The Yellow Sock: An Adoption Story (12 page)
Read The Yellow Sock: An Adoption Story Online
Authors: Angela Hunt
On the 26
th
of October, Helen called again. Danielle was ready, another child was ready, but they were waiting on a third child to be cleared before they would book the children’s flight. “Plan on next Tuesday,” Helen said. “If there are any changes, I’ll let you know. And as soon as I have her flight information, I’ll call.”
Megan hung up and sent a smile winging across the room. “Tuesday,” she told her husband, knowing her smile explained everything. “Seven more days.”
Megan filled the long week with busy work—she cleaned the baby’s room, scoured out the kitchen cabinets, and organized the clothes in Danielle’s closet—the tiny 12-months dresses on the right, followed by the 18-months, then 24-months, and finally a couple of larger dresses she’d been unable to resist in a Polly Flinders outlet. One dress, a red-and-white concoction of tulle and ribbon, hung at the far left, size 6x. Megan looked at the huge dress and shrugged. Danielle would fit into it eventually. Her coming home was truly no longer a matter of
if
, but
when
.
On Saturday evening, Megan’s mother called with breathless news. “Melanie just had her baby,” she said, yelling to be heard over the commotion in the background. “A boy! She had him at the birthing center, and barely had time to get there before the baby came.”
“You should have called me,” Megan said, frowning. “I would have liked to be there—and I could have handled it.”
“There wasn’t time, believe me.” Her mother’s voice was soothing. “Melanie had the baby quickly. I didn’t get here until after it was all over.”
“Wow.” Megan smiled, drinking in the unexpected wonder. Melanie’s due date was November 16, so this little guy had come early . . . and he’d managed to beat his older cousin home by at least three days.
“I’ll be over to see her tomorrow,” Megan promised, making a mental note to stop by the mall to pick up a gift for a baby boy.
She hung up, knowing she could be happy for her sister without reservation. After all, she was a mother, too, with a baby arriving in seventy-two hours.
On Monday morning, Helen called with concrete details—Danielle would be arriving with four other children, not on Tuesday, but on Friday evening. Megan swallowed her disappointment about the date and consoled herself with the realization that at last they knew a definite date and time: 5:59 p.m., November fourth. Their little girl was finally coming home.
Megan spent the week in domestic activities—she planted tulips, raked the last bedraggled leaves from the lawn, and began a cross-stitched family portrait for her mother, complete with two new babies in the family. On Thursday night she boiled baby bottles, packed a diaper bag with disposables, and tucked in a new outfit, pink booties, and a soft yellow blanket. The car seat and baby stroller waited in the car.
After a leisurely lunch on Friday morning, Dave and Megan got into the car and began to back out the driveway. Another vehicle screeched to a halt in the road behind them, and as Megan turned, she saw Dr. Stella Comfort leaning out the driver’s window, waving. “I heard the good news!” she called, her eyes shining. “I’ll be praying for you!”
The four-hour drive to Washington National Airport seemed to take forever, and not even the stark beauty of the autumnal countryside could take Megan’s mind off her impending motherhood. Washington traffic had shifted into flee-for-the-weekend mode when they hit the Beltway, and after they finally found a parking place at the airport, they had to run and catch a shuttle to the terminal.
Breathless, Dave and Megan reached the gate at 5:30 p.m., where they learned that the children’s flight had been delayed from 5:59 to 6:33. Helen Gresham stood there, soothing each of the four anxious couples with a calm and gracious smile. Megan wanted to camp out next to Helen’s side, but realized she shouldn’t be possessive. Each woman in their small circle probably saw Helen as their personal rock of Gibraltar.
She suppressed a smile as she looked around the group. Each couple was as loaded down as she and Dave were, for each expected a child: one, a 21-month-old girl, another a six-month-old boy, and the other a ten-month old girl.
When at last the plane arrived, Megan stood on tiptoe and scanned each face as if by some miracle Danielle might walk herself off the plane. Every single passenger—a seemingly endless stream of them—entered the gate area before Helen and three other Welcome Home social workers boarded the plane to fetch the children. Finally the quartet reappeared and stepped into the blinding light of strobic camera flashes. Helen, the last woman off the plane, carried Danielle.
Megan stared in stupefaction when she recognized the smile she had memorized from precious photographs. Weeping silently, she took the baby from Helen for a brief hug, then handed her to Dave . . . her daddy.
Danielle grinned the entire time. As a few curious spectators drew near, she grinned even more . . . an active, curious little ham.
Megan wasn’t sure what impulse guided her actions, but she opened the diaper bag, spread the yellow blanket on the carpet, and gently pulled off Danielle’s pajamas and wet diaper. In no time at all she had dressed her baby in a clean diaper, fresh cotton booties, and a soft flannel sleeper.
And as she passed their precious daughter to Dave, she couldn’t help noticing that the other families were changing their babies, too. Perhaps, she thought, watching them, the urge to dress these children came from practical considerations—after all, they’d been flying for nearly 24 hours. But Megan believed the urge sprang from deeper instincts. After waiting so long and working so hard, each family wanted to dress the child in clothes
they
had prepared and provided. Somehow, the simple act of placing clean clothes on a baby helped make him yours.
The words from a long-ago afternoon returned on a tide of memory. In the park, Andre’s mother had described the experience perfectly: adoption was a time of waiting and a time of hard labor, complete with every pain and every joy. And now that their child had come home, Megan knew she had been blessed.
As Dave cooed and bounced the baby in his arms, Megan gathered the top and bottom of the orange pajamas Danielle had worn on the plane. She’d save these things for her daughter’s memory box.
Then her gaze fell upon the crumpled yellow socks she’d peeled from those chubby little feet. They were unlike any booties she’d ever seen—longer than American baby socks, and embroidered with an image of a bumblebee hovering over a blossom.
She laughed softly as she smoothed out the wrinkles. She held a little bit of Korea, a small part of her baby’s history, the essence of everything she had dreamed . . . and God had allowed. In the last three years she had been tested, tried, shaped, and hammered. At time she had borne the pain stoically, at other times she had whined and screamed and pounded the floor. But through it all, she had been able to trace God’s hand of provision. And that assurance of His abiding faithfulness would get them through the terrible twos, adolescence, dating . . . and the heart-rending moment when they would watch their darling daughter walk into the arms of her future husband.
Megan’s throat tightened at the thought.
No one had ever promised that adoption—or parenting—would be easy. Just worthwhile.
She swallowed the lump in her throat, then wrapped the yellow socks in the pajamas and placed the bundle into the diaper bag. “Come on, Dad and daughter,” she said, lifting the bag to her shoulder. “Let’s go home.”
* * *
About the Author
Angela Hunt and her husband have adopted two children, now grown, from Korea. The story you’ve just read is fiction, but just barely. Names have been changed, but the emotions are true.
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