The 72 Hour Wait | An Adoptive Parent Prospective

When adopting a child from birth, the biological mother has 72 hours after giving birth to have a change of heart.  A change of heart is when a woman that has chosen to place for adoption changes her mind and decides to parent the child herself.  If the birth father is known at the time of birth, he also has 72 hours until he too signs a release of custody.  If he is not known, then he has up to six months (the time of the finalization of the adoption in the court) to come forward to parent the child.  For both of our adoptions, the birth father was known so both of our daughters’ biological mothers and fathers signed the release at the 72 hour mark.  This 72 hour wait is the hardest, most emotional wait I have ever experienced…twice.

The birth:

The biological mother decides upon a birth plan before the birth.  The plan is documented by the adoption agency and verbally relayed to the adoptive family.  She will decide things like:

• Who will be in the delivery room
• Who will hold the baby first
• How/who will feed the baby first
• How much time she wants/doesn’t want to spend with the baby
• Etc…

The actual birth and all of the events right after make the day quite chaotic.  However, the chaos is nice because you naturally just forget that you are in the 72 hour wait.

Related Post:

An Adoption Story | The Process

The first 24 hours:

While still in the hospital after the birth and before the birth mother is cleared to leave, is when the anxiety starts to creep in.  At this point, after meeting the baby, it is so hard but so necessary to try not to fall completely in love.  It is so difficult, as an adoptive parent, to be caught in this strange limbo of thought and emotion.  On one hand, you know that she has every right to have a change of heart—that is her baby.  On the other hand, you have prayed so hard for the opportunity to parent and are already (as hard as you tried not to) falling in love with this child.  During this time I would just keep telling myself that the biological mother WAS going to have a change of heart and the baby was not going to be coming home with us.  I did so to protect myself… to protect my heart.

@ 48 hours:

Neither of our girl’s biological mothers had to have a caesarian so they were medically cleared to leave after 24 hours.  When they said their good-byes and then left the hospital is when everything really starts to sink in and feel real.  Being alone with the baby changes the emotional dynamic.  This is when I could no longer keep myself from falling completely in love with my daughters.  We were bonding.   However, I still had the hospital there to remind me that this bond could still be broken.  Hospitals are getting better about their adoption plan births, but they are far from perfect.  There is still always a lot of confusion with the staff.  However, those confused looks and questions help to remind you as an adoptive parent to keep that guard up a bit.  Don’t get too comfortable just yet…

The wait for the 72 hour mark:

Coming home is the hardest part of the 72 hour wait.  Of course friends and family want to come meet the baby and they are so excited and falling in love too.  But, you have to keep reminding them that this could still not be their grandchild/niece/cousin/sister/etc…  You have to put on this “strong’ façade and pretend everything is fine and that you are okay with the, “if it’s meant to be, it will be” attitude.  But all the while, your heart is doing uncoordinated somersaults in your chest.  

Then everyone leaves:

All the noise is gone.  The people went home.  No distractions remain.  Now it is just the sound of the clock and your heart.  At this point all I could do was cry and pray.  I cried for our girls’ biological families, especially their mothers and the pain they must be feeling.  And I prayed that they would be at peace with whatever their decision would be.  I cried for us and all that we had been through.  And I prayed that being parents to this child was God’s plan for us.   

I remember rocking my daughter to sleep that last night and singing to her.  I sang “You are my Sunshine”.  It’s funny, my mom always sang that to me as a child but the words never really sank in until that night.  But I guess they never really pertained to me so accurately before either…

“You are my sunshine,

My only sunshine,

You make me happy,

When skies are grey,

You’ll never know dear,

How much I love you,

Please don’t take my sunshine away.

The other night, dear,

As I lay sleeping,

I dreamed I held you in my arms,

When I awoke, dear,

I was mistaken,

So I hung my head and I cried.”

– Jimmie Davis and Charles Mitchell

I rocked her in my arms all night and cried…

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