My story part four: Losing someone

Before going on I have something to say (as opposed to having to say something).  I never want it to appear that the purpose of this is cast April in a bad light.  I was thinking about this on my way home from work today and wanted everyone reading this to realize that April has endured a lot of things that most people will never have to worry about - even in their worst nightmares.  How many teenagers do you know who have been awakened in the middle of the night by their father who is in agony because, of all things, he has an itch between his shoulder blades and can't move his own body to scratch it?  I know three - April and her two brothers. Well, April's bedroom was the closest to her dads so this would happen to her on occasion.  That's in addition to changing his colostomy bag, filling his feeding tube, etc.  That selfless devotion was one of the things that drew me to her.  I had hoped to give her a good life so she could have it better than she did when she was a kid.  It just didn't work out that way and I wish I had an explanation for it.  What I'm about to share with you is tied for the worst thing that has ever happened to me.
In a previous post I said that this story could resemble a comedy of errors.  If that isn't clear yet then I think it will be after this.
When April started to feel marginally better her brother really did us all a favor and offered her a job working for his real estate company (you've probably heard of Equity Real Estate which is now the largest brokerage in the Utah.  Well, my brother-in-law started that little venture in his basement).  It was great because she could work from home and it helped her to get back on her feet again.
Around this time she started to investigate adoption.  We had been unsuccessful to this point at providing Haley, who was now 10 years old, with a sibling she desperately wanted.  People would ask her, "don't you want to be an only child?  Don't you get everything you want?".  She would always say that she would rather have a little brother or sister.  I don't recall exactly when April broached the subject of adoption with me but I was apprehensive.  Adoption is expensive.  She worked on me for a long time before I would agree to it.  The only problem I had with it was the financial part of it.  I love kids and, if I'm going to put in a shameless plug for myself somewhere it might as well be here - I am a kid magnet.  Kids, especially the shy ones, always find there way into my lap. Mostly because I was a shy kid and I reach out to them.  I don't know what it is but kids are drawn to me (maybe because I haven't grown up yet).  I knew I would never have a problem treating 'someone else's' kids as my own.  My only reservations concerned money.  The cheapest way for Mormon's to adopt is through LDS social services because they base it on 10-percent of your previous years income and cap it at 10k.  Well, after researching it a little more we discovered that we would probably have a difficult time getting picked by a birth mother due to the sheer number (literally hundreds) of couples who had identical profiles to ours:  young couple in their mid thirties with one natural child.  The deck was stacked against us so she started to look for alternatives.  Let me tell you that the adoption business (and it is a business) is a racket!  Not only is it expensive but everyone wants their cut.  The adoption agency, the government, and even the birth mother all see dollar signs and they see you coming from a mile away. We looked at Africa, China, Russia, Central and South America.  It was just as insane everywhere we looked.
Now it wasn't that we couldn't have children.  The problem was that she would need surgery again to treat her endometriosis (which is a build up of scar tissue on the uterus wall) in order to get pregnant and avoid another miscarriage (and even that was no guarantee).  Yeah, there was no way in hell I was going to ask her to undergo another surgery just so we could get pregnant - not after the last year's worth of misery.  So it was adoption or bust.  I was still very reluctant because we would have to go into debt to pay for the adoption and we still had a couple of doctor bills and had just bought a new car (I really miss that Murano
To her credit she poured her heart and soul into finding the most inexpensive adoption agency possible - Unique Adoptions out of Murietta California.  They seemed great at the time but please get the word out to your friends and family to NEVER let anyone you know use this agency.  They will take your money and leave you high and dry.  In April's defense, she did a lot of research and they seemed to check out OK but here's the deal:  for $12k you get into their pool of adoptive parents and for 2 years they will try and match you with a birth mom - after 2 years you are SOL.  I repeatedly told them what we had to spend on birth mother expenses but they just never seemed to get it.  On top of the 12 grand you can be looking at an additional twenty thousand bucks in birth mother expenses.
Over the next year and a half I would check in regularly with David (I had other names for him by the time this was all over) to see if he had any news for us:  Yes we were still open to any gender, race, religion, skin color, etc. and no we were not in a position to pay 25 thousand dollars to a birth mother.  It was really frustrating to keep repeating myself EVERY time to this guy.  We had one shot at this and I repeatedly told this to the agency.  They had to match us with a viable birth mother and it had to work the first time because it would be the only time.
Well, long story short we got 'the call'.  A 25 year old single mother in Shreveport, Louisiana was interested in our profile and wanted to talk to us that night.  It was exciting and scary at the same time.  What if she didn't like us?  Did she know what Mormons were?  Was she for real or was she looking for a handout?
I expected a weird conversation but it was actually very pleasant and promising.  Her name was Marquita (she goes by Qweet) and she seemed really nice. We flew to Shreveport in December of 2008 to meet her.

We hit it off and everything seemed to be going well.  She was due in early February so we planned to return home and then come back to Shreveport to be there for the birth.  She was having a boy.  We picked the name William Marcus and Qweet loved it.  William (for me) and Marcus (because it was close to Marquita) - it was perfect.
By this time word had gotten out in our ward.  Qweet wanted out of Louisiana so we had been contemplating how to get her to Utah so she could have the baby here.  A friend in our ward was finishing his basement and offered to let her live there for as long as she wanted - he also donated frequent flier miles for plane tickets for Qweet and her 6-year-old son J (more on J later) to fly here (I still have those two tickets in their names which can only be used by them - which means they are useless now). Another friend had petitioned his entire family for money (instead of buying each other gifts that year for Christmas they pooled their money and gave it to us - $400).  Another friend from down the street, whose 4 year old son was battling Leukemia just showed up on our porch with $200 cash and said 'we don't care what you do with it, we just wanted to help'.  We were over whelmed with all of the kindness (I will really miss this ward).  Things were coming together better than I had ever believed possible.
For the first time I really believed it would happen - I would have a son!  Qweet's health deteriorated to the point where she was being admitted to the hospital frequently to treat her blood pressure which made it impossible for her to fly to Utah so we now new we were going to have to go to Louisiana for the birth.  We kept in very close contact with Qweet in the weeks leading up to her due date which, due to her preeclampsia, continued to move up.  The first week of February was our target time to be there.
We made plans to go a few days before the due date just in case.  We had also decided, for good or ill, to take Haley with us.  Still don't know if that was the right choice or not but we did it.
 

J

Qweet had a 6 year old son named Jay.  His real name is Ja'Keldric but Qweet shortened it to 'J' because she thought his full name sounded stupid (her words not mine).  He was very polite, sweet and hungry.  He was also very nervous - which I think any kid would be who had seen his dad shot in the face while sitting next to him on the front lawn.  His dad survived but was struck by 4 or 5 bullets and lost an eye - and  apparently always wore an eye patch.  The drive-by was gang related and prompted J's dad to seek change in life style.  They are all lucky none of the several kids or other adults there that night were injured.
As a side note:  would someone please just teach these morons to shoot?  If they would just shoot each other instead of the innocent bystanders then we would at least make some progress.   
When Qweet was in the hospital we took J with us to our hotel. He was a rowdy sleeper.

This was how he started out but before long he was completely sideways and had all but pushed Haley out of bed.

J was a really cute and polite kid.  I sometimes wonder what he is up to and how he is doing.

I have never heard anything like the way that kid would grind his teeth in his sleep.  He was one poor little stressed out boy.  One morning I took him down to the pool because he said he had never been in one before and didn't know how to swim.  I had a goal to teach him to swim before we left but it didn't happen.  I got him into the water and let him just climb on my back while I took him around the pool.  Man that kid had a death grip.  I had to remind him not to choke me!  When we were done he asked me something I will never forget:  He looked up at me and said: "Kevin, are you normal?"  First of all that's a loaded question to ask an engineer.  When I didn't know how to answer he said:  "You're really nice, I just wondered if that's normal". Second, what kind of world does a 6 year old boy live in where he would even feel compelled to ask that question?  I can't even remember what, if anything, I said to him but that broke my heart.  We were going to rescue his little brother from that hell and leave him behind.  Unbelievable.

When we finally got to Louisiana we spent most of our time taking Qweet to her Dr. appointments, out to eat or to the store.  We used part of the money given to us by our friends to buy her and Jay a new wardrobe. I was appalled at the behaviour of some of the men.  Pretty much every time we went to Walmart she would get cat calls.  It was unbelievable.  They would walk by, stop and say "damn, girl.  How do I get me some of that?".  It was shameless.  I learned (from Qweet) that the bigger girls are desirable because if you were skinny it almost invariably meant you were on drugs.  It was easy to see that Qweet was not a crack addict.
It is worth noting that Qweet never really got a fair shake in life.  Her dad has been in prison for armed robbery since she was a toddler and her mother died of cancer only a couple of years before we met her.  The circle of life in such places as Shreveport is difficult to break out of and becomes generational.  It is heart rending. 
We waited patiently for her due date and kept busy on the weekdays swimming, walking down the river walk (which was pretty cool), and just hanging out.  We even went to the horse races at the track behind our hotel.  I had never been and Haley loves horses so we went to watch.  It was neat because we could get down right next to the track where we could hear, and feel, the pounding of their hoofs.  Never seen anything like that before up close.

Shadows from left to right:  April, Qweet, Me, and Haley.

Well, it was getting past the time when we originally expected the birth to take place and I was worried about getting back to work as my vacation time was limited.  We were coming up on a week and a half already.  We began to pray that she would either go into labor or that the doctor would just induce her.  I can't recall now but there was some reason they were unwilling to induce her and I just can't remember why.
The short version is that for some reason we had to take her to the hospital and while we were there they admitted her and planned to induce her.  That hospital, which was an extension of LSU medical center, is one of the most frightening places I have ever been.  It looked like it was in a war zone the way it was surrounded with barbed wire and had 24 hour guards.  After dark you had to be buzzed in by security.  A funny note:  When we were waiting for the elevator one time I looked out the window down to one of the freight entrances where a hearse was delivering a corpse.  The orderlies dropped the gurney and the body rolled off!  I don't know why that was funny but I'm glad Haley didn't see it.
One depressing thing about that night in the hospital was that there were 8 or 9 women having babies and Qweet was only one of two that had any support - not one of them had a husband.

Qweet was very sick that night and we tried to cheer her up by making faces at her and she made one back:

April, bless her heart, slept in the armchair in that tiny room that night.  We had hoped to all be there for the birth but Haley was tired and hungry so we left.  By the time we got back to the hotel William Marcus was born.  He was beautiful.  He was tiny but had huge hands, feet and lips!

It is still hard for me to look at this picture.  April was so happy. I hadn't seen her like that for a long, long time.

April was so happy - the happiest I had seen her in a long, long time.  She looked so pretty holding him.  We all fell instantly in love with him - how could you not?
Another side note:  Marcus's dad had 7 kids, all with different women.  Apparently he was two-timing Qweet and she and the other girl found out about the same time.  Well one night they waited for him outside his house and beat the shit (sorry) out of him.  They sent him to the hospital in pretty bad shape - and he was not a small guy.  Hell hath no fury....
OK, back to the story.  Qweet's health was still poor so when it was time to check out of the hospital she asked us to take Marcus with us and keep him at night so she could rest.  This we did gladly!  He was such a great baby.  He never really cried, he would just squawk when he was hungry or poopy and then go back to sleep. He reminded me in a lot of ways of Haley when she was a newborn. 
It was fun to watch Haley feed and change him.  She was giddy - we all were.  The girls would just hold him and kiss him all over his face.
But April was the the first to notice (she usually was) that something was wrong.  When we would take Marcus to see Qweet, April would notice little nuances - like how she looked at him, how she held him and talked to him.  She was bonding with him (I don't know how that could have been avoided) and April could tell Qweet was going to have a hard time going through with it.  One thing that really hurt us was that in the great state of Louisiana a birth mother cannot relinquish her parental rights until one week after the baby is born.  In Utah, if I'm not mistaken, she could to it before the birth - Utah has some of the best adoption laws in the country - at least as far as adoptive parent rights are concerned.  Had that been the case for us, we might still have Marcus.  As it was, a week was just too long.  When Qweet got feeling well enough we took her to the attorney's office for her to sign.  We sat in the waiting room and as the time dragged on, we looked at each other and realize that something was wrong.  The attorney came out and invited us into an adjacent office to tell us that Qweet was having second thoughts.  I'm suspicious of this guy because when we talked to Qweet later she told us that religion had come up and he asked her if she knew we were Mormons.  We had talked openly with Qweet about religion to the point where we had identified all of our common beliefs and dispelled many of the myths about the LDS faith.  We thought we were good to go with regard to that.  I just have a feeling he may have told her some stuff that wasn't true.
Well, the ride back to the hotel was awkward to say the least.  She still wanted us to take Marcus at night so she could rest but we were reluctant to do it.  She said she needed to think about her decision.  This was a Friday.  She had to decide because I had to get home to get back to work.  We gave her until Monday and in the mean time drove 100 miles north of Shreveport for the weekend and took Marcus with us.  That weekend we prayed and fasted that she could make the right choice.  I talked with Qweet several times that weekend about how she needed to make the right choice for her son.  I promised to send him to college, to teach him how to be a man, and to allow her to be a part of his life.  There were no downsides!  She knew what the right choice was, but like all of us, sometimes it's just hard to do the right thing.  That weekend was a long one.  Haley didn't want to hold him anymore because she could sense he wasn't coming home with us. 
On Monday we drove back to Shreveport and I picked Qweet up to take her to the attorney's office again.  The girls stayed behind this time and I went with her alone.  I knew it was an exercise in futility but I had to give her the chance anyway.  Sure enough, she went but it didn't take as long this time.  She came back out in tears just shaking her head.  It was over.  I wanted to just leave her there and let her find her own damned ride back to her hotel but I couldn't.  I took her back and on the way I lost my religion on her.  I literally screamed at her which is very out of character for me.  Our dream of having another baby had just gone up in smoke and my family had been dealt  what would prove to be a fatal wound.
I have left some details out, no doubt  ones that April would feel crucial but the crux of the story has been provided and looking back it really does seem like a comedy of errors.  We had no business even trying to adopt but we gave it our best shot and we almost had him!

We got home and things seemed OK at first.  A bunch of the ladies from the ward came over and listened to April tell the sad tale.  They just sat and cried with her.  I was very touched by that - that is what it means to 'bear one another's burdens'.  Great people in this ward.
Pretty soon reality started to sink in.  We had no new baby but we had paid for one.  There was no way we could attempt another adoption - we were done.  April had gotten into the nesting stage and had completely furnished the baby's room - I had painted it and it really looked cute.  Now we just closed the door so we wouldn't have to look at it.  I think April came to church a couple of times after we got back but, other than a handful of times, has not been back to church since - and it has almost been three years.  The elephant in the room was that I had been so reluctant to do it at first and was really worried about this very thing happening.  I did not ever have a conscious 'I told you so' moment but I didn't have to - nor did I ever seek to bring it up.  I ended up wanting it as badly as she did.  I think she felt guilty which was compounded by the heavy sadness but I can't say for sure.
I have been told and have read (and now believe it) that having an adoption fall through, after you have bonded with the baby, is actually worse than having an infant die at birth and here is why:  the anticipation is the same for both but if they die there is closure.  They are gone, you know what happened - and I don't mean to diminish the pain that would come from losing an infant - it would be unbearable.  However, when you bond with a baby and lose it, and have no idea where they are - it's more like they have been abducted.  Like you turned around at the grocery store and when you turn back they are gone - no idea what has become of them.  That was how we felt about Marcus.  We new what kind of life he would have and it was very hard to deal with.
Marcus will be three years old in 5 months - if he has survived.  I don't think about him anymore (except for the last couple of days) but for a long time I did.  April couldn't sleep for months - and I'm not exaggerating.  That hurt us all so badly - and I think April is still hurting from it.  That was such a huge set back, not just financially but some of the problems April had after her neck surgery came back in full force and she never really recovered.  She was mad at God, mad at me and pretty much mad at the world.  I don't really blame her.  The difference for me was I had to go to work the next day.  April and Haley were just home together all day.  Pretty soon April was staying up until 3 a.m. and sleeping until 3 p.m. because she just couldn't sleep at night.  It's hard to have a relationship with your spouse when you don't even sleep in the same room.  Not long after that, Haley started falling into the same sleep pattern which would be a contention point.  This really was where things started to go very badly.  She didn't feel well enough get a job to help pay for the adoption expenses and they began to weigh very heavily on us.  She was hurting very badly and I didn't know how to help her.  I just bottled it up and moved on as best I could.
Some have said to me, "well, with you getting divorce maybe it just wasn't meant to be".  I don't really believe that.  I still think he would have been better off here, with divorced parents who both loved him, than in that hell hole we left him in.
This destroyed us.  It would take another 2 years before it would officially end, but to me, it was over - I just couldn't bring myself to admit it.
April would withdraw completely from friends and family and she never would be the same again.   She got bitter and stayed angry and I became the object of her wrath.  I tolerated it but didn't believe I deserved it.  She lashed out at me frequently.  She even went after my personality and asked me to change it (which I was actually stupid enough to try).   She blamed me for everything.  I don't judge her for it.  I think that some people just have their breaking point and she had reached hers.  It was sad to watch.  She had been such a vibrant, funny, beautiful woman.  That all went away and for a long time I felt responsible for it. 
So for almost three years (including the year after her surgery) I was chief cook and bottle washer, house cleaner, yard caretaker, bread winner, mom and dad.  It wore me down and I began to resent April for it.  She checked out and left me with all of the responsibilities.  Right or wrong that was how I saw it.  It was a miserable period of time.  However, about this time last year there was a ray of hope that things could work out for us...