through clenched teeth I said something similar to... "That little boy is my son. Guatemalan adoptions are closed. If we don't bring him home, he will end up living on the streets, shining shoes or selling necklaces to put food in his belly! If you can live with that, then you go ahead and leave!" He left on the weekend of our 19th wedding anniversary.

I will never forget that Sunday morning. The girls had stayed with grandparents because I was trying to plan a getaway for our anniversary. As he walked out the front door, I collapsed into our bedroom floor wailing and crying, begging him not to leave. I had a million thoughts swirling through my mind concerning my marriage, my love for this man, my hurt, our two biological daughters, and one precious little boy who we had met in February who I already considered our son. After several minutes, I pulled myself off the floor and reached for the telephone. I called my friend Sharon and asked her to go to church to get my mom out of Sunday school and tell her I needed her to come help me - NOW!

We had friends and family rally around us. Husband came home that afternoon but would not talk. He left again that evening, this time with both of our daughters sobbing. He returned home the next day, we read letters we had written to each other and we had a long heart to heart talk. We made new promises to each other and he said he was coming home, that we would work this out. I made changes and he did too. Things seemed good through all of April and into May. I stayed quiet and never mentioned a word of the marital problems to our social worker as I knew it could disrupt the adoption proceedings. By the end of May, Husband became distant again. I suspected there was someone else in his life, he repeatedly denied it and I could not confirm it until one day I received a text message that he intended to send to the "someone else". I knew as soon as I read it that it was not intended for me. I immediately called him and he denied it. By the time I got home from work and confronted him, he finally admitted it. I honestly cannot tell you when I received this text but I think it was within a few weeks after I returned to work after Edison came home. I know that I was both devastated to find out and relieved to finally confirm that my intuition was correct!

From that point, I don't know what happened or how I made it through the first weeks and months Edison was home. I know that I tried to do absolutely everything for Edison because Husband had told me he was afraid that the "novelty" of adopting him would wear off and he and our oldest daughter would end up "raising him". I fed him, bathed him, rocked him, read to him, and played with him. I met all of his needs. The only thing Husband did was hold him until he fell asleep at night and that became his excuse for sleeping on the couch.

Lots of stuff happened during those months that are not part of this adoption story. They are part of my divorce story. I was at my wit's end and I did something that put the nail in the coffin so to speak. I went to try to talk to Husband's parents. My mother went with me for moral support and Husband showed up too. My mom said that if she hadn't been there to personally see for herself what I experienced, that she would have never believed that I would have been treated the way I was treated. I went there to ask them for their help to try to save my marriage. I wanted to tell them that their son was having an affair, but I didn't. I tried to lay my heart out to them, I even had notes with me, I tried to tell them that I was doing all I could to save my marriage and it was falling on deaf ears. Husband's dad never said a word but his mom got angry with me and she kept repeating over and over, "He has not been happy for a long time, I just want him to be happy." (I'll blog about "happiness" at a later time)

I left that night and took the kids with me to my mom and dad's house but Edison wouldn't go to sleep and the girl's couldn't go to sleep. I loaded them up late that night and we went back home. On Monday morning of Thanksgiving week, we had an appointment to get Edison's name changed from Eddy Alejandro to Edison Alejandro, a name Husband and I had chosen together. We went to court in the pouring rain and took care of that. I ran to the car and was drenched. Husband buckled Edison into his car seat and then knocked on my window. I rolled the window down and he had a file folder in his hand, he said, "I'm going back in to file divorce papers." Again, I was devastated. How TACKY --- and that's all I'm going to say about that...no, actually it's not! Our son will see the date on this important paper changing his name. This is a court paper that he will need to use a few times during his life. It will not take much for him to realize that his dad filed for divorce from his mom on the SAME day, just two months after he arrived home. He could have filed for divorce the next day or the next week, he didn't have to file on such an important day in Edison's history! Thanksgiving was sad and difficult.

I remained in the house and so did he. I wanted Edison to have ONE Christmas with his whole family together. I didn't want to uproot my children and I didn't have the money it would take to establish a new residence. He didn't want to leave for fear of it appearing that he was abandoning his kids. It was a stressful time for all of us. All I could do was cry. He wouldn't talk. The girls were quiet and visibly upset. Edison was transitioning through so many things. He was learning a new language, adjusting to new foods, new smells, people who looked different, a new home, becoming part of what was supposed to be a "forever" family. Financially, I was finally able to move out on New Year's Eve. Our divorce was final the week before Valentine's Day and Husband became Wasband. He married the "someone else" less than 7 months later on Labor Day weekend. (See a pattern of holiday's here? He's so unoriginal - LOL)

I tell you all of this craziness to let you know that God had a plan, even in all of this mess. I know that I have not seen His entire plan come full circle and I may never. I know this much...God knew that Edison needed a family and although it's not the best option, I believe in his case that a split family is definitely better than no family at all. God knew that I needed Edison. My daughters were the ages of 10 and 14 at the time we separated. While they will always "need" their mother, they did not "need" me to bathe, feed or clothe them. When we first separated, the girls split their time equally between Wasband and myself by spending one week with me and then one week with him. If I had not had Edison in my life during that time, I feel certain I would have crawled into a fetal position on those weeks without them and slipped into a depressive state that would have been difficult to recover. The thing is...I had Edison, a little boy, less than two years old, who needed me to feed him, bathe him, clothe him, care for him. He needed love, hugs and kisses.

Edison is very aware of human emotions and I think that is because of his own life experiences. I would sometimes sit on the couch, watching tv when the girls were with their dad, and just start crying. He couldn't talk, but he would crawl up on the couch and stand next to me and rub my arm or my hair. He would lay his head in my lap and force me to look at him and would smile the biggest smile in the world! He gave me a reason to smile and he made me laugh when I had nothing to laugh about. He loved me unconditionally! Just today, I was laying on the bed reading with him and out of the blue he asked me if I was happy. I smiled and said, "yes, Edison, Mommy is happy" and he said, "I like you to be happy." He is the most compassionate 3 year old boy you will ever meet. I hate the circumstances he came into and I hate that he had to adjust to so much in the 1st year he was home, but I know these experiences shaped him into the toddler he is and will play a major role in the boy and man he will become.

I had an elderly aunt ask my mother if I "intended to send him back" since Wasband had left. My mom laughed and said, "no, she's not gonna send him back." I want Edison to know that I fought like HELL to make sure he became MY SON and he doesn't know it now, but he gave me the energy to fight to survive the most horrible thing I have experienced in my life to date! I never once thought of ending my life because I have always had too much to live for with my wonderful family and beautiful daughters, but Edison forced me to keep going, to not give up, to not roll up and accept defeat - I fought and because of that, I have learned that I am a very strong woman and an extremely capable single mom.

This isn't the typical adoption story. It's not the story I want to tell but it's the story God has written for me. Edison's family tree will have roots, branches and extra limbs. He has biological parents, biological siblings, adoptive parents, adoptive sisters, a stepparent and step-siblings and he is going to be okay! Most of all, he has a mother who absolutely adores him, who spoils him and who will try to make sure that through all of the emotional trauma and confusion he has experienced in his young life, that he will grow up to be a wonderful, caring and compassionate man --- who can play soccer, football and baseball like no other little boy who has ever been raised by a single mom :-)

P.S. The novelty hasn't worn off - I DO IT ALL with very little help!