I received a phone call from a church member from Sebring, on Thursday, March 22, 2007, while I was in Tampa to visit a church member from Punta Gorda at TGH. Her son, Hiram, and his girlfriend, Kelly, were expecting, and they were no longer together as a couple. Kelly already had three children at home as a single mom, and she was working four jobs, struggling to make ends meet. Hiram couldn’t take care of the baby by himself, and his mother couldn’t help him because of her own health issues, so she asked them to consider letting us adopt their baby. Another church member from Sebring is a good friend of hers, and she was praying hard for that to happen. I don’t know how long it took, but they finally decided to go that route, and Hiram’s mother called me. I told her we were definitely interested! I gave her Karen’s phone numbers and asked her to call Karen to share the details. I talked to Karen later that afternoon, and we made plans to go up and meet them.
We met them on Saturday, March 24, at Kelly’s house, and we all felt very comfortable with the plan. Goldie played with Desiree while we talked in the living room. The following week, we made phone calls to our social worker who helped us get Desiree and to our lawyer’s office. Our lawyer was on vacation, so we called another lawyer in Sebring with whom we were familiar. We met with her on Friday, April 6, and decided to retain her. She was a little more expensive than our previous lawyer, but she was local, and the other lawyer would have charged us to drive to Sebring for paperwork (6 hours round trip, $1200!), so we figured it was better to have the one in Sebring. On Friday, before meeting with her, we went with Kelly, Hiram and their daughter to Kelly’s appointment with her doctor and to the hospital to get information for Kelly. We went with Kelly, et al, again to her doctor’s appointment the following Thursday, April 12, and then to the hospital to get Kelly registered, as she and her doctor had decided to induce labor the next morning. We went home to pack our bags and pick up Grandmama Lanelle, and then we returned to spend the night with our cousins in Avon Park, Al & Lucy Loveless.
We were present for the birth on April 13, arriving a little before 9:00 AM. Mary Elizabeth was born at 10:11 AM. I cut the umbilical cord when she came out, and Karen was the first one to hold her after the nurse cleaned her up! That was Kelly’s desire—she wanted us to have the whole experience, since we missed it with Desiree. They moved Kelly into another room within about four hours of the birth, and she went home on Saturday. We stayed in the OB unit with the baby until we were discharged on Monday, and the hospital staff treated us as if we were the birth parents! The adoption would be final in three or four months, we hoped—Hiram and Kelly both signed the appropriate papers before we left the hospital.
Our relationship with Hiram and Kelly was amazing! We were so impressed with them—they were as grateful for us coming into their lives as we were for them! Hiram, Kelly and the three kids came to Punta Gorda for a visit on April 25, and they came again, along with Kelly’s mom, on Mother’s Day when we dedicated Mary Elizabeth to Jesus, and I took them all to Outback for lunch after church. They returned to the house for a little longer visit, and then they returned to Sebring. We saw them several times after that when we were in Sebring, and Kelly visited us in our home several other times. We don’t see them as often any more, but we stay in touch through the Internet. (Isn’t it great?!)
We visited our lawyer’s office on Friday, July 20, to sign the papers requesting the court to grant full and final custody to us with the adoption decree, and we set a court date of August 7 at 10:00 AM. When that day arrived, we took my mother and went to Sebring the night before, spending the night with our dear friend, Butchie. Desiree very vividly remembers hearing Judge John K. Stargel tell us, during the court hearing, that we could keep Mary Elizabeth forever. Immediately following the hearing, we visited Kelly at her workplace, a local surgery center, and she joined us for lunch at Red Lobster. We then went back to Butchie’s house to gather our things, and we went home to Punta Gorda.
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