Rockin' Robbins

Two years ago today, after driving to Saint Petersburg from Atlanta with as much anticipation as you can imagine, I pushed the call button on the wall outside the nursery at Bayfront Medical Center. A nurse answered the intercom call button and unlocked the door to let Mike and I inside. As we entered the room, I was overwhelmed with emotion and I didn't know what to do or say. There was a huge reception desk between the entrance we had just come through and the 15 or so babies, most of which were crying. I didn't concern the desk and attempted to go look for Amy. I'm not sure how I thought I would identify her.

There were three nurses who noticed this and didn't like it. One of the nurses asked what we were there for, almost confrontationally. The emotional chaos that was in my heart made its way up my throat and to my brain. I was gushing tears. It was the type of crying that made talking impossible. The nurses and Michael looked at me, and I managed to spit out the words "I'm here to see a baby."

They must have thought I escaped from the mental ward.

Another nurse repeated what I said with confusion. "You're here to see a baby?"

Michael spoke to the nurses at this point and explained to them that we were most likely going to adopt a baby that was in the nursery, as I tried to calm myself down.

The nurse asked us what the baby's name was. Again, I didn't know how to answer this because we hadn't named her yet. We told her what little we knew about the baby and that we were working with Tara from Adoption Advocates, and she hesitantly led us to the far corner of the nursery. She let us know that she wasn't supposed to be allowing us to see the baby as we didn't know the 5 digit number on the baby's wristband. Our agent hadn't mentioned anything about a secret code number. The nurse must have decided Michael was sane enough to counterbalance me, and she let us look but not touch, until we had the code.

She looked tiny. She had a decent amount of brown hair, and large, blue eyes. I was concerned about the feeding tube in her nose which was taped to her delicate skin, and obviously irritating her. Her skin was pink and her hands and feet were clinched. Her blue pacifier was half the size of her face. I fell in love for the second time in my life. But I couldn't let Michael know because as we discussed on the drive down, we were going to be level headed and talk with the doctor before we moved forward with this life altering decision.

A few minutes later we got our agent on the phone and she spoke with the nurse. The nurse then gave us the magic number...50745. I wrote it on a loose piece of paper in my purse, then on the back of my checkbook, then in sharpie on my hand. I will never forget this number.

I picked her up. She felt so light and fragile and delicate. Her face nuzzled perfectly between my shoulder and neck. I was worried that I was going to dislodge the tube in her nose that went into her stomach. I knew that I couldn't be careful enough. After a few minutes I passed her over to Mike. As he cradled her, even more carefully than I had, he looked at her sweet face and I saw in his eyes what I felt in my heart and I knew we were on the same page. This was our daughter. Not by birth and not yet by law, but by what is most important...love.