On our way down to the mall where we were supposed to meet up with everyone, we had to decide whether to tell our friends and family that LeeAnn might have been changing her mind. We had already gotten lots of questions about the birth parents legal standing and how much time they had to relinquish, and since those questions just increase the stress and set up an "us vs. them" dynamic, we decided to keep everything private until things were finalized one way or the other.
We arrived at the mall 30 minutes early and decided to go to a nearby Starbucks, but while there the counselors were in contact with us and let us know they had spoken with LeeAnn and she needed some time to think about what she wanted to do. They hadn't left their office yet, and since it was the day before Thanksgiving (busiest travel day of the year), their travel time was going to be long.
LeeAnn called us about an hour or so after we were supposed to meet at the mall asking to see Ida. While it was awkward to go meet up with her while everything was so up in the air, we didn't feel right keeping Ida away from her so we headed over to meet. When we got there, we all did a really good job of keeping the conversation light and not talking about the big picture of what was going on. Heather and Maria finally came (it took them until 3:30 to get to our 1:00 meeting!) and Rob and I decided to leave LeeAnn, her dad, Ida, Heather, and Maria talking outside Nordstrom while we wandered the mall.
We hadn't known that Ida was going to be out more than 3-4 hours (including travel time) when we left the house, so when 4:30 rolled around, I started getting really worried about getting Ida changed and fed (she had been out since 11:30 am) and getting home to our dog - she had been in the house since about 7:00 am. I texted Heather and a few minutes later received a text back that we should meet up to talk.
It turned out that LeeAnn had changed her mind several times during their conversation. At one point, Heather and Maria had come to tell us that Ida was going to go home with LeeAnn, but then LeeAnn called them back and changed her mind. At the point they met with us, LeeAnn was asking them to continue with the adoption plan but the agency had a lot of concerns about her ability to make the adoption decision. Their impressions were that LeeAnn was parroting whatever parent she had with her or talking to her at any given time and that she wasn't really making the decision herself. Additionally, she had waffled more than most birth parents who are going to go through with an adoption. Heather and Maria told us that they thought there was a lot of risk involved in moving forward and they thought we should really consider how far in we wanted to be.
We thought about it for a few minutes, but we had fallen in love with Ida by then, so I don't think we were capable of saying we didn't want her to come home with us. I was very concerned about attachment though. I've learned a lot about infant mental health in my line of work and I wanted Ida to be able to attach to whoever her primary caregiver was going to be sooner rather than later. The agency was clear that if LeeAnn changed her mind again, they would no longer support the adoption moving forward. We agreed, and went back to meet with LeeAnn.
Heather explained the agreement. She told LeeAnn that if she wanted to talk about feeling sad or lonely after Ida went home with us, the agency would be there to counsel her through those feelings. However, if she expressed a desire to change her mind again, Ida would be going home to her and they would put supports into place for parenting. They would no longer support the adoption. LeeAnn indicated she agreed. We had also asked that LeeAnn contact the counselors directly instead of telling us if she was changing her mind. It seemed like a big ethical quagmire to have her telling us instead of the counselors when we knew that any statement that she changed her mind would result in Ida being removed from our home. We made a plan for LeeAnn to visit the next day (Thanksgiving). I asked her if she wanted to make little hand-print turkey paintings with Ida and maybe take a stroll to our local park. LeeAnn seemed excited about those ideas, and that seemed promising.
Finally, at 6:15, we left the mall.
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