The call

We finally got the call that my family has been waiting and praying for.

It was a Saturday night in January. My husband and I had just finished dinner and were enjoying a glass of wine when my sister called. I knew that she was downtown that evening and didn’t expect her to be calling, so I quickly answered.

I was met with the words that I had been longing to hear from her: “We got the call! We have a baby. We are going up tomorrow to the hospital.”

You see, my sister and her husband have been waiting to be selected for adoption. They went through a very long and emotionally draining vetting process and knew that any day they could get the call. The days of waiting turned into weeks and months.

They had a nursery ready in their home that was anxiously filled with outfits and special touches; all it was missing was a baby. We knew that it could happen like this. We did not know when, but we knew that any day we could get a call and have our baby. My sister and her husband have been through so much to become parents. I’ve never seen two people fight harder to have a child and go through more to have a baby. They went through failed adoptions, infertility, and heartbreak in the loss of my brother-in-law’s mother.

I sat on the couch with the phone on speaker phone and both my husband and I cried tears of joy. We were flooded with excitement, and, of course, worry because of the uncertainty. What if things fall through and the birth mother changes her mind? What will this do to my sister and brother-in-law? Can they handle more heartbreak? Please, God, if this is meant to be, let him be their child and we wrap our arms around him. Please don’t break their hearts again.

I asked her if it was a boy or a girl. My sister said that all they knew was they had been matched and they were meeting the birth mom with the baby at the hospital the next morning.

I went to sleep that evening knowing that our worlds were about to change. The next morning, I woke up to another phone call from my sister saying that the little baby was a boy, and they were headed a couple of hours up north to meet him.

My sister and brother-in-law made their way to the hospital and found the room. They met the birth mother and her family and got to know each other. Meanwhile, back at home, the following days were spent in prayer and were riddled with anxiety. What if the birth mom meets them and decides to parent? As a mom, I cannot imagine the decision of placing your child for adoption and the emotional toll that would take on a family. As the hopeful soon-to-be aunt and sister, I just wanted her to sign the papers and know how much my family was going to love and cherish this baby.

My mom and I would proceed to text my sister on a loop, trying to find out what was going on a few hours north in a hospital, with a woman we have never met, who now held the hearts of my sister and brother-in-law in her hands.

Sunday turned into Monday and I’m at work trying to focus and not psychotically check my phone every two seconds to see if there was an update. My mom would ask me if I talked to my sister, and I’d do the same to her.

People my sister has never met were praying rosaries near and far, and pleading that God protect this child and their hearts.

Stay tuned for next time to see what happens.

Megan Rathz is a wife, mother, and teacher. She says everything she has ever learned in life came from her Master Gardener mother.