It's go time!

I'm a Dad! Well, almost. Carlos and I are (hopefully) at the tail end of our adoption journey. I can go into all of the traumatic details from July 2020, but let's save that for another time shall we? 

Eight days ago I woke up to Winnie's barking, as per her usual 'let me out of my play-pen I need to go potty' at 5:50am, only to find a text message from Brittany from 1:21am telling me that her water broke, but she's fine. After letting Winnie outside, I wake up Carlos from a dream he's having and let him know the news.  Well, fast forward twelve hours and we are in our car, Eleven, for a three hour drive to Edmonton to meet Brittany, Grandma and hopefully our soon to be born baby. The events to follow were pure joy and fright, all in a span of 60 seconds. After hours of sitting in Brittany's room getting to know her and Grandma, the labour finally started at 2:36am. We had all placed bets on what time our baby Isaac Benjamin was going to be born. Brittany guessed 1:00am, Carlos guessed 1:40am, Grandma guessed 2:00am, myself 2:20am, and our nurse Komal had the latest time at 3:30am. Well, from 2:36am to 2:40am, Brittany had a very quick birth in which Carlos and I stood by her side while I held her leg to help her push when told to pu-pu-push. Lo and behold, within seconds and minutes, I witnessed the birth of my dear baby Isaac. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, nor did I ever imagine that Carlos and I would get to witness such a miracle of life. Blessed is an understatement. 

Carlos was then asked to cut the umbilical cord (as pre-determined earlier that evening) and poof, baby Isaac was a free little man ready to live his life! As Brittany and I looked on, Brittany asked, "Why isn't he crying" and I then realized that Isaac wasn't breathing. Within minutes, our hospital room was flooded with about an extra dozen hospital doctors, nurses, and a whole bunch of fast acting movements to get our baby to start breathing with the help of an oxygen mask and other apparatus. 

Isaac was then transferred to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), the dreaded place you hear about, but never really want to go to. Isaac has been there ever since. However, he has gone from a baby with nine (I think, I can never keep up actually) different machines/tubes down to just a feeding tube and some stickers that monitor his heart rate, blood pressure, and respiratory rate. 

I'm so thankful that he has recovered so well. At this point, we are only waiting for Isaac to start feeding on his own, without the use of the feeding tube. It has become the nurse's crutch to just simply feed his bottle into the tube, rather than get Isaac to actually suck on his baby bottle. I get it, it's hard to do it and it takes a lot of time (something that they don't often have a ton of), but he's never going to learn if we don't let him practice. And if he doesn't learn to do it on his own, he's never going to get discharged! 

So, here I am StressErella as some of my friends call me.  Did I mention that I'm in Edmonton? I'm in a city that I don't really know, nor have any friends in. Carlos and I just go back and forth to the hospital each day to spend time with Isaac, and deal with bits and pieces of AHS red tape from time to time. Not to mention, all the driving back and forth to bring Brittany to the hospital and back home to Grandma's home in Millwoods, a 30 minute drive each one way. That's two plus hours of driving a day, not to mention the time it takes to do quick little errands, or obligatory hello's to the famjam. At times it can take up to 3-4 hours of my day, and that's hours that I could be spending with my little boy who wants to be cuddled all day (that's what I'm assuming at least). 

Today's biggest frustration was with the Ronald McDonald House. Carlos and I are lucky enough to have gotten referred to this massive hotel style home specifically for parents with children in the NICU or otherwise ill in the hospital. It's so much better than staying in the last two hotels we've been at thus far in our Edmonton journey. So don't get me wrong, I'm thankful and appreciative. However, this morning I had asked if their shuttle service could provide some taxi chits to Brittany, so that I the adoptive dad (the one that drives anyway) doesn't always have to drive two hours each day. They office folks ended up telling me that they could just simply drive her, rather than utilizing taxi chits. And so that's the word I was given, and that's the word that I expected. Well, once again, the red tape strung itself around my neck and choked me yet again, for what feels like the fifth time this past week. 

At the hospital, Brittany was finally ready to go home at 6pm and I offered to call the shuttle service for her. Of course, after the shuttle arrives and the volunteer speaks to me, then her supervisor, then me again, then her supervisor again, she was told she is not allowed to drive Brittany to Millwoods. Welp, that's not what I was told only a mere 8 hours ago! Once again, some kind of communication chain within an organization has failed, and I've become the victim of it. Not to mention, I had to get the guts to tell Brittany that we were going to try this new approach, in hopes that she wouldn't be offended that I don't want to drive her. I hope she doesn't think I don't want her at the hospital, it's more about the time and effort it takes to do all that bloody driving. In fact, I actually enjoy the alone time Brittany and I get together in the car rides so that we can continue to bond and get to know each other. 

Anyway, after the shuttle left Brittany behind at the hospital, I ended up driving Brittany home with Carlos joining us. Once I returned to the Ronald McDonald House, I approached the lady that told the driver that she was allowed to drive Brittany. I tried to clarify the situation in a nice way, without actually going into the background story of who Brittany is and such. Well, she gave me a tiny bit of attitude and recited the organizational policies and how I need to speak to the program manager that arrives at 7am. Okay fine, but can you at least apologize for the miscommunication? For crying out loud, don't you know the kind of stress I'm already under and how this exacerbates it? Don't you know that I'm a bloody social worker and that I'm also a manager? Am I expecting too much to be treated with a little more respect? Sometimes I feel like I've earned it... and I realize how self-righteous that sounds, but c'mon universe, it's been a really difficult year. All of these little hiccups are starting to really build up and I'm nervous I'm going to break at some point. 

I truly hope that all of this is going to prove to be the hardship that enlightens me once we bring home Isaac. All I want is for Isaac to get better, for our adoption to get finalized, and to get home and start our new lives as a happy family. Please. Please. Please. Can that please happen? 

To end this post, my first post of my new blog/journal, I'm glad to say that I decided to go back to the hospital this evening so that I could cuddle with Isaac for an hour before coming back to the RM House. When I'm with him, it feels like nothing else matters. I can stare at him sleeping and feel completely at peace. I hope he can sense that I'm there at his side, holding him, soothing him, caressing him, supporting him, and willing him to become the healthy young boy he's destined to be. I love you my son. That's right, I called you my 'son' and I'm your 'dad'. You're not getting rid of me now ;-)