Just got a text from Kelly this morning:
"I just need to know if yall are still interested in this process."
(...and yes, she types "y'all".)
Still haven't heard back from Mary. Don't even know if she's still working with Kelly after the email I sent her (and photographic evidence of the beer and cigarettes in the room). I have NO IDEA what to do.
I want to be a mommy.
I want that baby to go to a good home.
I don't know if I want to work with these people.
But maybe now that they're in Georgia, we can have some peace until the baby is born???
I have no idea.
Advice?? Please??
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
we're done
Like the start of every effed-ed up day, it started with a phonecall. I saw her name on caller I.D. and it was the first time I didn't jump to answer. We knew Tony and Amanda were in town and we were going to try our best not to see them at all. Their plan was to take Sophie back to Georgia so we figured they had to be leaving soon. It was noon. Maybe they'd already gone and Kelly just needed some more ice or something? I answered.
"Hello?"
"Hay...ummmm...yeah...this is Kelly."
"How are you?"
"Well...ummmm...do you an Ryan have plans for tu-day, by any chance?"
"We were actually going to go look at apartments for you. We have several listings that my friend found and we were gonna go check them out."
"Well...ummm...mah frens Tony an'Amanda are here in town an they wanna meech y'all."
(barf)
"Well. (looking to Ryan for some sort of brilliant lie) Ryan and I thought it might be best if we just keep our relationship professional. That we just keep our relationship with you and not extend it any further."
(silence)
"OH!"
"Does that make sense?"
(clearly flustered) "Well...uh...I mean...I guess if y'all don'wanna meet'um."
"It's not that we don't want to meet them. (it was) We just want to try and follow the rules as much as possible. Just to keep working on our relationship with you." (I could feel my palms start to sweat and I kept looking at Ryan who was looking more and more frustrated with me.)
"Well...a'right...I mean...he's thu father uv this bay-bee..."
"I know. (pause) Let me talk to Ryan and we'll call you right back, okay?"
(annoyed) "O'kay."
OH MY GOD!!! I'M SUCH A TERRIBLE LIAR!!! I WASN'T READY FOR THIS CONVERSATION!!!! I DIDN'T HAVE ANYTHING PREPARED!!! I SHOULD NEVER HAVE ANSWERED THE PHONE!!!
"Why didn't you say we had family stuff going on?"
"I said we were looking at apartments! I thought that was good enough! I'm a TERRIBLE liar! I'm SORRY!!!!!"
"I know. CRAP!"
"Should we call Mary?"
"Yes."
I dialed the hotline and explained to the receptionist that our birthfather just drove in to town last night, showed up out of the blue and now he wants to meet us. She sounded a little shocked and said something to the effect of "oh dear", which only made me more nervous and freaked out. I asked if she could please get in touch with Mary right away and she told me, "I'll have Mary call you."
Mary never called.
Ryan and I frantically ran around the house, trying to figure out what the eff to do. If we didn't go, our birthfather could really screw things up for us. If we did go, we ran the risk of crossing the line and allowing these crazy people in to our lives whenever they wanted.
What the faaaaaaaaaaaaack!?
We decided to go.
I asked Ryan to call Kelly since "clearly, I suck at it." and make plans to meet. We decided to meet them somewhere on Johnson Drive where there were several restaurants and fast food places. I'd driven her up and down Johnson Drive on Friday, so I know she remembered seeing the old-fashioned McDonald's, and Sophie pointed out the Burger King with the playland.
"How about the Burger King...Sophie can play while we talk."
Sounded good. They were just leaving the hotel.
I can honestly say that this was the most scared I've been in my entire life. We were flying blind. We had no idea what our agency would say. We had no idea what these people wanted from us. We had no idea what to expect. I have been nervous before, but this was a whole different kind of stomach turned inside out nausea that didn't stop from the moment we drove in to that parking lot until the moment we left.
Ryan and I got some drinks and found a table. It wasn't big enough for 5 adults, but we figured we could just move in to the playland once they arrived and let Sophie run around. I twirled the wrapper from my straw and tapped my foot until we saw them pull up. Of course. It was a big, white Buick with a handicapped tag. "Who is handicapped?" I asked Ryan. "All of them."
We watched them get out of the car, one-by-one. Tony was really skinny and he had white hair with a big bald spot on top - really thin in the front. He was wearing a blue and white striped polo shirt tucked in to some jean shorts (yup...jorts), white socks and white sneakers. Clearly not handicapped. "He's old." I don't know why I was so shocked. Then Amanda got out. "Oh boy". She had short, white hair too and she carried about 100 extra pounds on her thighs. I decided she probably has a desk job and she doesn't take care of herself. Then we saw Kelly. She was wearing a green and blue striped polo shirt and some jeans - the nicest I've seen her look since we met. I saw the top of Sophie's head and immediately felt sorry for that little girl. This is her "family"...the messed up love triangle from Georgia. Amanda was clearly their mom. Tony was their dad. Kelly was their daughter. And poor little Sophie was the pawn in every scheme they've ever pulled.
"How about the Burger King...Sophie can play while we talk."
Sounded good. They were just leaving the hotel.
I can honestly say that this was the most scared I've been in my entire life. We were flying blind. We had no idea what our agency would say. We had no idea what these people wanted from us. We had no idea what to expect. I have been nervous before, but this was a whole different kind of stomach turned inside out nausea that didn't stop from the moment we drove in to that parking lot until the moment we left.
Ryan and I got some drinks and found a table. It wasn't big enough for 5 adults, but we figured we could just move in to the playland once they arrived and let Sophie run around. I twirled the wrapper from my straw and tapped my foot until we saw them pull up. Of course. It was a big, white Buick with a handicapped tag. "Who is handicapped?" I asked Ryan. "All of them."
We watched them get out of the car, one-by-one. Tony was really skinny and he had white hair with a big bald spot on top - really thin in the front. He was wearing a blue and white striped polo shirt tucked in to some jean shorts (yup...jorts), white socks and white sneakers. Clearly not handicapped. "He's old." I don't know why I was so shocked. Then Amanda got out. "Oh boy". She had short, white hair too and she carried about 100 extra pounds on her thighs. I decided she probably has a desk job and she doesn't take care of herself. Then we saw Kelly. She was wearing a green and blue striped polo shirt and some jeans - the nicest I've seen her look since we met. I saw the top of Sophie's head and immediately felt sorry for that little girl. This is her "family"...the messed up love triangle from Georgia. Amanda was clearly their mom. Tony was their dad. Kelly was their daughter. And poor little Sophie was the pawn in every scheme they've ever pulled.
They took their time getting out of the car. I think they wanted to feel really special and important, walking in to meet us. Tony reached out his hand and introduced himself to me. I purposely didn't say my last name. Ryan didn't either. Meeting these people was the last thing either of us wanted to do and they probably knew it. But they thought we owed it to them. They made that very clear.
"We drove all this way. We cudn' believe Mary thought we shudn' meet."
(yeah...it was all Mary's fault)
"We wuz jus worried SICK about Kelly and li'l Sophie! An we cudn' git anyone to call us back!"
(probably because you're completely irrelevant to this process and you shouldn't even be here.)
Tony and Amanda went on and on for a good 15 minutes about how worried they were that "sum'thin terr'bl was goin' on" and they couldn't do anything to help their dear friend, Kelly. (meanwhile, the whole time Kelly was in Kansas, all she talked about was how she didn't want to talk to Tony or Amanda. She just wanted to be away from them for a while. But of course, she didn't say that. And neither did we.) We just listened. And smiled. And waved at little Sophie as she climbed through the tunnels with the new friends she made.
"We drove all this way. We cudn' believe Mary thought we shudn' meet."
(yeah...it was all Mary's fault)
"We wuz jus worried SICK about Kelly and li'l Sophie! An we cudn' git anyone to call us back!"
(probably because you're completely irrelevant to this process and you shouldn't even be here.)
Tony and Amanda went on and on for a good 15 minutes about how worried they were that "sum'thin terr'bl was goin' on" and they couldn't do anything to help their dear friend, Kelly. (meanwhile, the whole time Kelly was in Kansas, all she talked about was how she didn't want to talk to Tony or Amanda. She just wanted to be away from them for a while. But of course, she didn't say that. And neither did we.) We just listened. And smiled. And waved at little Sophie as she climbed through the tunnels with the new friends she made.
At one point, Tony told us some story about how he has brittle bone disease and he was all prepped for surgery when the surgeon told him there was nothing he could do to help him. His only option was to take pain meds for the rest of his life. Amanda shared, "Yeah...they wuz killin' him in more ways than one." Tony went on and on about how he was on these pain meds when Kelly first started her process with ANLC but he's off 'em now. ("Clean an sober for three munths, thank you ver'much".) He explained those pain meds were the reason Kelly left him - that she didn't like the way he acted on pain meds..."an Mary duddn' know that, jussa you know." And they all agreed, "Yeah...Mary duddn' need ta know ever-thin' 'bout us." (ummm...yes, she does! We picked you based on the information you gave Mary. YOU LIED TO US! YOU WITHHELD INFORMATION! WHAT ELSE ARE YOU LYING ABOUT...you freaks?)
Tony's medical information was left completely blank on all of the forms Kelly filled out for ANLC, but clearly she knew about this brittle bone disease if that's the reason she left Georgia. It seemed like a huge red flag to me. If she lied about that, what else did she lie about? Was she really smoking the whole time she was pregnant? Was that smoke I smelled the other night? Is this baby inheriting a genetic disease that she knew about the whole time?
We endured the rest of the meeting, trying to understand exactly what they wanted from us. I asked directly, "So...do you guys feel good about going forward with us?" Kelly answered "yes" and Tony and Amanda both answered at the same time, sharing their personal opinions of Mary and the way she didn't call them back. I heard Tony say that he had the power to really screw things up for us, so he didn't understand why everyone wasn't trying harder to make him happy. I heard Amanda mention how they drove all night to rescue their good friend but had to stop in St. Louis because they didn't want to "look high" when they got here. I told them Ryan and I were looking at apartments with swimming pools because we just wanted the next 3 months to feel like vacation for Kelly. They stopped talking and looked at her like they'd forgotten she was pregnant.
We used the apartment search as an excuse to get going - claiming we had an appointment to get to. Sophie decided she needed a soda before they got going, and for some reason I was compelled to ask Sophie if she needed to use the bathroom first (call it a motherly instinct). Amanda said, "Oh, thas a gud i-deha!" and took her to the bathroom. Tony and Kelly walked outside with us and said goodbye, mentioning something random about how Tony doesn't drink. He doesn't even like the taste of beer and how Kelly wasn't on drugs because "you can jus look at my arms n tell ah don' shoot up." (ummm...okay) See ya later!
Ryan and I searched for the next 2 hours to find an apartment we could rent for 3 months. We searched in Johnson County - several apartment buildings next to our old house within walking distance of Wal-Mart. We searched in KCK, eliminating the complex across from the graveyard and anything without a pool. Then we found 2 apartments we really liked in Wyandotte County and we made appointments to see them on Monday after work. I even thought, "I should call Kelly and tell her! Maybe she could go see them with us?" when I got the following text message:
Don't be scared but if I went back to ga. would yall still want to work with me? i think yall are awesome. i just need to be around people that can mentally support me." 4:58 pm
Please don't think im changing my mind...i just didnt anticipate the loneliness i would feel by myself. with or without [sophie]. 4:59 pm
Please think about working with us from ga. ill understand if you do not wish to continue. 5:01 pm
The text messages came faster than I could process them.
What was she talking about?
Why did she want to go back to Georgia? Why did she suddenly care about these people again? I asked her if she would miss Sophie after a couple of weeks and she said she just needed a break. She needed time to relax and be by herself.
I tried to call her.
It went right to voicemail.
I texted her:
Can you give me a call? It goes to your voice mail when i try to call you
Nothing.
I called Amanda's number.
Voicemail.
I called Tony's number.
It rang and rang.
Something was wrong. I told Ryan I didn't really care if she went back to Georgia. I just wanted to take her to the doctor first. I wanted to know what we were having. I wanted to make sure that baby was healthy. If I could just get ahold of her, maybe I could take her to the emergency room? Take her to a free clinic? Something? Anything!!!
Plus, this was the first time she'd ever texted me. And for as much as Tony and Amanda complained about Mary not getting back with them, I found it strange they weren't answering EITHER of their phones. I was going over there.
Ryan drove about 80 mph and we barely spoke. We were both thinking the same exact thing but we weren't going to say it out loud. I held the key and Ryan marched down the hall ahead of me. We knocked on the door. Ryan held his face up to the peep-hole. "Do you see anything?" "No." We knocked again. We could hear the TV. Maybe she was in the shower? We knocked again. Nothing. Finally, I held the key out and paused for a second. I took a deep breath and opened the door. She was gone.
The TV was on, the light over the stove was on, the light in the bathroom was on, the window was open (so the room was about 90 degrees) and there was trash everywhere. It wreaked of smoke. There was a frying pan on the stove - full of grease. There was a half-eaten banana on the nightstand - rotting. There were empty Coke cans and cups and plates all over the room and tiny pieces of play-doh ground in to the carpet. The room was trashed and she was gone.
I sat down on a chair and surveyed the damage.
"I really don't want to chase her back to Georgia."
"I don't either."
"I think we're done."
"I think so too."
Ryan called ANLC and I called my mom He told them it was an emergency. I told my mom I was devastated. Seconds later, Ryan's phone rang and he talked to Mary as he paced the room. I just kept hearing him say, "She's gone, Mary. She's gone."
And that's when I cried.
Ryan came over to hold me and we sat there for quite a while. All of this effort. All of this work. All for nothing.
We decided to clean the room using the trash bags she left on the table. First thing we noticed was a pack of cigarettes in the trash. Ryan pulled the trash bag out to tie it up and noticed a 16 oz. can of Budweiser. "Well...somebody was drinking." It was either the pregnant lady, the guy who adamantly swore that he hated the taste of beer, or the 60 year-old handicapped lady who was currently driving them back to Georgia. We found ash in the nightstand and ash in the bathroom sink so somebody was also smoking (in the non-smoking building). For all of the complaining Kelly did about that room in Topeka, we're not sure this room would have looked much different after a whole week in there. It only took her 48 hours to trash this room and it's possibly the only 48 hours of her pregnancy she's spent not breathing in second-hand smoke. Unless she's been smoking the whole time.
Suddenly, all of the relief I felt about Kelly not feeling emotionally connected to this baby turned to horror at all of the things she's been exposing herself to, knowing she's not scared about the consequences.
Maybe we dodged a bullet?
Maybe this baby is really sick?
Maybe Kelly's been smoking and drinking and doing drugs this whole time because she knew she was placing this baby with someone else???
We took pictures of the "evidence" but weren't even sure that was necessary. We knew we'd have to come back with a vacuum to get all of the mashed-in gunk off the carpet. We took one last look under the bed and found three of the Little People that Troy brought over for Sophie. Seeing those truly broke our hearts. That poor little girl. Then I found some scissors on the bed with black, burnt tips. Strange. I showed them to Ryan. "Is that a ROACH? Did they use that thing to smoke something???" Ryan sniffed it. "I don't think so. I have no idea. It doesn't smell. And I've never heard of anyone using scissors, but who knows. Let's just get out of here."
We took all of the trash down to the dumpster and got back in the car. All of the moments from the last few weeks just went flying through my head like I was still trying to believe it was all real. We stuck our necks out for Kelly. I felt like she'd gained our trust. I felt like she really wanted to place her baby with us. I just don't think she had the capacity to make decisions on her own. She was (obviously) heavily influenced by Tony and Amanda and it should not have surprised us that they convinced her to go back to Georgia.
Ryan and I talked about "what if" - like if we heard from Kelly or Mary in the next few days. We decided we would only work with Kelly on a "baby born" situation. If her friends have the resources to rent a car, drive to Kansas, stay in a hotel and are SO concerned about her well-being, then they can support her for the rest of her pregnancy. She can call us when the baby is born. We want the baby to get checked by a doctor. We want the papers signed and ready to go. And then we will hop on a plane to Georgia and bring that baby home with us.
We took Monday and Tuesday off to consider our next steps and grieve our loss. We called ANLC and asked if they would put us back up on the website right away. We want to start all over again as soon as possible - clean slate. A little less drama next time.
Tony's medical information was left completely blank on all of the forms Kelly filled out for ANLC, but clearly she knew about this brittle bone disease if that's the reason she left Georgia. It seemed like a huge red flag to me. If she lied about that, what else did she lie about? Was she really smoking the whole time she was pregnant? Was that smoke I smelled the other night? Is this baby inheriting a genetic disease that she knew about the whole time?
We endured the rest of the meeting, trying to understand exactly what they wanted from us. I asked directly, "So...do you guys feel good about going forward with us?" Kelly answered "yes" and Tony and Amanda both answered at the same time, sharing their personal opinions of Mary and the way she didn't call them back. I heard Tony say that he had the power to really screw things up for us, so he didn't understand why everyone wasn't trying harder to make him happy. I heard Amanda mention how they drove all night to rescue their good friend but had to stop in St. Louis because they didn't want to "look high" when they got here. I told them Ryan and I were looking at apartments with swimming pools because we just wanted the next 3 months to feel like vacation for Kelly. They stopped talking and looked at her like they'd forgotten she was pregnant.
We used the apartment search as an excuse to get going - claiming we had an appointment to get to. Sophie decided she needed a soda before they got going, and for some reason I was compelled to ask Sophie if she needed to use the bathroom first (call it a motherly instinct). Amanda said, "Oh, thas a gud i-deha!" and took her to the bathroom. Tony and Kelly walked outside with us and said goodbye, mentioning something random about how Tony doesn't drink. He doesn't even like the taste of beer and how Kelly wasn't on drugs because "you can jus look at my arms n tell ah don' shoot up." (ummm...okay) See ya later!
Ryan and I searched for the next 2 hours to find an apartment we could rent for 3 months. We searched in Johnson County - several apartment buildings next to our old house within walking distance of Wal-Mart. We searched in KCK, eliminating the complex across from the graveyard and anything without a pool. Then we found 2 apartments we really liked in Wyandotte County and we made appointments to see them on Monday after work. I even thought, "I should call Kelly and tell her! Maybe she could go see them with us?" when I got the following text message:
Don't be scared but if I went back to ga. would yall still want to work with me? i think yall are awesome. i just need to be around people that can mentally support me." 4:58 pm
Please don't think im changing my mind...i just didnt anticipate the loneliness i would feel by myself. with or without [sophie]. 4:59 pm
Please think about working with us from ga. ill understand if you do not wish to continue. 5:01 pm
The text messages came faster than I could process them.
What was she talking about?
Why did she want to go back to Georgia? Why did she suddenly care about these people again? I asked her if she would miss Sophie after a couple of weeks and she said she just needed a break. She needed time to relax and be by herself.
I tried to call her.
It went right to voicemail.
I texted her:
Can you give me a call? It goes to your voice mail when i try to call you
Nothing.
I called Amanda's number.
Voicemail.
I called Tony's number.
It rang and rang.
Something was wrong. I told Ryan I didn't really care if she went back to Georgia. I just wanted to take her to the doctor first. I wanted to know what we were having. I wanted to make sure that baby was healthy. If I could just get ahold of her, maybe I could take her to the emergency room? Take her to a free clinic? Something? Anything!!!
Plus, this was the first time she'd ever texted me. And for as much as Tony and Amanda complained about Mary not getting back with them, I found it strange they weren't answering EITHER of their phones. I was going over there.
Ryan drove about 80 mph and we barely spoke. We were both thinking the same exact thing but we weren't going to say it out loud. I held the key and Ryan marched down the hall ahead of me. We knocked on the door. Ryan held his face up to the peep-hole. "Do you see anything?" "No." We knocked again. We could hear the TV. Maybe she was in the shower? We knocked again. Nothing. Finally, I held the key out and paused for a second. I took a deep breath and opened the door. She was gone.
The TV was on, the light over the stove was on, the light in the bathroom was on, the window was open (so the room was about 90 degrees) and there was trash everywhere. It wreaked of smoke. There was a frying pan on the stove - full of grease. There was a half-eaten banana on the nightstand - rotting. There were empty Coke cans and cups and plates all over the room and tiny pieces of play-doh ground in to the carpet. The room was trashed and she was gone.
I sat down on a chair and surveyed the damage.
"I really don't want to chase her back to Georgia."
"I don't either."
"I think we're done."
"I think so too."
Ryan called ANLC and I called my mom He told them it was an emergency. I told my mom I was devastated. Seconds later, Ryan's phone rang and he talked to Mary as he paced the room. I just kept hearing him say, "She's gone, Mary. She's gone."
And that's when I cried.
Ryan came over to hold me and we sat there for quite a while. All of this effort. All of this work. All for nothing.
We decided to clean the room using the trash bags she left on the table. First thing we noticed was a pack of cigarettes in the trash. Ryan pulled the trash bag out to tie it up and noticed a 16 oz. can of Budweiser. "Well...somebody was drinking." It was either the pregnant lady, the guy who adamantly swore that he hated the taste of beer, or the 60 year-old handicapped lady who was currently driving them back to Georgia. We found ash in the nightstand and ash in the bathroom sink so somebody was also smoking (in the non-smoking building). For all of the complaining Kelly did about that room in Topeka, we're not sure this room would have looked much different after a whole week in there. It only took her 48 hours to trash this room and it's possibly the only 48 hours of her pregnancy she's spent not breathing in second-hand smoke. Unless she's been smoking the whole time.
Suddenly, all of the relief I felt about Kelly not feeling emotionally connected to this baby turned to horror at all of the things she's been exposing herself to, knowing she's not scared about the consequences.
Maybe we dodged a bullet?
Maybe this baby is really sick?
Maybe Kelly's been smoking and drinking and doing drugs this whole time because she knew she was placing this baby with someone else???
We took pictures of the "evidence" but weren't even sure that was necessary. We knew we'd have to come back with a vacuum to get all of the mashed-in gunk off the carpet. We took one last look under the bed and found three of the Little People that Troy brought over for Sophie. Seeing those truly broke our hearts. That poor little girl. Then I found some scissors on the bed with black, burnt tips. Strange. I showed them to Ryan. "Is that a ROACH? Did they use that thing to smoke something???" Ryan sniffed it. "I don't think so. I have no idea. It doesn't smell. And I've never heard of anyone using scissors, but who knows. Let's just get out of here."
We took all of the trash down to the dumpster and got back in the car. All of the moments from the last few weeks just went flying through my head like I was still trying to believe it was all real. We stuck our necks out for Kelly. I felt like she'd gained our trust. I felt like she really wanted to place her baby with us. I just don't think she had the capacity to make decisions on her own. She was (obviously) heavily influenced by Tony and Amanda and it should not have surprised us that they convinced her to go back to Georgia.
Ryan and I talked about "what if" - like if we heard from Kelly or Mary in the next few days. We decided we would only work with Kelly on a "baby born" situation. If her friends have the resources to rent a car, drive to Kansas, stay in a hotel and are SO concerned about her well-being, then they can support her for the rest of her pregnancy. She can call us when the baby is born. We want the baby to get checked by a doctor. We want the papers signed and ready to go. And then we will hop on a plane to Georgia and bring that baby home with us.
We took Monday and Tuesday off to consider our next steps and grieve our loss. We called ANLC and asked if they would put us back up on the website right away. We want to start all over again as soon as possible - clean slate. A little less drama next time.
Monday, August 2, 2010
editor's note
in my attempt to spell Kelly's accent, my stories have become hard to read and a little annoying. (I'm not getting feedback, this is just my opinion.) So from this point on, I'm not going to type the accent. Just know that she has a strong Georgia accent. And her name isn't Kelly.
the beginning of the end
Saturday morning, I woke up early to finish the cupcakes I was making for a baby shower. I had everything ready to go when the phone rang. It was Kelly. She didn't have any forks. I told her I would bring her some forks - no problem. I'd stop by right after I dropped off these cupcakes at 11:30. She went on and on about how bad she felt calling me and she's so sorry, blah, blah, blah...
"It's really no problem! I will be there. Is there anything else you guys need?"
"Nah...jus the forks. Oh! An'a bag'a ice?"
I figured since I was in the pantry, I would just grab some more cups, a roll of toilet paper, an 8-pack of toilet paper and a huge Costco box of forks, spoons, and forks. I convinced Ryan to go with me to deliver the cupcakes and then take this stuff over to Kelly's. We found the restaurant for the cupcakes and Ryan (my amazing husband) helped me get all 3 dozen cupcakes out of their special little travel boxes and set up on the buffet table. They were adorable and I was really proud of myself. (not delivered late and not missing any extra pieces! Success!)
Then we headed over to Kelly's. We got to the front door and our key no longer worked. We tried 7 or 8 times before we finally just walked in to the front office and asked for a new key (turns out, I'd set the key next to my phone in my purse and de-activated the card by accident - it later became a careful game of holding the key in one hand and my phone in the other so they did not touch).
We got to Kelly's room and knocked on the door. We could hear shuffling and I heard Sophie yell, "Daddy's here!" Kelly say "No...Jus pud'it down over they-are. C'mon. Go an-ser the door."
There was little Sophie standing at the door. No pants, just an Atlanta Braves t-shirt on and some underpants. Her fat little thighs rubbing together as she shifted her weight and stared at us.
"Hey! We brought you some fun stuff!! Can you give this big bag to your mommy?"
Then I saw Kelly appear around the door - like she was totally not expecting us.
"Oh! uh! (nervously) Hai y'all! We wuz jus cleanin' up. It's such a mess in here. Sophie's been droppin' play-doh in the air con'dishner vent an we got play-doh all over thu place, don't we Soph?"
"Yeah! I wus makin' play-doh babies."
"You were!? That's fun! Well, there are forks in here and spoons and knives and toilet paper and paper towels and some big cups - and look what Ryan has!"
(looking at the muffin tin of extra cupcakes) "Whoah! Cupcakes!"
"Do you want some? There's chocolate, strawberry or almond."
"I want ALL of those!"
"No, bay-bee...less jus take like...one of each. Or jus...here...how bout jus these two chocolate ones. Thas' plenny. Oh...okay...ummmm...did y'all bring any ice, by any chance?"
"OH! SHOOT!!!! I totally forgot the ice!! I'm sorry! We'll be right back. We'll just run down to the gas station and get a bag."
"Oh...(nervously) no...ah mean...it's no big de-hul. Ah jus like it in mah coke n stuff."
"No. I'm so sorry. We'll be right back with a bag of ice."
(Sophie) "Are you comin' in?"
"No, sweetie. We're gonna be right back. We're gonna run down to the gas station real quick."
"Yeah...cuz it's such a mess in here...we gotta clean up. Ah'm so em'bar'sed y'all. Ah can'even vite cha'in, it's so bad."
...and as she closed the door, I got a faint whif of cigarette smoke coming from their room.
As we walked downstairs, I asked Ryan, "did you smell smoke in their room?"
"No...it was probably just the pan full of bacon grease on the stove. Did you see that?"
"No...she never opens the door more than a crack and she always talks about how dirty it is in there, but I swear I smelled smoke."
"Well...I didn't smell it, but that doesn't mean anything. You often smell things way before I can."
We drove as fast as we could to the gas station and Ryan hopped out to get a bag of ice. We were supposed to meet my cousins (in town from Colorado) for lunch at Planet Sub and the last time I talked to them on the phone, the kids were melting down pretty fast. I didn't want to miss them altogether.
When we got back to the extended stay, Kelly and Sophie were in the lobby, headed in to the office to borrow a vacuum cleaner. Sophie still wasn't wearing pants or shoes and Kelly was leading her around (nervously) - unclear about what to do with this bag of ice while she held the door open and asked the office for a vacuum. Ryan completed the exchange and we took off.
The beauty of the extended stay is that it's cheap, but the problem is - they charge for everything. So if Kelly borrowed a vacuum to clean up Sophie's Play-doh babies, our credit card was the one on file to accept the charge. Ryan told me not to worry about it. Surely they don't charge that much to use the vacuum.
We had a great lunch with my Lucas cousins and my uncle Jack. They were all in town for Bryce's birthday party but Ryan and I were going to miss it - previous plans to attend a double-trouble 30th birthday party for our friends, Kyle and Kelly that night. (not to be confused with "Kelly", our birthmom.) We shared the rest of our cupcakes with the Lucas kids and filled them in on the daily baby-mama drama. Mia gave me a sweet little "french flash-card" set and I showed her the photos I took of Kelly and Sophie the week before. By the time lunch was over, I was starting to feel really excited about bringing our little baby to Christmas this year with all of the other Lucas babies. I was also starting to regret going out for drinks the night before and waking up so early that morning. I needed a nap!
We got home and I immediately turned on the box fan and fell asleep. I slept for almost 3 hours and probably could have slept straight through the night. Ryan woke me up and said, "We have about half an hour to get ready for Kyle and Kelly's party." I did my best to wake myself up and I struggled to make decisions for a good 20 minutes. I also started to feel really sick to my stomach. I realized I also hadn't consumed any water all day. Coffee for breakfast, Root beer with lunch, and that was about it. Tonight was going to be another night of drinking and I needed water!!
We got to the party and had a fantastic time. The Fishers are fantastic neighbors - fun people to celebrate - and we've had so much fun getting to know them over the last year. Also at the party were our other awesome neighbors Brad and Elizabeth, who admitted they are avid readers of the blog (Hi, Brad and Elizabeth!). We all sat down at a table together and they were like, "Okay...so we're only up to part two of the story...we're anxious to hear what happens next!" So I filled them in on the midnight Topeka move, the a-hole lawyer, the new apartment, the anxiety of getting a doctor's appointment scheduled for someone without insurance, as well as any advice they had for us - parenting a new baby. And as much as I wanted to just have a night without any drama, I certainly talked about our adoption headaches a lot - to anyone who would listen.
At one point, I was talking to (not our birthmom) Kelly and telling her how much her mom would get along with my mother-in-law when I noticed Ryan in the corner, talking on his phone with an incredibly concerned look on his face.
(I looked at him with the same concerned face and mouthed the words) "What's the matter?"
(he walked past me with his finger over his other ear, on his way outside to hear better) "It's Kelly!"
crap.
I looked in my purse and noticed 5 missed calls on my phone.
crap.
I followed Ryan outside and hovered around while he frantically searched for paper and a pen. Writing some phone number, he repeated it back to Kelly on the other end and said good-bye.
"What's going on?"
"Well...apparently Tony and Amanda are on their way up here right now. They've rented a car and they're in St. Louis and they need directions to the extended stay where Kelly is staying."
"Whaaaaat?"
"Yeah...I thought they weren't coming for some reason."
"I know, I thought after we talked on Friday that she'd changed her mind. She didn't even mention it."
"Well...evidently they're coming. And they're almost here."
"So much for a drama-free evening."
"And they're not sure how to get here so they're just gonna call when they get close. I have Amanda's number so I'm gonna call her real fast to tell her I can get them here once 55 runs in to I-70."
"So we're gonna get a phone call around 3 in the morning?"
"Probably...and just so we both agree now - we are BUSY tomorrow doing family stuff and we can't meet them."
"Oh, I don't WANT to meet them!"
"I don't either. That's why I'm saying - we have a whole bunch of family stuff going on tomorrow and we can't meet them."
"Got it."
The evening went on as well as could be expected, but in the back of my mind I started to think about all of the things that could go wrong with this scenario. Kelly and Sophie were SO close! She said it herself, "Sophie is mah whol'life!" So what if we sign a lease for 3 months and go to all of the trouble of getting her apartment furnished and then she changes her mind and goes back to Georgia anyway??
I guess that's the risk we take, but it sure made sense for Sophie to go back with Tony and Amanda. She was driving Kelly crazy and all she'd been talking about for the last 3 days was how tired she was and how she just could not keep up with Sophie. She kept saying, "Ah dunno what ah wuz thinkin' bringin' her up here. Whaddam ah gonna do when ah have the sussarian an ah'm laid up for fav days. Ah ain't gonna be able da lifter or play wither. Ah dunno what ah wuz thinkin'."
We agreed it was probably a better plan for her mental health, but I was three weeks in to dealing with this woman and I was beginning to understand how her brain worked.
A terrifying thought.
"It's really no problem! I will be there. Is there anything else you guys need?"
"Nah...jus the forks. Oh! An'a bag'a ice?"
I figured since I was in the pantry, I would just grab some more cups, a roll of toilet paper, an 8-pack of toilet paper and a huge Costco box of forks, spoons, and forks. I convinced Ryan to go with me to deliver the cupcakes and then take this stuff over to Kelly's. We found the restaurant for the cupcakes and Ryan (my amazing husband) helped me get all 3 dozen cupcakes out of their special little travel boxes and set up on the buffet table. They were adorable and I was really proud of myself. (not delivered late and not missing any extra pieces! Success!)
Then we headed over to Kelly's. We got to the front door and our key no longer worked. We tried 7 or 8 times before we finally just walked in to the front office and asked for a new key (turns out, I'd set the key next to my phone in my purse and de-activated the card by accident - it later became a careful game of holding the key in one hand and my phone in the other so they did not touch).
We got to Kelly's room and knocked on the door. We could hear shuffling and I heard Sophie yell, "Daddy's here!" Kelly say "No...Jus pud'it down over they-are. C'mon. Go an-ser the door."
There was little Sophie standing at the door. No pants, just an Atlanta Braves t-shirt on and some underpants. Her fat little thighs rubbing together as she shifted her weight and stared at us.
"Hey! We brought you some fun stuff!! Can you give this big bag to your mommy?"
Then I saw Kelly appear around the door - like she was totally not expecting us.
"Oh! uh! (nervously) Hai y'all! We wuz jus cleanin' up. It's such a mess in here. Sophie's been droppin' play-doh in the air con'dishner vent an we got play-doh all over thu place, don't we Soph?"
"Yeah! I wus makin' play-doh babies."
"You were!? That's fun! Well, there are forks in here and spoons and knives and toilet paper and paper towels and some big cups - and look what Ryan has!"
(looking at the muffin tin of extra cupcakes) "Whoah! Cupcakes!"
"Do you want some? There's chocolate, strawberry or almond."
"I want ALL of those!"
"No, bay-bee...less jus take like...one of each. Or jus...here...how bout jus these two chocolate ones. Thas' plenny. Oh...okay...ummmm...did y'all bring any ice, by any chance?"
"OH! SHOOT!!!! I totally forgot the ice!! I'm sorry! We'll be right back. We'll just run down to the gas station and get a bag."
"Oh...(nervously) no...ah mean...it's no big de-hul. Ah jus like it in mah coke n stuff."
"No. I'm so sorry. We'll be right back with a bag of ice."
(Sophie) "Are you comin' in?"
"No, sweetie. We're gonna be right back. We're gonna run down to the gas station real quick."
"Yeah...cuz it's such a mess in here...we gotta clean up. Ah'm so em'bar'sed y'all. Ah can'even vite cha'in, it's so bad."
...and as she closed the door, I got a faint whif of cigarette smoke coming from their room.
As we walked downstairs, I asked Ryan, "did you smell smoke in their room?"
"No...it was probably just the pan full of bacon grease on the stove. Did you see that?"
"No...she never opens the door more than a crack and she always talks about how dirty it is in there, but I swear I smelled smoke."
"Well...I didn't smell it, but that doesn't mean anything. You often smell things way before I can."
We drove as fast as we could to the gas station and Ryan hopped out to get a bag of ice. We were supposed to meet my cousins (in town from Colorado) for lunch at Planet Sub and the last time I talked to them on the phone, the kids were melting down pretty fast. I didn't want to miss them altogether.
When we got back to the extended stay, Kelly and Sophie were in the lobby, headed in to the office to borrow a vacuum cleaner. Sophie still wasn't wearing pants or shoes and Kelly was leading her around (nervously) - unclear about what to do with this bag of ice while she held the door open and asked the office for a vacuum. Ryan completed the exchange and we took off.
The beauty of the extended stay is that it's cheap, but the problem is - they charge for everything. So if Kelly borrowed a vacuum to clean up Sophie's Play-doh babies, our credit card was the one on file to accept the charge. Ryan told me not to worry about it. Surely they don't charge that much to use the vacuum.
We had a great lunch with my Lucas cousins and my uncle Jack. They were all in town for Bryce's birthday party but Ryan and I were going to miss it - previous plans to attend a double-trouble 30th birthday party for our friends, Kyle and Kelly that night. (not to be confused with "Kelly", our birthmom.) We shared the rest of our cupcakes with the Lucas kids and filled them in on the daily baby-mama drama. Mia gave me a sweet little "french flash-card" set and I showed her the photos I took of Kelly and Sophie the week before. By the time lunch was over, I was starting to feel really excited about bringing our little baby to Christmas this year with all of the other Lucas babies. I was also starting to regret going out for drinks the night before and waking up so early that morning. I needed a nap!
We got home and I immediately turned on the box fan and fell asleep. I slept for almost 3 hours and probably could have slept straight through the night. Ryan woke me up and said, "We have about half an hour to get ready for Kyle and Kelly's party." I did my best to wake myself up and I struggled to make decisions for a good 20 minutes. I also started to feel really sick to my stomach. I realized I also hadn't consumed any water all day. Coffee for breakfast, Root beer with lunch, and that was about it. Tonight was going to be another night of drinking and I needed water!!
We got to the party and had a fantastic time. The Fishers are fantastic neighbors - fun people to celebrate - and we've had so much fun getting to know them over the last year. Also at the party were our other awesome neighbors Brad and Elizabeth, who admitted they are avid readers of the blog (Hi, Brad and Elizabeth!). We all sat down at a table together and they were like, "Okay...so we're only up to part two of the story...we're anxious to hear what happens next!" So I filled them in on the midnight Topeka move, the a-hole lawyer, the new apartment, the anxiety of getting a doctor's appointment scheduled for someone without insurance, as well as any advice they had for us - parenting a new baby. And as much as I wanted to just have a night without any drama, I certainly talked about our adoption headaches a lot - to anyone who would listen.
At one point, I was talking to (not our birthmom) Kelly and telling her how much her mom would get along with my mother-in-law when I noticed Ryan in the corner, talking on his phone with an incredibly concerned look on his face.
(I looked at him with the same concerned face and mouthed the words) "What's the matter?"
(he walked past me with his finger over his other ear, on his way outside to hear better) "It's Kelly!"
crap.
I looked in my purse and noticed 5 missed calls on my phone.
crap.
I followed Ryan outside and hovered around while he frantically searched for paper and a pen. Writing some phone number, he repeated it back to Kelly on the other end and said good-bye.
"What's going on?"
"Well...apparently Tony and Amanda are on their way up here right now. They've rented a car and they're in St. Louis and they need directions to the extended stay where Kelly is staying."
"Whaaaaat?"
"Yeah...I thought they weren't coming for some reason."
"I know, I thought after we talked on Friday that she'd changed her mind. She didn't even mention it."
"Well...evidently they're coming. And they're almost here."
"So much for a drama-free evening."
"And they're not sure how to get here so they're just gonna call when they get close. I have Amanda's number so I'm gonna call her real fast to tell her I can get them here once 55 runs in to I-70."
"So we're gonna get a phone call around 3 in the morning?"
"Probably...and just so we both agree now - we are BUSY tomorrow doing family stuff and we can't meet them."
"Oh, I don't WANT to meet them!"
"I don't either. That's why I'm saying - we have a whole bunch of family stuff going on tomorrow and we can't meet them."
"Got it."
The evening went on as well as could be expected, but in the back of my mind I started to think about all of the things that could go wrong with this scenario. Kelly and Sophie were SO close! She said it herself, "Sophie is mah whol'life!" So what if we sign a lease for 3 months and go to all of the trouble of getting her apartment furnished and then she changes her mind and goes back to Georgia anyway??
I guess that's the risk we take, but it sure made sense for Sophie to go back with Tony and Amanda. She was driving Kelly crazy and all she'd been talking about for the last 3 days was how tired she was and how she just could not keep up with Sophie. She kept saying, "Ah dunno what ah wuz thinkin' bringin' her up here. Whaddam ah gonna do when ah have the sussarian an ah'm laid up for fav days. Ah ain't gonna be able da lifter or play wither. Ah dunno what ah wuz thinkin'."
We agreed it was probably a better plan for her mental health, but I was three weeks in to dealing with this woman and I was beginning to understand how her brain worked.
A terrifying thought.
Freak-out Friday
Friday morning was my 10-year anniversary at Hallmark. I spent the first 10 minutes of my anniversary party on the phone with our agent in California, who was nervous because she had just heard from Kelly who loves her new place, but who is worried that she can't spend much more time alone with Sophie. She's regretting bringing her here and she wants to send Sophie back to Georgia. I spent the rest of our conversation telling her how great it felt to get Kelly out of that gross apartment and how Troy brought Sophie a big bag of gifts and how excited they were to see a clean place to live...blah, blah, blah. Mary was thrilled.
I went to my party. Ryan was there. My mom was there. We told everyone about our dramatic trip to Topeka and how we'd saved this little girl from this horrible situation and saved our birthmom from a smoky, disgusting pit that did not reflect our true feelings for her. I told everyone how my car still smelled like smoke this morning just from the hour that their things were in it...that's how bad it was. Everyone was so excited for us. Even my manager announced that "Ryan and Ashley are expanding their family through adoption. Their baby is due in October and won't that be great."
Around 1:00, I got a call from Kelly that she didn't have any dishes and the ones in the place charged $50 to use theirs. She didn't want to bother me, but she just needed a cup. She wanted to drink her coffee. She loved her coffee in the morning, but just needed a cup. She could just drink out of the pot if she had to. I assured her that I would bring her some dishes. Some cups. Some napkins. Don't worry. And don't drink out of your coffee pot. I'm sorry that the dishes are extra. I had no idea it was an extra charge for all of that stuff.
I went to the double discount shop at Hallmark and I bought Royals napkins, Atlanta Braves plates, and some fall leaf-themed cups. I planned to bring them to her right after work. I thought she might think the Atlanta Braves plates were a cute touch (it just so happened that there were a ton of MLB plates in the cardshop...) Kelly called an hour later.
"Cud you bring me a pan? Like...ah'd really like to fry n'egg."
"Of course! I will bring you a pan. No problem."
I spent the rest of the day researching hospitals and doctors and how to get a birthmother on Medicaid. Allan was a pain in the ass, but he knew how to get stuff done! He knew everyone. He could expedite Medicaid. Finally, I had success. The receptionist at my doctor's office recommended a Women's Center next door who could get Kelly in next Thursday, August 5th. It would be $1500 out of pocket, but if we filed Medicaid before the appointment, they would back-date and reimburse us for all of the money we spent before Medicaid kicked in. (and according to her, Medicaid was really backed up and might not kick in until after the baby arrived). I called Ryan to let him know.
He'd been talking to the other lawyer about getting Kelly a new apartment, and while Lindsay was finding all kinds of awesome deals, we needed to know where to focus our efforts. Would it be better to have an apartment in Wyandotte County or Johnson County? Because we'd heard that the judge in Johnson County was really picky about the amount of money people pay for adoptions and he requires a lot of receipts and justification. He can really slow the process down or stop it all together if he feels we "bought" a baby. Also, we remembered Allan saying something about how the extended stay didn't qualify as a permanent address...and before Kelly could qualify (or file) for her Medicaid card, she had to have a permanent address in Kansas. She had to establish residency and the extended stay might not qualify. So we had to get her in to an apartment, but again...we didn't know which county.
This new lawyer didn't seem to know for sure. Not the jolt of confidence we were looking for. Maybe we needed a different lawyer???
I called Kelly to tell her the good news - that I'd made an appointment for her to see the doctor. She seemed nervous but willing...and she would like a bag of ice.
I also started to get nervous about what we were doing - that all of this was so brand new and we knew nothing about any of this stuff. Medicaid? Free health clinics? Judges? Lawyers? We were sooooo in over our heads. We didn't even know what we didn't know - which made it difficult to find answers. I tried the HomeStudy office. Figured they've finalized a lot of Kansas adoptions. While their part of the process was done, maybe they could at least direct us to the right information. Yeah...they're closed on Fridays.
So, what now? We had a doctor's appointment on Thursday. She was paid up through Thursday at the extended stay. She had to file the Medicaid card before Thursday, but we still didn't know if the extended stay would qualify as a permanent address. And if not, we still didn't know which county was best in the long-run for an apartment.
BALLS!
I decided there was nothing we could accomplish at 5:00 on a Friday, so I called it a day. I made plans to go out for drinks with my girlfriends and Ryan was headed to a Royals game with his buddy Roady after work. I stopped by my friend Holly's house to pick up a skillet (she'd offered to let Kelly borrow anything she needed for the next 3 months) and I called my little brother with an alarming lack of energy to fill him in on all of the drama. I was exhausted, confused, and overwhelmed. I was hoping he had some insight in to the issue about the judges and the courts being rough on adopting couples since he'd worked for the OPPD. He didn't.
I got to Holly's house and updated her as well. She (like me) had really only ever dealt with health insurance through an employer and knew nothing about Medicaid or how to file. Or what qualified as a permanent address. But I quickly realized I was needlessly spinning my wheels. Even if extended stay qualified as a permanent address, we didn't really want to keep her there because they were nickel and dime-ing every single item in the place. It was cheap to stay there, but they charged to use the phone, the dishes, the coffee pot...everything. It wasn't worth it. So we would begin the search for the apartments on Saturday or Sunday. Lindsay was sending us lots of options and we could just drive around and find pick the one we liked best. Hell...we might even take Kelly with us. Let her look at 'em. Let her pick the one she wanted. At least then we'd know she liked it.
I got to the extended stay place and realized I'd left my key at home. I called Kelly to let me in, but was leaving a message as a guy came walking out. He let me in. I got to the door and heard yelling inside. I knocked. There was Sophie, standing at the door with a cute little sundress.
"Hi."
"Hey sweetie. I brought you guys some paper napkins, some plates, and some paper cups. Aren't they cute? They have little leaves on them!"
Then Kelly came to the door. She looked like she'd just gotten out of the shower and she was very flustered. She told me she'd invite me in but the place was a wreck. She just got out of the shower, blah, blah, blah...and how far is it to the gas station down the street? She wondered if it was too far to walk cuz she needed some milk.
"oh my gosh! I'll take you! It's really hot outside and it's definitely too far to walk."
So she made Sophie go back inside and put her shoes on so they could hurry up and go with us. I could hear them behind the door, hustling around to get Sophie's shoes on and find her purse. I wondered how messy it could be. They'd been there less than 24 hours. Then the door opened, but not all the way. She shoved Sophie in to the hall.
"Ah don' hav mah key...you got yur key...cuz ah don' hav mah key...ah guess ah jus lost mine."
"I don't actually. I left my key at home. So if you can find your key, that would be better since the office is closed for the night."
"Oh...oh dear...okay...well...ah guess it's over here somewhere...an oh... you jus wait there bay-bee...(reaching to the key on top of the fridge) oh, here it is...okay...so here we go. Less'go bay-bee. You gotch'yur shoes?"
And away we went. I drove her down to the gas station where she just hopped out of the car, "Ah'll be right back," and came back with a half-gallon of milk. Then I offered to drive her around, since it was so dark when we'd come in the night before.
"Would you like to see what's around here, since you didn't get to see much last night?"
"Shur...ah mean...if you don' have no-where else to go?"
"Not at all! Let's look around a little. I could even show you where Ryan and I lived when we first got married. Our first house."
So I drove her up Lamar and past my old house on Woodson. I showed her the playground at the top of our street and how much we loved our neighborhood (hoping she'd understand that we used to live over here and it's not scary). I showed her our vet's office on Johnson Drive and all of the fast-food places up the street that she could walk to if we found her an apartment over here.
"We're tying to get a bunch of options for you. Somewhere next to a playground with a pool for Sophie?"
"Yeah...ah might be sending Sophie home. Ah'm jus suh tired. Ah tried tuh take a nap today n she jus yelled at me 'git up! mama! play with me!' git up mama!' ah'bout smacked her cross tha rooom! An ah'm suh big, ah think it might be twins in here!"
"are you serious?"
"what wud you do if it wuz twins? Cuz ah'd freak out."
"are you kidding? we'd be THRILLED!"
"oh good, cuz ah wuz suh worried you'd freak out and you wudn' wanna work with me no more."
"Oh my gosh, kelly. if you're carrying twins, that would be such an incredible blessing."
"oh good, cuz ah can feel somethin' here (touching her left hip) and here (touching her right hip) and they's both hard."
"Wow...that would be amazing."
We drove around some more but all I could think about was twins. It wasn't actually possible because we had a report from her one and only doctor's appointment that he only heard a single heartbeat, but I didn't care. I was so distracted that I got us a little lost. I drove past the point where I wanted to turn and then I missed the entrance to the highwday because the entrance was not on the right side, as anticipated. It was on the FAR LEFT and I couldn't get over.
Twins.
I took them back to the apartment and gave Sophie a hug good-bye. I saw Kelly look at me, like she thought it was really sweet. She approved. I explained that I had to deliver some cupcakes tomorrow afternoon, but they could call me if they needed anything. I wanted her to make her grocery list and we would go on Thursday after the doctor's appointment. That all sounded good. No mention of sending Sophie back. No mention of anyone trying to kill her. No mention of anyone being so rude and yelling at her. This change was good. She seemed good. She talked a lot about how tired she was, but I've obviously never been pregnant so I can't relate. I don't know what that feels like to want to get out of bed, but you can't because you're SO tired. It was really all she could talk about. And how she tells Sophie that she's just getting fat. She's not explaining to Sophie about the baby because she thinks it will be too confusing. But Sophie sleeps in her bed and she kicks her in the stomach and she's like "No! Stop!' but can't tell her why.
Twins.
I texted Ryan later that night:
"She thinks she's carrying twins."
He texted back:
"And everyone is trying to kill her."
I went to my party. Ryan was there. My mom was there. We told everyone about our dramatic trip to Topeka and how we'd saved this little girl from this horrible situation and saved our birthmom from a smoky, disgusting pit that did not reflect our true feelings for her. I told everyone how my car still smelled like smoke this morning just from the hour that their things were in it...that's how bad it was. Everyone was so excited for us. Even my manager announced that "Ryan and Ashley are expanding their family through adoption. Their baby is due in October and won't that be great."
Around 1:00, I got a call from Kelly that she didn't have any dishes and the ones in the place charged $50 to use theirs. She didn't want to bother me, but she just needed a cup. She wanted to drink her coffee. She loved her coffee in the morning, but just needed a cup. She could just drink out of the pot if she had to. I assured her that I would bring her some dishes. Some cups. Some napkins. Don't worry. And don't drink out of your coffee pot. I'm sorry that the dishes are extra. I had no idea it was an extra charge for all of that stuff.
I went to the double discount shop at Hallmark and I bought Royals napkins, Atlanta Braves plates, and some fall leaf-themed cups. I planned to bring them to her right after work. I thought she might think the Atlanta Braves plates were a cute touch (it just so happened that there were a ton of MLB plates in the cardshop...) Kelly called an hour later.
"Cud you bring me a pan? Like...ah'd really like to fry n'egg."
"Of course! I will bring you a pan. No problem."
I spent the rest of the day researching hospitals and doctors and how to get a birthmother on Medicaid. Allan was a pain in the ass, but he knew how to get stuff done! He knew everyone. He could expedite Medicaid. Finally, I had success. The receptionist at my doctor's office recommended a Women's Center next door who could get Kelly in next Thursday, August 5th. It would be $1500 out of pocket, but if we filed Medicaid before the appointment, they would back-date and reimburse us for all of the money we spent before Medicaid kicked in. (and according to her, Medicaid was really backed up and might not kick in until after the baby arrived). I called Ryan to let him know.
He'd been talking to the other lawyer about getting Kelly a new apartment, and while Lindsay was finding all kinds of awesome deals, we needed to know where to focus our efforts. Would it be better to have an apartment in Wyandotte County or Johnson County? Because we'd heard that the judge in Johnson County was really picky about the amount of money people pay for adoptions and he requires a lot of receipts and justification. He can really slow the process down or stop it all together if he feels we "bought" a baby. Also, we remembered Allan saying something about how the extended stay didn't qualify as a permanent address...and before Kelly could qualify (or file) for her Medicaid card, she had to have a permanent address in Kansas. She had to establish residency and the extended stay might not qualify. So we had to get her in to an apartment, but again...we didn't know which county.
This new lawyer didn't seem to know for sure. Not the jolt of confidence we were looking for. Maybe we needed a different lawyer???
I called Kelly to tell her the good news - that I'd made an appointment for her to see the doctor. She seemed nervous but willing...and she would like a bag of ice.
I also started to get nervous about what we were doing - that all of this was so brand new and we knew nothing about any of this stuff. Medicaid? Free health clinics? Judges? Lawyers? We were sooooo in over our heads. We didn't even know what we didn't know - which made it difficult to find answers. I tried the HomeStudy office. Figured they've finalized a lot of Kansas adoptions. While their part of the process was done, maybe they could at least direct us to the right information. Yeah...they're closed on Fridays.
So, what now? We had a doctor's appointment on Thursday. She was paid up through Thursday at the extended stay. She had to file the Medicaid card before Thursday, but we still didn't know if the extended stay would qualify as a permanent address. And if not, we still didn't know which county was best in the long-run for an apartment.
BALLS!
I decided there was nothing we could accomplish at 5:00 on a Friday, so I called it a day. I made plans to go out for drinks with my girlfriends and Ryan was headed to a Royals game with his buddy Roady after work. I stopped by my friend Holly's house to pick up a skillet (she'd offered to let Kelly borrow anything she needed for the next 3 months) and I called my little brother with an alarming lack of energy to fill him in on all of the drama. I was exhausted, confused, and overwhelmed. I was hoping he had some insight in to the issue about the judges and the courts being rough on adopting couples since he'd worked for the OPPD. He didn't.
I got to Holly's house and updated her as well. She (like me) had really only ever dealt with health insurance through an employer and knew nothing about Medicaid or how to file. Or what qualified as a permanent address. But I quickly realized I was needlessly spinning my wheels. Even if extended stay qualified as a permanent address, we didn't really want to keep her there because they were nickel and dime-ing every single item in the place. It was cheap to stay there, but they charged to use the phone, the dishes, the coffee pot...everything. It wasn't worth it. So we would begin the search for the apartments on Saturday or Sunday. Lindsay was sending us lots of options and we could just drive around and find pick the one we liked best. Hell...we might even take Kelly with us. Let her look at 'em. Let her pick the one she wanted. At least then we'd know she liked it.
I got to the extended stay place and realized I'd left my key at home. I called Kelly to let me in, but was leaving a message as a guy came walking out. He let me in. I got to the door and heard yelling inside. I knocked. There was Sophie, standing at the door with a cute little sundress.
"Hi."
"Hey sweetie. I brought you guys some paper napkins, some plates, and some paper cups. Aren't they cute? They have little leaves on them!"
Then Kelly came to the door. She looked like she'd just gotten out of the shower and she was very flustered. She told me she'd invite me in but the place was a wreck. She just got out of the shower, blah, blah, blah...and how far is it to the gas station down the street? She wondered if it was too far to walk cuz she needed some milk.
"oh my gosh! I'll take you! It's really hot outside and it's definitely too far to walk."
So she made Sophie go back inside and put her shoes on so they could hurry up and go with us. I could hear them behind the door, hustling around to get Sophie's shoes on and find her purse. I wondered how messy it could be. They'd been there less than 24 hours. Then the door opened, but not all the way. She shoved Sophie in to the hall.
"Ah don' hav mah key...you got yur key...cuz ah don' hav mah key...ah guess ah jus lost mine."
"I don't actually. I left my key at home. So if you can find your key, that would be better since the office is closed for the night."
"Oh...oh dear...okay...well...ah guess it's over here somewhere...an oh... you jus wait there bay-bee...(reaching to the key on top of the fridge) oh, here it is...okay...so here we go. Less'go bay-bee. You gotch'yur shoes?"
And away we went. I drove her down to the gas station where she just hopped out of the car, "Ah'll be right back," and came back with a half-gallon of milk. Then I offered to drive her around, since it was so dark when we'd come in the night before.
"Would you like to see what's around here, since you didn't get to see much last night?"
"Shur...ah mean...if you don' have no-where else to go?"
"Not at all! Let's look around a little. I could even show you where Ryan and I lived when we first got married. Our first house."
So I drove her up Lamar and past my old house on Woodson. I showed her the playground at the top of our street and how much we loved our neighborhood (hoping she'd understand that we used to live over here and it's not scary). I showed her our vet's office on Johnson Drive and all of the fast-food places up the street that she could walk to if we found her an apartment over here.
"We're tying to get a bunch of options for you. Somewhere next to a playground with a pool for Sophie?"
"Yeah...ah might be sending Sophie home. Ah'm jus suh tired. Ah tried tuh take a nap today n she jus yelled at me 'git up! mama! play with me!' git up mama!' ah'bout smacked her cross tha rooom! An ah'm suh big, ah think it might be twins in here!"
"are you serious?"
"what wud you do if it wuz twins? Cuz ah'd freak out."
"are you kidding? we'd be THRILLED!"
"oh good, cuz ah wuz suh worried you'd freak out and you wudn' wanna work with me no more."
"Oh my gosh, kelly. if you're carrying twins, that would be such an incredible blessing."
"oh good, cuz ah can feel somethin' here (touching her left hip) and here (touching her right hip) and they's both hard."
"Wow...that would be amazing."
We drove around some more but all I could think about was twins. It wasn't actually possible because we had a report from her one and only doctor's appointment that he only heard a single heartbeat, but I didn't care. I was so distracted that I got us a little lost. I drove past the point where I wanted to turn and then I missed the entrance to the highwday because the entrance was not on the right side, as anticipated. It was on the FAR LEFT and I couldn't get over.
Twins.
I took them back to the apartment and gave Sophie a hug good-bye. I saw Kelly look at me, like she thought it was really sweet. She approved. I explained that I had to deliver some cupcakes tomorrow afternoon, but they could call me if they needed anything. I wanted her to make her grocery list and we would go on Thursday after the doctor's appointment. That all sounded good. No mention of sending Sophie back. No mention of anyone trying to kill her. No mention of anyone being so rude and yelling at her. This change was good. She seemed good. She talked a lot about how tired she was, but I've obviously never been pregnant so I can't relate. I don't know what that feels like to want to get out of bed, but you can't because you're SO tired. It was really all she could talk about. And how she tells Sophie that she's just getting fat. She's not explaining to Sophie about the baby because she thinks it will be too confusing. But Sophie sleeps in her bed and she kicks her in the stomach and she's like "No! Stop!' but can't tell her why.
Twins.
I texted Ryan later that night:
"She thinks she's carrying twins."
He texted back:
"And everyone is trying to kill her."
Sunday, August 1, 2010
wherein my head explodes - part four
...so last we heard, Mary was talking to Tony and Amanda. She was also going to call Allan to tell him that his services were no longer needed. Mary guessed that it would not go well. She was right. Evidently, Allan yelled at her so loud that someone walking past her office could hear him shouting over her head-set. She finally just pushed "speaker" so everyone in the office could hear the horrifying things that were coming out of his mouth. She said she'd never seen that side of Allan before and could see what Kelly was talking about. She gave us permission to move Kelly out of her apartment in Topeka. Allan threatened that it was illegal to remove her. Mary assured us it wasn't. Ryan and I found an extended stay hotel that would rent a studio room for $179 per week. We booked it over the phone.
It started to rain.
At 5:00, I called Kelly to tell her the good news. We were coming to get her. She answered the phone and immediately started telling me some rambling story about how the maintenance man just called her and asked if she'd told everyone in the building that he was a child molester. I said, "please don't worry another minute about that. Ryan and I are coming to get you. We are moving you out TONIGHT." Again with the long, rambling story about the maintenance man and how he just called to tell her that he said, she said that he's a child molester. "Please don't worry about that right now. Just pack up everything in your room that you want to take with you. Ryan and I got you a place in Kansas City and we are on our way. We will be there in 45 minutes."
"Oh mah gawd? Are you serius? Becuz ah can'even concentrait righ'now...ah'm jus so freaked out by this maintenance man - "
"I'm totally serious. Just pack up whatever you want to take. You're moving out tonight."
"Oh mah gawd...okay...all jus put ever'thin in the shoppin cart ah saw downstairs."
"Okay...I'll call you when we're getting close."
"Thank you!"
"You're welcome. See you soon."
I got in the car and decided to just go directly to the extended stay place and check her in. I told them the whole situation and how we were paying for someone else to live there. They said I needed to get her driver's licence swiped when she came in. I called Ryan. "Does she have a driver's licence? I don't even know if she knows how to drive."
"She would have to. They wouldn't have let her on the plane without one."
"Good point."
It was about 6:00. My phone rang. It was Kelly.
"Are y'all close? Ah jus got a call from the maintenance man sayin he was gonna send his girlfren up here and she was gonna give me a piece of her mine!!! This whole bildin' wants tah KILL me!"
"Please, just lock your door. Don't answer your phone. Don't answer your door. We will be there soon. I decided to check you in early to the hotel so we wouldn't have to do it tonight. You have a room. You're all checked in."
"Oh mah gawd...becuz this whole place wants to kill me now an ah thawt you'd be here by now an ah have all my stuff in a shopping cart outsahd mah room. Ah have like 4 tuns uv stuff."
"Oh...I'm so sorry. It's raining here and traffic is moving really slow and I thought it would be best to check you in so we didn't have to do it tonight. We are on our way. Just stay in your room. Don't answer your door. Don't answer your room phone. We will call you on your cell."
I called my sister to tell her what was going on. In the background, I could hear my brother-in-law, "Do they need any help?"
"Thanks. I don't think so. We're just going to pick up her stuff. But now she thinks everyone in the building wants to kill her."
"Whaaaat?"
"I know. We're dealing with a crazy person. There's no other way to put it. We have no idea who to believe. The attorney said she seeks out this maintenance guy. She says he stalks her. She told Peggy that he comes in her room whenever he wants and it's not okay because she has a child. Peggy probably thought she was implying he's a child molester. Peggy probably told the management company and they probably confronted him. Then he confronted her and now she thinks his girlfriend wants to beat her up."
"Geez. Troy says you can call the police if anything gets crazy."
"I know. I don't think we'll have any trouble. But it's seriously insane. We just have to get there and bring her back to Kansas City. We have a room for her. It's nice. It's clean. Lindsay is helping us find some apartments again (THANK YOU LINDSAY!!!!) and everything should calm down once we can get her in to a place with a pool - close to a playground."
"Does she have a lot of stuff?"
"No. When we saw her room, she had like 1 duffel bag. But I don't know. She just said she had 4 tons of stuff. She probably has groceries and stuff...you know what...it may not be a bad idea. Would he seriously mind?"
"(to Troy) Now she thinks it might not be a bad idea. Do you mind going with them to Topeka? (back to me) He doesn't mind. He'll have to clean out my car, but how soon are you leaving?"
"As soon as I get home. Ryan is picking up a comforter and the car seat from mom and dad's. We're just going to give her our Queen comforter. Mom threw it in the dryer to make it all fluffy. But as soon as we get home, we're headed to Topeka."
We made arrangements to meet Troy along 435 somewhere and he basically fell in behind us. We called Ryan's parents and brother along the way, explaining what was going on. While we were talking to Ryan's parents, I got another message from Amanda. This time she was begging me to call her back. She said she'd just gotten off the phone with Kelly who was curled in a corner in her room because everyone in the building was coming after her and she didn't want to get off the phone in case she needed a witness. And Kelly is almost out of minutes because she was on the phone so long. And would I PLEASE call her back once Kelly and Sophie were safe.
Holy crap.
How is this my life?
We finally got to Topeka and we found Taber Arms. We pulled in to the parking lot and there was a truck backed in to a spot where 8-9 people were sitting around "tailgating", smoking and drinking in lawn chairs. Awesome.
Troy got out of his car and walked over to ours. We walked up to the building together. We tried the door. It was locked. I called Kelly. It went right to voice mail. Awesome. So now she's out of minutes and there's no way to get ahold of her. Meanwhile, the little tailgating group started to notice us. I called Taber Arms and used the room code. It rang and rang. Finally, "yes?"
"Hi Kelly, it's Ashley. We're here, but we can't get in."
"Oh...ummm...ah'll...ummm...ah'll just be down in a second."
A guy yelled over from the tailgating group.
"You try the bell?"
(Troy) "Oh...no...we're calling someone. She'll be right down."
"Cuz the bell don't wurk."
(laughing) "So I guess we would have been here a while."
End of conversation with the tailgaters. Time to focus on business. I started taking pictures of the parking lot and the outside of the building. Our goal was to get some photos of the inside of her apartment for Mary. Proof of how bad it was. Sophie and Kelly were at the door. "Ashley. They're here! We're going in!" I ran back over to the entrance and followed them up. The hallway looked different, but not better. It still smelled like a pool hall or a dingy bar in a casino. The elevator stunk. The hallway stunk. We turned the corner and sure enough, she'd packed all of her belongings in a cart in the hallway.
"Ah wuz so scared y'all. Those people out there wanna kill me. Ah jus cu'dn't git outa here fast enuf."
"Well...do you care if I take some pictures inside the apartment? I wanted to document it for Mary."
(trying the door) "Oh...shoot. Ah jus locked the door. Ah don' have mah key. Ah wuz so ek-sited when ah herd y'all wuz here, ah jus shut the door with mah key inside."
"Oh. Shoot. Well. That's okay. Um...let's get your stuff then."
Ryan pushed the shopping cart and Troy picked up a duffel bag. I found some sort of laundry hamper that had wet clothes in it. We all fit in the elevator. We headed outside and Kelly said, "Those are the folks who wanna kill me. Ahm gonna hurry. C'mon baby, less'go." as she led Sophie across the parking lot to our car. Head down and determined to get out of there as fast as we could, we fit her clothes, her comforter and her bags in to our car. The grocery cart went to Troy's car and we quickly noticed there were eggs, milk, and "spoilable" items that might not make the hour and a half car ride. Plus, who knows how long they'd been in her hallway in the shopping cart.
"You want me to go to one of those gas stations and pick up a cooler with some ice for that stuff?"
"Oh my gosh...I think that would be great Troy. Thank you so much."
"No problem. I'll just catch up with you guys."
"Well, yeah. Ryan and I haven't eaten dinner yet, so we were thinking we'd stop at one of those rest stops along the highway."
"Alright...I'll just catch up with you then."
"Awesome. Thanks, Troy!"
The car ride went great. Once we got Kelly off the subject of those people wanting to kill her, she talked about Sophie and how she'd poured a whole bottle of lotion in her hair and how she's just a rotten child. She talked about how she wanted to go to the doctor and how she was still waiting to hear back about her appointment. How she hadn't filled out the medicaid card because she just knew she wasn't gonna stay at that horrible place. Somehow, she just knew it. So she has the paperwork in her bag somewhere, but she just threw everything in her bag and she didn't know where it was, but she would find it and we could send it in. She talked about how they grew up on Amanda's farm and Sophie's only ever known what it was like to run and play on this farm, but when Amanda bought the apartment she's in now, there wasn't enough room for her and Sophie. She talked about how she has no intentions of staying in Kansas after the baby is born - no offense to Kansas - she just wanted this part of her life to be over. She wanted to be knocked out for the next 3 months. Just have the baby and go home. She didn't want to hear the heartbeat and she hoped we understood.
We made it to the first rest-stop and Kelly said they'd just wait in the car while Ryan and I ran in to get some food. Then we offered to bring back some drinks or some ice cream for Sophie.
"Do you like ice cream?"
(her eyes got all big as she nodded)
"Do you like chocolate ice cream or vanilla ice cream?"
"I like BOTH those kinds!"
In my mind, I was feeling like we should turn the car off - not that I thought they would steal our car, but the thought crossed my mind. So we turned off the car and locked the doors (so nobody else could jump in and steal it?)
As we ordered our food and got Sophie her ice cream, I began to think about how much better this felt. We were directly involved now with the woman carrying our baby. We could help her when she needed help. We could take her to the doctor and have some control over what happened next. We got back in the car and Kelly explained that she made the alarm go off. They were trying to get out so Sophie could use the bathroom and the alarm went off.
"Oh, I'm sorry! Do you need to go to the bathroom, sweetie?"
"Yeah! I gotta poop!"
Kelly just laughed and tried her best to get her out of her carseat. Ryan went around the back to help. They ran in and my phone rang. It was Troy. He'd had a lot of trouble finding the cooler so he finally found a Wal-Mart and was just getting to the check-out.
"Oh, my gosh. Well...thank you for doing that. Kelly is in the rest-stop right now because Sophie had to poop."
"Okay...I'll probably be somewhere behind you guys, but don't wait on me."
I explained where the place was we were taking them and Troy knew it right away. Kelly and Sophie got back in the car and Kelly told us it was a wasted stop. She didn't really have to go. We relayed the story about Delaney "crying wolf" with regard to potty breaks until the day she peed right on the patio at Johnny's. It happens. And it's hard to know when they're really serious. It's not worth the risk.
Five minutes later, Sophie announced that she had to go pee. She was starting to whimper.
"That's okay! We can stop! There's another rest-stop up here and there isn't another one for several miles, so it's best if we just stop here. Just in case."
As they ran inside, I called and texted some friends about how and where I could get Kelly in for a sonogram. Would any of our nurse friends do it? How much does it cost to walk in without insurance? nothing seemed promising, but I wasn't going to give up. I was dying to know what she was carrying. Is our baby a boy or a girl?
My phone rang again. It was Troy.
"Hey...can they hear me right now?"
"No."
"So I'm not on speaker-phone?"
"No."
"Did Sophie have any toys that you could see?"
"No."
"Do you know if she had any pajamas."
"I don't think so, but I have no idea."
"Well...I'm just gonna stop by our house on the way. I can think of a couple things we can just give her to play with. Do you have any idea what size pajamas she wears?"
"I don't...(trying not to say anything about how Sophie is bigger than Delaney)"
"Well...I'll be a ways behind you guys, but I'm just gonna call Whitney and see if she can put a bag together. I know there's some stuff in the basement we've never even opened."
"Oh Troy...that's awesome! Thank you so much!"
"You're welcome. I'll see you guys later."
I couldn't even tell Ryan what just happened without giving away the surprise, but my whole heart felt happy. This is what it was supposed to feel like. My family was pulling together to help out this sweet little girl and her mom. They were in a situation that was unfortunate. We knew we could help.
We finally got to the place (it was almost 10:30) and we had to dial a special number so the office manager could come swipe Kelly's driver's licence. Kelly, Sophie and I went upstairs while Ryan loaded all of her stuff on a luggage cart. I was so excited to show them their new room. It was clean. It had everything they needed. I turned the tv on and asked Kelly if she liked certain movies because I was thinking we could get her a VCR in her new apartment and just load her up with all kinds of movies. She thought that sounded great.
As we went out in to the hallway to go help Ryan, he was already coming down the hall with all of their stuff. Sophie thought that was pretty cool. She'd never seen a luggage cart before. We got all of their stuff unloaded and told them we'd wait downstairs for Troy. That's when I finally told Ryan what was going on. Troy was going to surprise Sophie with a whole bag full of toys.
"That's awesome!"
"I know!"
We were waiting there for a while so I started texting some friends - updating them on what was going on. We were already getting offers for couches, chairs, TVs, dishes, pots/pans for Kelly's new apartment; snacks, clothes and toys for Sophie...anything we needed...friends were willing to donate. It was awesome.
Then I had to pee.
Really bad.
I looked around the hallway and the only restroom was locked. I didn't want to go in Kelly's new room, so I decided to take the car down to the QT on the corner. By the time I got back, Troy was already pulling out of the parking lot. I'd missed it. I stopped him.
"So...was it worth it?"
"Oh my gosh. Just seeing her face light up when she saw those toys...it was ALL worth it!"
"I was thinking it might be fun, now that you've met her...if you want to introduce her to Delaney? I thought they'd have fun playing together."
"You know...I was thinking that too. If she needs a break, I could just bring Sophie over to our house. She could jump on the trampoline. She even looks like she might be the kind of kid who enjoys sandboxes."
"...or Deanna Rose?"
"You know...I hadn't thought of that. That's a great idea."
"Well. Thank you so much, Troy! You've been awesome."
"You're very welcome. It was so worth it."
I got to the entrance and called up to Ryan to let me in. His phone went to voicemail and I was stuck in the airlock thingy without any way of getting in touch with anyone. I was missing sweet little Sophie, playing with all of her new toys! Just then, a girl walked in (carrying a yoga mat) and heard me leaving my message for Ryan to just come down and let me in. She held the door open for me and I thanked her - trying not to be too chatty or creepy or needlessly "explainey".
I got to the room and knocked on the door. I could hear Ryan explaining how the phone worked. I knocked. Nothing. I knocked again. Nothing. I knocked every time I heard Ryan's voice stop. Finally the door opened. Sophie's eyes were huge and I held my hands out.
"Whad'ya think? Do you love your new toys? Show me what Troy brought you!!!"
She ran over to her big bag and lifted out the Play-doh kitchen. It was almost too heavy for her to lift. Then she showed me the Toy Story Yahtzee game and I heard Kelly say, "Y'all are too much. You need to jus git outa here and go back to yur lives, ah know you've got wurk in the mornin'."
We bid them good night and walked out of there feeling so good about ourselves. We slept well that night and we bragged about ourselves all afternoon the next day. How great were we? We did the right thing.
Or so we thought...
It started to rain.
At 5:00, I called Kelly to tell her the good news. We were coming to get her. She answered the phone and immediately started telling me some rambling story about how the maintenance man just called her and asked if she'd told everyone in the building that he was a child molester. I said, "please don't worry another minute about that. Ryan and I are coming to get you. We are moving you out TONIGHT." Again with the long, rambling story about the maintenance man and how he just called to tell her that he said, she said that he's a child molester. "Please don't worry about that right now. Just pack up everything in your room that you want to take with you. Ryan and I got you a place in Kansas City and we are on our way. We will be there in 45 minutes."
"Oh mah gawd? Are you serius? Becuz ah can'even concentrait righ'now...ah'm jus so freaked out by this maintenance man - "
"I'm totally serious. Just pack up whatever you want to take. You're moving out tonight."
"Oh mah gawd...okay...all jus put ever'thin in the shoppin cart ah saw downstairs."
"Okay...I'll call you when we're getting close."
"Thank you!"
"You're welcome. See you soon."
I got in the car and decided to just go directly to the extended stay place and check her in. I told them the whole situation and how we were paying for someone else to live there. They said I needed to get her driver's licence swiped when she came in. I called Ryan. "Does she have a driver's licence? I don't even know if she knows how to drive."
"She would have to. They wouldn't have let her on the plane without one."
"Good point."
It was about 6:00. My phone rang. It was Kelly.
"Are y'all close? Ah jus got a call from the maintenance man sayin he was gonna send his girlfren up here and she was gonna give me a piece of her mine!!! This whole bildin' wants tah KILL me!"
"Please, just lock your door. Don't answer your phone. Don't answer your door. We will be there soon. I decided to check you in early to the hotel so we wouldn't have to do it tonight. You have a room. You're all checked in."
"Oh mah gawd...becuz this whole place wants to kill me now an ah thawt you'd be here by now an ah have all my stuff in a shopping cart outsahd mah room. Ah have like 4 tuns uv stuff."
"Oh...I'm so sorry. It's raining here and traffic is moving really slow and I thought it would be best to check you in so we didn't have to do it tonight. We are on our way. Just stay in your room. Don't answer your door. Don't answer your room phone. We will call you on your cell."
I called my sister to tell her what was going on. In the background, I could hear my brother-in-law, "Do they need any help?"
"Thanks. I don't think so. We're just going to pick up her stuff. But now she thinks everyone in the building wants to kill her."
"Whaaaat?"
"I know. We're dealing with a crazy person. There's no other way to put it. We have no idea who to believe. The attorney said she seeks out this maintenance guy. She says he stalks her. She told Peggy that he comes in her room whenever he wants and it's not okay because she has a child. Peggy probably thought she was implying he's a child molester. Peggy probably told the management company and they probably confronted him. Then he confronted her and now she thinks his girlfriend wants to beat her up."
"Geez. Troy says you can call the police if anything gets crazy."
"I know. I don't think we'll have any trouble. But it's seriously insane. We just have to get there and bring her back to Kansas City. We have a room for her. It's nice. It's clean. Lindsay is helping us find some apartments again (THANK YOU LINDSAY!!!!) and everything should calm down once we can get her in to a place with a pool - close to a playground."
"Does she have a lot of stuff?"
"No. When we saw her room, she had like 1 duffel bag. But I don't know. She just said she had 4 tons of stuff. She probably has groceries and stuff...you know what...it may not be a bad idea. Would he seriously mind?"
"(to Troy) Now she thinks it might not be a bad idea. Do you mind going with them to Topeka? (back to me) He doesn't mind. He'll have to clean out my car, but how soon are you leaving?"
"As soon as I get home. Ryan is picking up a comforter and the car seat from mom and dad's. We're just going to give her our Queen comforter. Mom threw it in the dryer to make it all fluffy. But as soon as we get home, we're headed to Topeka."
We made arrangements to meet Troy along 435 somewhere and he basically fell in behind us. We called Ryan's parents and brother along the way, explaining what was going on. While we were talking to Ryan's parents, I got another message from Amanda. This time she was begging me to call her back. She said she'd just gotten off the phone with Kelly who was curled in a corner in her room because everyone in the building was coming after her and she didn't want to get off the phone in case she needed a witness. And Kelly is almost out of minutes because she was on the phone so long. And would I PLEASE call her back once Kelly and Sophie were safe.
Holy crap.
How is this my life?
We finally got to Topeka and we found Taber Arms. We pulled in to the parking lot and there was a truck backed in to a spot where 8-9 people were sitting around "tailgating", smoking and drinking in lawn chairs. Awesome.
Troy got out of his car and walked over to ours. We walked up to the building together. We tried the door. It was locked. I called Kelly. It went right to voice mail. Awesome. So now she's out of minutes and there's no way to get ahold of her. Meanwhile, the little tailgating group started to notice us. I called Taber Arms and used the room code. It rang and rang. Finally, "yes?"
"Hi Kelly, it's Ashley. We're here, but we can't get in."
"Oh...ummm...ah'll...ummm...ah'll just be down in a second."
A guy yelled over from the tailgating group.
"You try the bell?"
(Troy) "Oh...no...we're calling someone. She'll be right down."
"Cuz the bell don't wurk."
(laughing) "So I guess we would have been here a while."
End of conversation with the tailgaters. Time to focus on business. I started taking pictures of the parking lot and the outside of the building. Our goal was to get some photos of the inside of her apartment for Mary. Proof of how bad it was. Sophie and Kelly were at the door. "Ashley. They're here! We're going in!" I ran back over to the entrance and followed them up. The hallway looked different, but not better. It still smelled like a pool hall or a dingy bar in a casino. The elevator stunk. The hallway stunk. We turned the corner and sure enough, she'd packed all of her belongings in a cart in the hallway.
"Ah wuz so scared y'all. Those people out there wanna kill me. Ah jus cu'dn't git outa here fast enuf."
"Well...do you care if I take some pictures inside the apartment? I wanted to document it for Mary."
(trying the door) "Oh...shoot. Ah jus locked the door. Ah don' have mah key. Ah wuz so ek-sited when ah herd y'all wuz here, ah jus shut the door with mah key inside."
"Oh. Shoot. Well. That's okay. Um...let's get your stuff then."
Ryan pushed the shopping cart and Troy picked up a duffel bag. I found some sort of laundry hamper that had wet clothes in it. We all fit in the elevator. We headed outside and Kelly said, "Those are the folks who wanna kill me. Ahm gonna hurry. C'mon baby, less'go." as she led Sophie across the parking lot to our car. Head down and determined to get out of there as fast as we could, we fit her clothes, her comforter and her bags in to our car. The grocery cart went to Troy's car and we quickly noticed there were eggs, milk, and "spoilable" items that might not make the hour and a half car ride. Plus, who knows how long they'd been in her hallway in the shopping cart.
"You want me to go to one of those gas stations and pick up a cooler with some ice for that stuff?"
"Oh my gosh...I think that would be great Troy. Thank you so much."
"No problem. I'll just catch up with you guys."
"Well, yeah. Ryan and I haven't eaten dinner yet, so we were thinking we'd stop at one of those rest stops along the highway."
"Alright...I'll just catch up with you then."
"Awesome. Thanks, Troy!"
The car ride went great. Once we got Kelly off the subject of those people wanting to kill her, she talked about Sophie and how she'd poured a whole bottle of lotion in her hair and how she's just a rotten child. She talked about how she wanted to go to the doctor and how she was still waiting to hear back about her appointment. How she hadn't filled out the medicaid card because she just knew she wasn't gonna stay at that horrible place. Somehow, she just knew it. So she has the paperwork in her bag somewhere, but she just threw everything in her bag and she didn't know where it was, but she would find it and we could send it in. She talked about how they grew up on Amanda's farm and Sophie's only ever known what it was like to run and play on this farm, but when Amanda bought the apartment she's in now, there wasn't enough room for her and Sophie. She talked about how she has no intentions of staying in Kansas after the baby is born - no offense to Kansas - she just wanted this part of her life to be over. She wanted to be knocked out for the next 3 months. Just have the baby and go home. She didn't want to hear the heartbeat and she hoped we understood.
We made it to the first rest-stop and Kelly said they'd just wait in the car while Ryan and I ran in to get some food. Then we offered to bring back some drinks or some ice cream for Sophie.
"Do you like ice cream?"
(her eyes got all big as she nodded)
"Do you like chocolate ice cream or vanilla ice cream?"
"I like BOTH those kinds!"
In my mind, I was feeling like we should turn the car off - not that I thought they would steal our car, but the thought crossed my mind. So we turned off the car and locked the doors (so nobody else could jump in and steal it?)
As we ordered our food and got Sophie her ice cream, I began to think about how much better this felt. We were directly involved now with the woman carrying our baby. We could help her when she needed help. We could take her to the doctor and have some control over what happened next. We got back in the car and Kelly explained that she made the alarm go off. They were trying to get out so Sophie could use the bathroom and the alarm went off.
"Oh, I'm sorry! Do you need to go to the bathroom, sweetie?"
"Yeah! I gotta poop!"
Kelly just laughed and tried her best to get her out of her carseat. Ryan went around the back to help. They ran in and my phone rang. It was Troy. He'd had a lot of trouble finding the cooler so he finally found a Wal-Mart and was just getting to the check-out.
"Oh, my gosh. Well...thank you for doing that. Kelly is in the rest-stop right now because Sophie had to poop."
"Okay...I'll probably be somewhere behind you guys, but don't wait on me."
I explained where the place was we were taking them and Troy knew it right away. Kelly and Sophie got back in the car and Kelly told us it was a wasted stop. She didn't really have to go. We relayed the story about Delaney "crying wolf" with regard to potty breaks until the day she peed right on the patio at Johnny's. It happens. And it's hard to know when they're really serious. It's not worth the risk.
Five minutes later, Sophie announced that she had to go pee. She was starting to whimper.
"That's okay! We can stop! There's another rest-stop up here and there isn't another one for several miles, so it's best if we just stop here. Just in case."
As they ran inside, I called and texted some friends about how and where I could get Kelly in for a sonogram. Would any of our nurse friends do it? How much does it cost to walk in without insurance? nothing seemed promising, but I wasn't going to give up. I was dying to know what she was carrying. Is our baby a boy or a girl?
My phone rang again. It was Troy.
"Hey...can they hear me right now?"
"No."
"So I'm not on speaker-phone?"
"No."
"Did Sophie have any toys that you could see?"
"No."
"Do you know if she had any pajamas."
"I don't think so, but I have no idea."
"Well...I'm just gonna stop by our house on the way. I can think of a couple things we can just give her to play with. Do you have any idea what size pajamas she wears?"
"I don't...(trying not to say anything about how Sophie is bigger than Delaney)"
"Well...I'll be a ways behind you guys, but I'm just gonna call Whitney and see if she can put a bag together. I know there's some stuff in the basement we've never even opened."
"Oh Troy...that's awesome! Thank you so much!"
"You're welcome. I'll see you guys later."
I couldn't even tell Ryan what just happened without giving away the surprise, but my whole heart felt happy. This is what it was supposed to feel like. My family was pulling together to help out this sweet little girl and her mom. They were in a situation that was unfortunate. We knew we could help.
We finally got to the place (it was almost 10:30) and we had to dial a special number so the office manager could come swipe Kelly's driver's licence. Kelly, Sophie and I went upstairs while Ryan loaded all of her stuff on a luggage cart. I was so excited to show them their new room. It was clean. It had everything they needed. I turned the tv on and asked Kelly if she liked certain movies because I was thinking we could get her a VCR in her new apartment and just load her up with all kinds of movies. She thought that sounded great.
As we went out in to the hallway to go help Ryan, he was already coming down the hall with all of their stuff. Sophie thought that was pretty cool. She'd never seen a luggage cart before. We got all of their stuff unloaded and told them we'd wait downstairs for Troy. That's when I finally told Ryan what was going on. Troy was going to surprise Sophie with a whole bag full of toys.
"That's awesome!"
"I know!"
We were waiting there for a while so I started texting some friends - updating them on what was going on. We were already getting offers for couches, chairs, TVs, dishes, pots/pans for Kelly's new apartment; snacks, clothes and toys for Sophie...anything we needed...friends were willing to donate. It was awesome.
Then I had to pee.
Really bad.
I looked around the hallway and the only restroom was locked. I didn't want to go in Kelly's new room, so I decided to take the car down to the QT on the corner. By the time I got back, Troy was already pulling out of the parking lot. I'd missed it. I stopped him.
"So...was it worth it?"
"Oh my gosh. Just seeing her face light up when she saw those toys...it was ALL worth it!"
"I was thinking it might be fun, now that you've met her...if you want to introduce her to Delaney? I thought they'd have fun playing together."
"You know...I was thinking that too. If she needs a break, I could just bring Sophie over to our house. She could jump on the trampoline. She even looks like she might be the kind of kid who enjoys sandboxes."
"...or Deanna Rose?"
"You know...I hadn't thought of that. That's a great idea."
"Well. Thank you so much, Troy! You've been awesome."
"You're very welcome. It was so worth it."
I got to the entrance and called up to Ryan to let me in. His phone went to voicemail and I was stuck in the airlock thingy without any way of getting in touch with anyone. I was missing sweet little Sophie, playing with all of her new toys! Just then, a girl walked in (carrying a yoga mat) and heard me leaving my message for Ryan to just come down and let me in. She held the door open for me and I thanked her - trying not to be too chatty or creepy or needlessly "explainey".
I got to the room and knocked on the door. I could hear Ryan explaining how the phone worked. I knocked. Nothing. I knocked again. Nothing. I knocked every time I heard Ryan's voice stop. Finally the door opened. Sophie's eyes were huge and I held my hands out.
"Whad'ya think? Do you love your new toys? Show me what Troy brought you!!!"
She ran over to her big bag and lifted out the Play-doh kitchen. It was almost too heavy for her to lift. Then she showed me the Toy Story Yahtzee game and I heard Kelly say, "Y'all are too much. You need to jus git outa here and go back to yur lives, ah know you've got wurk in the mornin'."
We bid them good night and walked out of there feeling so good about ourselves. We slept well that night and we bragged about ourselves all afternoon the next day. How great were we? We did the right thing.
Or so we thought...
wherein my head explodes - part three
Tuesday morning, I was sitting at my desk when the phone rang. It was Mary, our agent in California. She did not have good news.
"Hi Ashley, this is Mary. I just talked to Kelly. Actually, I was on the phone with her for almost 2 hours. She's incredibly upset. She's done with Allan. She's done with Peggy. She's done with this place in Topeka..."
(my heart stopped)
"...I want to know, from your perspective, how bad is that apartment in Topeka? I mean, you saw it, right?"
"Oh...it's disgusting. Yeah. It's really, really bad."
"Okay. That's all I need to know. I need to talk to Allan. We have got to move her out of there. That's all there is to it. Kelly is about to lose it. She has no reservations about you guys. In fact, she's worried that all of this drama is going to cause you two to back out. But she can't relax. She can't focus. All she wants is a nice place to stay and from what you're telling me and from what she's telling me, this place is a dump."
"It is. It really, really is. After we met with her last Thursday, we called Allan immediately after we dropped her off and told him how unacceptable that place was. He told us to stay out of it."
"That's just an excuse. He should know better. I need to talk to him...he knows that's not what ANLC represents. He's been to our website. He knows what we provide to our birthmothers as far as housing goes. They live in a condo on the beach. They have internet hook-ups, computers, washers and dryers...I mean, I want to live there."
"Yeah, this place is gross. And he told us he'd move her to another unit once that other birthmother moved out but then that place was infested with bed-bugs or fleas so she was too scared to move in there. He mentioned on Saturday that we might be able to find her another apartment. We even offered to furnish it ourselves so she'd never know it was from us."
"Well...I want her out of that building. She told me this morning that the maintenance man comes in whenever he wants. He has a key."
(my heart sank)
"Are you SERIOUS?"
"Yes. She said he just walks in whenever he wants. She's been leaving her phone off the hook and not answering her door because the people downstairs just want her to come outside and hang out in the parking lot with them. And the other birthmom who just left was on drugs the whole time."
"Oh my gosh. This is not good."
Our conversation went on for a while and I agreed that she needed to sort it out with Allan.
I cried all through my 10:00 meeting.
Our poor birthmom. Here she was in a strange apartment, in a strange town with strange people who were not treating her with the respect she deserved.
The phone rang all day. Every time, it was just a heightened version of "Kelly is not happy" and "Kelly wants to send Sophie back to Georgia because she just can't handle how gross it is and how unhealthy this place is for a child". Ryan mentioned that Mary was concerned about the number of child molesters in Topeka and she did a search on watchdog.com to see if the maintenance man was listed. Topeka had one of the highest concentrations of reported child molesters in the country. There was nothing listed at the Taber Arms address so the maintenance man seemed "not guilty". Either way, Mary wanted us to start looking for other apartments in Topeka while she talked to Allan. Mary wanted Allan to work on the way he spoke to Kelly and she had hopes that she could mend their relationship. Kelly said she would sign papers with Allan so we didn't need to hire a different attorney, but she didn't want him driving her around anymore or coming over. I asked Mary if we could focus on getting Kelly to the doctor - because all of this seemed REALLY irrelevant if that baby wasn't healthy. She hadn't been to the doctor since March (simply to confirm the pregnancy) and she certainly hadn't been getting any prenatal care. Could we please focus on why we're all here in the first place??
The next day, we had an email from Peggy (Allan's wife):
Later that day, we heard from Mary that she talked to Allan and he was VERY upset with her for getting involved and she needed to just butt out. Mary told me, "The only reason Kelly was nice to Allan was because I told her to. I told her we were working on getting her out of there so just play along."
Later that day, I decided to call Kelly. I was sick of this "he said/she said" crap and I wanted to talk to her myself. I told her I was really sorry about everything that was going on and I asked how she was holding up.
"Oh ah'm fa'hn. Ah'm sorry...this is all jus suh crazy. Ah keep tryin' to tell Mary ah'm suh mis'rabul an she tells me to keep preten-in' like ever-thin's fine and ah jus don wanna be here no-more. Ah got this maintenance man knockin' on mah door an these people callin' me tuh come downstairs and Ah...Ah jus cain't do it no-more. Ah can't get a moment's peace."
"I know. I'm so sorry. I just want you to know that we're working on it. I swear. Something is going to change. Either Allan will change or the apartment will change. But something will. Please just hang on and we will get this all sorted out."
"Ah'm sorry...ah mean....this is all jus suh crazy. Ah'm suh mis'rabul an Sophie's mis'rabul...Ah don' wan y'all tuh have tuh go to any truh-buhl on mah'ccount. Ah jus don wanna be here no-more. Ah got Sophie in this horrible place and ah feel suh bad that ah brought her up here and ah have tuh keep socks an shoes on her all the time or her feet are black as tar. An Allan's jus suh darn mean to her. He yelled at her the other day cuz she had a sucker in his car. Ah mean. She's a chi-old."
"Wow."
"An ah jus don' feel cumf-turble round him ya know? He told me the other day that ah complain too much and ah'm so ungrateful and how a fren a'his stayed n this place n they're millionaires an if it wus good nuf fur his millionaire frens then s'good nuf fur me."
"I'm so sorry...I promise it's going to get better. Mary and Allan are working on a solution right now and something is going to change. I promise. We'll either move you out or we'll find a different attorney."
"Well ah got smart with him the other day when we went to the store. Did he tell you what ah said?"
"No. We haven't heard from Allan since Saturday."
"Well, we wur drivin to the store an he tol me ah was complaynin too much an how ah shud be more grateful - that he has millionaire frens who've stayed in that place. An ah told him - there's girls on drugs in that place! And that his millionaire friends must have been high too if they cud stan one minut in that place. Ah mean. Ah don't usually get smart with people. He jus got me all wurked up and ah jus snapped, ya know? He di'n't like that too much. He jus started yellin' an shakin his stearin' wheel an yellin' at me about how nobody's on drugs and ah need to jus stop complainin' so much."
"Oh dear. Well, I know you mentioned that you weren't comfortable with Peggy taking you to the doctor, so I was mostly calling to let you know that I have a completely open schedule next week if you want to go. I can take you."
"Yeah, well...ummm...Peggy gave me the number ah was supposed to call but ah haven't...ah mean...ah've jus been so stressed an...ah think...ah mean...ah've avoided it somewhat. Ah jus don' wanna hear the heartbeat, ya know?"
"I understand that."
"Maybe ah jus soun crazy, but ah jus don' wanna know it's in there. Ah mean...ah can feel it kick an ever-thing, but ah jus don' wanna see it on a screen or nothin'. This is y'alls baby and you should be makin plans and paintin a nursery an stuff. Ah jus don' wanna see it or hear it."
"I understand that. I just want to make sure you're in a good, healthy state of mind and you're taken care of. If you need anything, you can call us. I want to be there with you to take you to that appointment and support you in any way I can."
"Well...ah-presh-iate that, ah jus din't wanna bother you, ah know yur suh far away n'stuff."
"Not at all! I want to be there! You have no idea. I would love nothing more than to come pick you up and take you to the doctor's office. You just call that number and make the appointment. Whenever it is. I will BE there."
"Alright, well...ah don' wanna take up any more of your time - ah jus don' wanna bother y'all."
"No...don't worry about that. You can call us whenever you need to. That's why we gave you those phone numbers. And I promise. It's going to get better. Just call the doctor's office and I will take you to that appointment."
"Well...ah-presh-iate that...yeah...I'll call this numbur an call you back. They say ah need tuh call an leave uh message an then they jus call back with mah'pointment time. ah jus don' wanna bother y'all. Ah know yur at wurk and you got a lot goin on. You gotta get the nurs-ry painted and you prolly wanna know whus in here, right?"
"Yes. Very much."
I decided to call the attorney's office, just to tell them that I'd contacted Kelly. I got Peggy on the phone and she basically told me, "yeah...I know you called her...she told me...she called the doctor and she's just waiting on them to call her back with an appointment time."
Okay...awesome.
We didn't hear anything the rest of the day, but Ryan got an email saying Mary would call us on Wednesday night with an update. We just assumed Mary and Allan were duking it out.
Thursday morning, the phone rang. It was Ryan. He'd been on the phone with Mary.
"So...what happened?"
"Basically, Mary has been talking with the other agents in her office and nobody has ever had this much trouble with Allan. She is gathering information from other birthmoms he's worked with, she's gathering information from other agents and she's finding us a different lawyer in Topeka."
Just then, I remembered an email we got from our HomeStudy people. When Ryan told them we'd been matched and we were using Allan Hazlett, they sent us an email back saying, "we are well aware of Mr. Hazlett. We would have recommended someone else, but he'll probably be fine."
"I can email Adoption and Beyond...see who they would have recommended."
"Yeah...I guess we could do that. Just see what they say. But don't make it too detailed or suspicious."
"I know. And I still feel like we don't have to keep working with Allan if we don't want to. He's not the only lawyer in Topeka. And if we're paying him a fee to manage this case - take her to the store and to the doctor - and that part of their relationship is just stressing her out even more, then we shouldn't be using him. Or at least take that part out of the contract and tell him we don't need him to do that anymore. Or we can just use somebody who can finalize the adoption. That's a huge amount of money that's not worth it in the end. It was great of him to provide that service, but if she's saying 'I don't want him near me' then it doesn't make any financial sense to go through him."
"I know what you're saying and I feel like Mary is going to talk to Allan and see if they can improve that relationship. Just give him some tips on dealing with Kelly?"
"But the thing is, he's not showing us that he respects Kelly. He's been really judgmental and I just don't feel like he's going to change the way he feels about birthmoms in general. Maybe he had a passion for this job 20 years ago, but I feel like he's become really jaded. We need an attorney who interacts with our birthmom in a really positive way. I mean...we hired our agency because we liked how well they treat the birthmoms. That entire agency is founded on birthmother support and following their dreams - having goals to achieve after their babies are born. He's treating her like trash."
"So...do you feel like we for sure don't want to work with Allan anymore?"
"I don't see him changing his attitude or his tone with her anytime soon."
"Alright, well I'll call Mary back and let her know."
"And if we moved her to Kansas City, I could be the one who takes her to the store and gives her what she needs. We wouldn't need to pay somebody to do that for us. We could sort of follow our gut and provide for her the way we wanted to in the first place."
"Yeah. I don't know how much interaction we really need with her, but I feel like a real dick for not doing this sooner."
"Me too."
So by 1:00, we had sorted out that we were firing Allan and moving Kelly out of Topeka. Ryan called the new lawyer (our HomeStudy people wrote back to us right away with the name of a new lawyer in Topeka - the same one that Mary found) and we determined that Mary needed to let Allan know before we could hire this new guy.
I went to lunch and when I came back, I had two messages on my cell phone. First one was the birthfather:
"Ha Ashley - how are you? This is [Tony] ah'm [Kelly's full name] boyfren. ah sophie's father. um yes. if you cud please, cud you contact mah gud fren [Amanda]. at...um...(then he gave me her phone number) i's jus imperitive that you get in contact with uhs....umm..umm...ah hear great things about you gahs by the way - ah just wanna put that in there...ummm...ah'm very upseht and over-whe-olmd with the way this situation is goin own...to the point where ah can'even talk about it. ah would prefer that you talk with my fren. ah think that she can explaiiin the situation a little bit bettur. ummm. ummm. ah do 'pologize for that but ah'm a tad upse-uht...but please, please, uh...do contact her. ah'd really 'preciate it. we need to tawlk. is'very impordant...ummm. thank you. sorry to disturb you an ah hope you have a great day."
Holy shit balls.
She gave him my phone number.
I started shaking.
The very next message was from her friend "Amanda" (who Kelly had been avoiding since she arrived, according to Allan).
"Ashley? Hai. My name is [Amanda]. Ah'm frens with [Kelly] an lil [Sophie]. If you have a few minuts, ah wud really preciate a return phonecawl. you can reach me at (complete phone number).
thank you ma'am."
What the faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahk??????
Who ARE these people?? Why are they calling me??? HOW DID THEY GET MY PHONE NUMBER if she's not even talking to them? Last we heard, Tony was DATING Amanda and Kelly was super pissed about it. Allan kept saying, "Kelly doesn't even want to talk to Amanda. Amanda calls me once a day to see how they're doing."
I immediately called Ryan.
"I JUST GOT TWO URGENT MESSAGES FROM TONY AND AMANDA SAYING THAT THEY WERE VERY UPSET ABOUT THE WAY THINGS WERE GOING AND COULD YOU PLEASE CALL BACK - IT IS IMPERITIVE!"
"Oh my gawd. What the faaaaahk? Are you serious?"
"YES! I am SHAKING right now."
"Did you call Mary?"
"Not yet. I didn't even know what to do. (silence) SHE GAVE THEM MY PHONE NUMBER!"
"I know. (silence) Dammit! I knew it was a bad idea to - crap. Alright, well...call Mary, I guess. They should not be calling you."
I called Mary. I told the receptionist it was an emergency. I told Mary that I was shaking and scared and upset. I told Mary that Kelly gave them my phone number and can you please call them back and tell them we are doing everything we can? Tell them that we are unhappy with the situation too? That we totally respect and admire her and we are so frustrated that Allan is not treating her with the decency she deserves?
Mary was going to take care of it.
(to be continued to part four...already in progress)
"Hi Ashley, this is Mary. I just talked to Kelly. Actually, I was on the phone with her for almost 2 hours. She's incredibly upset. She's done with Allan. She's done with Peggy. She's done with this place in Topeka..."
(my heart stopped)
"...I want to know, from your perspective, how bad is that apartment in Topeka? I mean, you saw it, right?"
"Oh...it's disgusting. Yeah. It's really, really bad."
"Okay. That's all I need to know. I need to talk to Allan. We have got to move her out of there. That's all there is to it. Kelly is about to lose it. She has no reservations about you guys. In fact, she's worried that all of this drama is going to cause you two to back out. But she can't relax. She can't focus. All she wants is a nice place to stay and from what you're telling me and from what she's telling me, this place is a dump."
"It is. It really, really is. After we met with her last Thursday, we called Allan immediately after we dropped her off and told him how unacceptable that place was. He told us to stay out of it."
"That's just an excuse. He should know better. I need to talk to him...he knows that's not what ANLC represents. He's been to our website. He knows what we provide to our birthmothers as far as housing goes. They live in a condo on the beach. They have internet hook-ups, computers, washers and dryers...I mean, I want to live there."
"Yeah, this place is gross. And he told us he'd move her to another unit once that other birthmother moved out but then that place was infested with bed-bugs or fleas so she was too scared to move in there. He mentioned on Saturday that we might be able to find her another apartment. We even offered to furnish it ourselves so she'd never know it was from us."
"Well...I want her out of that building. She told me this morning that the maintenance man comes in whenever he wants. He has a key."
(my heart sank)
"Are you SERIOUS?"
"Yes. She said he just walks in whenever he wants. She's been leaving her phone off the hook and not answering her door because the people downstairs just want her to come outside and hang out in the parking lot with them. And the other birthmom who just left was on drugs the whole time."
"Oh my gosh. This is not good."
Our conversation went on for a while and I agreed that she needed to sort it out with Allan.
I cried all through my 10:00 meeting.
Our poor birthmom. Here she was in a strange apartment, in a strange town with strange people who were not treating her with the respect she deserved.
The phone rang all day. Every time, it was just a heightened version of "Kelly is not happy" and "Kelly wants to send Sophie back to Georgia because she just can't handle how gross it is and how unhealthy this place is for a child". Ryan mentioned that Mary was concerned about the number of child molesters in Topeka and she did a search on watchdog.com to see if the maintenance man was listed. Topeka had one of the highest concentrations of reported child molesters in the country. There was nothing listed at the Taber Arms address so the maintenance man seemed "not guilty". Either way, Mary wanted us to start looking for other apartments in Topeka while she talked to Allan. Mary wanted Allan to work on the way he spoke to Kelly and she had hopes that she could mend their relationship. Kelly said she would sign papers with Allan so we didn't need to hire a different attorney, but she didn't want him driving her around anymore or coming over. I asked Mary if we could focus on getting Kelly to the doctor - because all of this seemed REALLY irrelevant if that baby wasn't healthy. She hadn't been to the doctor since March (simply to confirm the pregnancy) and she certainly hadn't been getting any prenatal care. Could we please focus on why we're all here in the first place??
The next day, we had an email from Peggy (Allan's wife):
Mary and Ryan:
I just got back from the grocery store with [Kelly]. She was just fine. She had been speaking with [Amanda]. Don't know what transpired, but [Kelly] did apologize for being so complaining. We strolled the market and I helped her pick out things that would be easy for her to "heat up" as she does not seem to know how to cook. I gave her the application for the medical card and told her that she would be able to get [Sophie] a medical card. She gave me no indication that [Sophie] was not going to stay with her. The maintenance man is putting up the "safety catch" this afternoon.
I spoke with the manager, Paula. She told me that [Kelly] seeks out the maintenance man. Also that the story she was telling us about the other birth mother just weren't true.
I did not push her about the doctor's appointment. She was cheerful and I didn't want to spoil the mood. We will follow up with that though.
As a follow up to Allan's discussion with Mary, she mentioned another birth mother who complained about the facility. Perspective is everything. That same birth mother, well after she had the baby, called the apartment complex and asked the manager if she could come back and work and stay there so that she could continue studying at the local university. The lobby now has a new coat of paint and the carpet has been torn up and is being replaced, just since Ryan and Ashley were there.
Later that day, we heard from Mary that she talked to Allan and he was VERY upset with her for getting involved and she needed to just butt out. Mary told me, "The only reason Kelly was nice to Allan was because I told her to. I told her we were working on getting her out of there so just play along."
Later that day, I decided to call Kelly. I was sick of this "he said/she said" crap and I wanted to talk to her myself. I told her I was really sorry about everything that was going on and I asked how she was holding up.
"Oh ah'm fa'hn. Ah'm sorry...this is all jus suh crazy. Ah keep tryin' to tell Mary ah'm suh mis'rabul an she tells me to keep preten-in' like ever-thin's fine and ah jus don wanna be here no-more. Ah got this maintenance man knockin' on mah door an these people callin' me tuh come downstairs and Ah...Ah jus cain't do it no-more. Ah can't get a moment's peace."
"I know. I'm so sorry. I just want you to know that we're working on it. I swear. Something is going to change. Either Allan will change or the apartment will change. But something will. Please just hang on and we will get this all sorted out."
"Ah'm sorry...ah mean....this is all jus suh crazy. Ah'm suh mis'rabul an Sophie's mis'rabul...Ah don' wan y'all tuh have tuh go to any truh-buhl on mah'ccount. Ah jus don wanna be here no-more. Ah got Sophie in this horrible place and ah feel suh bad that ah brought her up here and ah have tuh keep socks an shoes on her all the time or her feet are black as tar. An Allan's jus suh darn mean to her. He yelled at her the other day cuz she had a sucker in his car. Ah mean. She's a chi-old."
"Wow."
"An ah jus don' feel cumf-turble round him ya know? He told me the other day that ah complain too much and ah'm so ungrateful and how a fren a'his stayed n this place n they're millionaires an if it wus good nuf fur his millionaire frens then s'good nuf fur me."
"I'm so sorry...I promise it's going to get better. Mary and Allan are working on a solution right now and something is going to change. I promise. We'll either move you out or we'll find a different attorney."
"Well ah got smart with him the other day when we went to the store. Did he tell you what ah said?"
"No. We haven't heard from Allan since Saturday."
"Well, we wur drivin to the store an he tol me ah was complaynin too much an how ah shud be more grateful - that he has millionaire frens who've stayed in that place. An ah told him - there's girls on drugs in that place! And that his millionaire friends must have been high too if they cud stan one minut in that place. Ah mean. Ah don't usually get smart with people. He jus got me all wurked up and ah jus snapped, ya know? He di'n't like that too much. He jus started yellin' an shakin his stearin' wheel an yellin' at me about how nobody's on drugs and ah need to jus stop complainin' so much."
"Oh dear. Well, I know you mentioned that you weren't comfortable with Peggy taking you to the doctor, so I was mostly calling to let you know that I have a completely open schedule next week if you want to go. I can take you."
"Yeah, well...ummm...Peggy gave me the number ah was supposed to call but ah haven't...ah mean...ah've jus been so stressed an...ah think...ah mean...ah've avoided it somewhat. Ah jus don' wanna hear the heartbeat, ya know?"
"I understand that."
"Maybe ah jus soun crazy, but ah jus don' wanna know it's in there. Ah mean...ah can feel it kick an ever-thing, but ah jus don' wanna see it on a screen or nothin'. This is y'alls baby and you should be makin plans and paintin a nursery an stuff. Ah jus don' wanna see it or hear it."
"I understand that. I just want to make sure you're in a good, healthy state of mind and you're taken care of. If you need anything, you can call us. I want to be there with you to take you to that appointment and support you in any way I can."
"Well...ah-presh-iate that, ah jus din't wanna bother you, ah know yur suh far away n'stuff."
"Not at all! I want to be there! You have no idea. I would love nothing more than to come pick you up and take you to the doctor's office. You just call that number and make the appointment. Whenever it is. I will BE there."
"Alright, well...ah don' wanna take up any more of your time - ah jus don' wanna bother y'all."
"No...don't worry about that. You can call us whenever you need to. That's why we gave you those phone numbers. And I promise. It's going to get better. Just call the doctor's office and I will take you to that appointment."
"Well...ah-presh-iate that...yeah...I'll call this numbur an call you back. They say ah need tuh call an leave uh message an then they jus call back with mah'pointment time. ah jus don' wanna bother y'all. Ah know yur at wurk and you got a lot goin on. You gotta get the nurs-ry painted and you prolly wanna know whus in here, right?"
"Yes. Very much."
I decided to call the attorney's office, just to tell them that I'd contacted Kelly. I got Peggy on the phone and she basically told me, "yeah...I know you called her...she told me...she called the doctor and she's just waiting on them to call her back with an appointment time."
Okay...awesome.
We didn't hear anything the rest of the day, but Ryan got an email saying Mary would call us on Wednesday night with an update. We just assumed Mary and Allan were duking it out.
Thursday morning, the phone rang. It was Ryan. He'd been on the phone with Mary.
"So...what happened?"
"Basically, Mary has been talking with the other agents in her office and nobody has ever had this much trouble with Allan. She is gathering information from other birthmoms he's worked with, she's gathering information from other agents and she's finding us a different lawyer in Topeka."
Just then, I remembered an email we got from our HomeStudy people. When Ryan told them we'd been matched and we were using Allan Hazlett, they sent us an email back saying, "we are well aware of Mr. Hazlett. We would have recommended someone else, but he'll probably be fine."
"I can email Adoption and Beyond...see who they would have recommended."
"Yeah...I guess we could do that. Just see what they say. But don't make it too detailed or suspicious."
"I know. And I still feel like we don't have to keep working with Allan if we don't want to. He's not the only lawyer in Topeka. And if we're paying him a fee to manage this case - take her to the store and to the doctor - and that part of their relationship is just stressing her out even more, then we shouldn't be using him. Or at least take that part out of the contract and tell him we don't need him to do that anymore. Or we can just use somebody who can finalize the adoption. That's a huge amount of money that's not worth it in the end. It was great of him to provide that service, but if she's saying 'I don't want him near me' then it doesn't make any financial sense to go through him."
"I know what you're saying and I feel like Mary is going to talk to Allan and see if they can improve that relationship. Just give him some tips on dealing with Kelly?"
"But the thing is, he's not showing us that he respects Kelly. He's been really judgmental and I just don't feel like he's going to change the way he feels about birthmoms in general. Maybe he had a passion for this job 20 years ago, but I feel like he's become really jaded. We need an attorney who interacts with our birthmom in a really positive way. I mean...we hired our agency because we liked how well they treat the birthmoms. That entire agency is founded on birthmother support and following their dreams - having goals to achieve after their babies are born. He's treating her like trash."
"So...do you feel like we for sure don't want to work with Allan anymore?"
"I don't see him changing his attitude or his tone with her anytime soon."
"Alright, well I'll call Mary back and let her know."
"And if we moved her to Kansas City, I could be the one who takes her to the store and gives her what she needs. We wouldn't need to pay somebody to do that for us. We could sort of follow our gut and provide for her the way we wanted to in the first place."
"Yeah. I don't know how much interaction we really need with her, but I feel like a real dick for not doing this sooner."
"Me too."
So by 1:00, we had sorted out that we were firing Allan and moving Kelly out of Topeka. Ryan called the new lawyer (our HomeStudy people wrote back to us right away with the name of a new lawyer in Topeka - the same one that Mary found) and we determined that Mary needed to let Allan know before we could hire this new guy.
I went to lunch and when I came back, I had two messages on my cell phone. First one was the birthfather:
"Ha Ashley - how are you? This is [Tony] ah'm [Kelly's full name] boyfren. ah sophie's father. um yes. if you cud please, cud you contact mah gud fren [Amanda]. at...um...(then he gave me her phone number) i's jus imperitive that you get in contact with uhs....umm..umm...ah hear great things about you gahs by the way - ah just wanna put that in there...ummm...ah'm very upseht and over-whe-olmd with the way this situation is goin own...to the point where ah can'even talk about it. ah would prefer that you talk with my fren. ah think that she can explaiiin the situation a little bit bettur. ummm. ummm. ah do 'pologize for that but ah'm a tad upse-uht...but please, please, uh...do contact her. ah'd really 'preciate it. we need to tawlk. is'very impordant...ummm. thank you. sorry to disturb you an ah hope you have a great day."
Holy shit balls.
She gave him my phone number.
I started shaking.
The very next message was from her friend "Amanda" (who Kelly had been avoiding since she arrived, according to Allan).
"Ashley? Hai. My name is [Amanda]. Ah'm frens with [Kelly] an lil [Sophie]. If you have a few minuts, ah wud really preciate a return phonecawl. you can reach me at (complete phone number).
thank you ma'am."
What the faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahk??????
Who ARE these people?? Why are they calling me??? HOW DID THEY GET MY PHONE NUMBER if she's not even talking to them? Last we heard, Tony was DATING Amanda and Kelly was super pissed about it. Allan kept saying, "Kelly doesn't even want to talk to Amanda. Amanda calls me once a day to see how they're doing."
I immediately called Ryan.
"I JUST GOT TWO URGENT MESSAGES FROM TONY AND AMANDA SAYING THAT THEY WERE VERY UPSET ABOUT THE WAY THINGS WERE GOING AND COULD YOU PLEASE CALL BACK - IT IS IMPERITIVE!"
"Oh my gawd. What the faaaaahk? Are you serious?"
"YES! I am SHAKING right now."
"Did you call Mary?"
"Not yet. I didn't even know what to do. (silence) SHE GAVE THEM MY PHONE NUMBER!"
"I know. (silence) Dammit! I knew it was a bad idea to - crap. Alright, well...call Mary, I guess. They should not be calling you."
I called Mary. I told the receptionist it was an emergency. I told Mary that I was shaking and scared and upset. I told Mary that Kelly gave them my phone number and can you please call them back and tell them we are doing everything we can? Tell them that we are unhappy with the situation too? That we totally respect and admire her and we are so frustrated that Allan is not treating her with the decency she deserves?
Mary was going to take care of it.
(to be continued to part four...already in progress)
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