Highest Duty_ My Search for What Really Matters - Chesley B. Sullenberger [30]
Lorrie and I handled all the paperwork very differently. One day we exchanged our answers to a set of questions. I had to tell Lorrie: “You’re overthinking this. Just answer the simple question with a direct answer.” She was grateful when I told her that. It allowed her to temper some of her anxiety about the process. She didn’t owe them her life story. She owed them basic answers to their questions.
We met with several sets of birth parents over the months that followed, hoping they’d select us. That was a hard process, too. Lorrie would often be excited after a meeting, certain that we’d get the nod. I tried to be logical and analytical. “Yes, that birth mother said a lot of nice things about us,” I’d tell Lorrie, “but think about what she didn’t say.” Lorrie said I was raining on her parade, but I felt we had to look at everything realistically or we’d set ourselves up for wave upon wave of disappointments.
We met with a variety of birth parents during our search. And then, on December 1, 1992, we flew down to San Diego to meet a woman who was seven months pregnant. The birth father was there, too.
The couple asked us about our lives, our dreams for the child we hoped to someday raise, my schedule as a pilot, everything. They were honest and clear-eyed as we spoke, and so were we. Not long after that, we got word: They had selected us to be the adoptive parents.
At 2 A.M. on January 19, 1993, we got a call that the birth mother was in the delivery room, and we should prepare to fly down to San Diego to pick up our new baby. Lorrie was too excited to sleep. As for me, the realist, I knew that I’d be a better father in the morning if I got some sleep. So I went back to bed. Lorrie couldn’t believe how I could sleep at a time like this. She stayed up, sitting by the phone, waiting.
Kate was born at 4 A.M., and we flew to San Diego just after sunrise. We brought a car seat with us because we’d need it in the rental car once we picked up the baby. Lorrie and I felt a little self-conscious walking through the airport with that empty car seat. Were people looking at us, wondering where our baby was?
When we arrived at the hospital, we went straight to the nursery and saw Kate for the first time; it was an overwhelming moment. I fell in love with her the second I saw her.
Later, a nurse was holding Kate. “Would the mother like to hold the baby?” the nurse asked. The birth mother pointed to Lorrie and said, “She’s the mother.” Lorrie was handed Kate.
Eventually, Lorrie had to use the bathroom, and while she was gone, Kate needed to have her diaper changed. I was proud to be the first of us to get to do that.
Early that afternoon, hospital staffers told us we were free to take Kate and go. Lorrie wanted to say good-bye to the birth mother. “What can you say to a woman who has given you this kind of gift?” she wondered. “I don’t think there are any words.”
Both of us considered the birth parents to be incredibly courageous people. They knew that for whatever reason—their age, circumstances, finances—they couldn’t raise their child. And so they had made a very hard yet loving choice. They had turned their wrenching dilemma into a gift.
Lorrie left the baby with me in the nursery—she thought it would be too hard for the birth mother to see Kate one last time—and she went into the birth mother’s hospital room. As she offered a simple thank-you, she saw a single tear running down the birth mother’s face.
“Just be good to her,” the birth mother said.
It was an overwhelming moment for both of them.
Hospital protocol requires new mothers to leave the hospital in a wheelchair. Lorrie tried to explain that she hadn’t given birth and didn’t need a wheelchair, but the aide with the wheelchair insisted on accompanying us out the front door. And so we walked, holding Kate, as the empty wheelchair was pushed beside us. It was ridiculous and surreal, but it was an amazingly happy moment, too.
In the parking lot, it almost felt as if we had stolen Kate. We looked over our shoulders, wondering if someone