Happy Mother's Day!

I want to wish all you who have mothered a child, Happy Mother's Day!  Selene sent me a wonderful e-card announcing me as the Mother of the Decade!  I cannot thank her enough!  After all, she is the reason I am a mother.
And as I didn't get her story told for her birthday, I think I will share with you dear readers how Scott and I became parents:

We were getting ready to move out to Perrydale. It was a huge old house that the last tenant had trashed. The landlord was giving us a month’s rent to clean up the place and paint it. Our friends, Pat and Kathi, came along to help with getting all of the work finished.


The new landlord came over to tell Scott the sheriff was looking for us. Well, that was scary. Scott knew his dad was on the road with the high school Speech Team, maybe there was an accident. He and Pat had to run back to town to get more stuff anyway; so they were going to stop by the Sheriff’s Office.

In the meantime, I was cleaning petrified cat poop out of the bathroom and Kathi was cleaning burned beans out of the kitchen, when the landlord came over again. “The Sheriff is on the phone and wants to talk with you.”

So I ran over to the landlord’s house, where they were just sitting down to lunch, to take the call. “Your baby is being born,” said a very familiar voice. It was another of our friends on the phone.

She explained that through a friend of a friend of a friend, sort of a deal, she had found out about a woman having a baby she couldn’t keep. And we could have the baby!

Can you say, “Over the moon happy?” As I ran back through the landlord’s dining room I yelled, “We’re having a baby!” The family was dumbfounded as I ran back to the house.

I came through the door and told Kathi what had happened. We dropped the cleaning supplies and got into the car for the trip back to town. I kept talking about the baby being a girl. Kathi reminded me it could be a boy; after all, her two boys were in the backseat. I KNEW my new baby was a girl.

We got back to town; Scott and Pat were loading up another pickup load of stuff. When Scott and I saw each other we said, in unison, “We’re parents!” The whole neighborhood had turned out to hear the news!

Back in the house, we had to find the young woman and let her know we would take the baby. We had been given her name and her phone number, but the number didn’t work. Talk about frustration! We also needed to find a lawyer who would take us through the legalities. So, I spent the afternoon on the phone calling lawyers, Oregon Supreme Court Judges (lovely people who couldn’t help but were ecstatic about the adoption), trying the birth mother’s number, different hospitals, etc. Finally, we got hold of a lawyer, on a Saturday, who would help us out. Then the birth mother called to let us know her phone was broken; but she had heard from her friend about us. She would call us after the baby was born.

We went back to work cleaning the new house and packing up the old. We still had to paint the new place. And move all our furniture. And get ready for a baby. All in less than a week! I did remember to call our parents and siblings to let them know.

About 5 am the next day, we got the call that we had a little girl! We were told the name of the hospital and to check with them to schedule a time to pick her up.

Our lawyer got started on the paperwork immediately. It was Wednesday when we trekked to the Big City to get our daughter. By the way, I had wanted to call her Sacheen Patricia; Scott vetoed that big time! After a long discussion we decided on Selene (Greek goddess of the moon) Patricia (after my mother and Scott’s too).

We got lost getting to the lawyer’s office. We got lost going to the hospital. Found the hospital and went to the wrong building. Right building, wrong floor; right floor, wrong turn! Finally, there at the nurses’ station was a bassinette with this tiny, red-haired beauty. I have never in my life felt such an emotion. My heart swelled, I grabbed Scott’s hand and whispered, “There’s our daughter.”

When we told the nurse who we were she picked up the baby and said, “Little baby, who had no parents to love, meet your parents, who already love you.”

She took us to a private room where I held Selene for the first time. She was so small, just six pounds 10 ounces. We got her foot prints. Then, I got to change her diaper, a messy one. Yup, she introduced us to the next 18 years!

We dressed her in a cute dress, blanket, and little bonnet. The nurse loaded us up with supplies and we took our leave.

These being the time before car seats were widely used; I held her as we drove away, singing ‘Jesus Loves Me’ quietly as she fussed about the changes of being in a car and with new people.

It’s been 30 years and I’ve got to say, that was the best day of my life. The day I became a Mom.

My baby and her baby