Babyland

Interesting development around here yesterday, must discuss...

A call came in at 3:00 yesterday afternoon asking The Hub if we would be interested in a three day old caucasian boy, healthy, voluntary TPR within the week. The baby was ready to be discharged from the hospital any time, and we were the first of three couples to be called (our social workers are fond of us). I was prepping a rack of lamb and didn't answer the phone when The Hub called me, since the number on caller ID was a strange name and I was up to my elbows in flesh. The Hub left work, the ladies in his office pushing him out the door and telling him to drive carefully.

I already knew that being asked if you'd parent three children under three will scramble your brain. Turns out, being asked if you'd like a newborn delivered to your door by dinnertime has the same effect. By the time The Hub got home, our twenty minute head start on other families was up, so we had to decide quickly.

It wasn't an immediate yes. We leaned toward no, we thought about baby names, we called both sets of parents, we leaned toward yes, we called my sister's fiance to find out if they could bring the crib in my parents' attic to our house that night, maybe pick up a mattress on the way out, and I broke into tears because I didn't have a crib quilt made and because my husband has never changed a diaper.

In the end, someone else said yes first. They've had an empty nursery for many,, many years, and I am so, so happy that I was boning the rack of lamb, that I didn't answer The Hub's call, and that our house is forty minutes from his office, because all those things meant that our friends finally brought home a baby from the hospital.

My mom is slightly miffed at me because we didn't say yes right away, but she'll live. We're thinking we'll buy some baby supplies so next time we won't be caught so off guard, and so we'll actually be able to think of something else other than, "We Have Nothing For A Baby." And if we'd taken this child, I think he would have been referred to as The Baby for weeks, since we've never thought that we'd be naming a foster or adopted child and don't have any names on deck.

Anyone else getting the feeling our agency is babyland? Can you believe that people go through their domestic infant programs and wait for years, whereas we are foster adopt with the intent of adopting 5-16 and within three months we've been offered four littles? All of this makes my head spin.

Back to work. Have a roux to make and a nap to take.