Vesper Lily Coleman.
On July 21, 2017, my neighbor and good friend, Savannah and myself were working with a fresh harvest of flowers and getting everything organized to go to the Chattanooga market. I was pretty excited as this would be the first time we were really selling my flowers to the general public and not just florists. While we were arranging flowers, I received one of the most important calls of my life: a mother had chosen us as parents to adopt her child. She was one day old.
Because of the chemotherapy and surgeries from Andrew’s cancer, we had a hard time getting pregnant. After months of going through fertility treatments, our only option came down to IVF, and even with how expensive and invasive that can be – there were no guarantees. It was at this point that my husband and I decided to stop with the fertility drugs and treatments and start in a new direction- adoption. Now, I am thankful every single day that those treatments didn’t work.
When we received the phone call, I can not even begin to describe the emotion that hit me. I was almost in shock as I called my husband and told him the news. We dropped everything and began packing to travel a couple of hours away to meet our new daughter. Even though we knew we would be adopting, our profile had only been made public a couple of months through our agency, and we were not expecting a match so soon! While we left to travel to where our daughter was, Savannah and her family rallied together to help clean our home and get the nursery together. We had furniture, but none of it had been brought in from storage. I am thankful for such good friends to help make this transition easier.
When we got to the hospital, the nurses were so kind and led us immediately to meet our new baby girl. Her birth mother had chosen not to see her after the c-section as she didn’t think she would have the heart to separate from her if she did. I admire her so much for her strength, courage, and selflessness to make such a tough choice. It isn’t right for me to tell her story, but she tried to make the best decision she could for her newborn daughter. The nurses had all been holding the newborn so she would have that human connection and they were thrilled that we were able to come so quickly. They set us up in a room like you would be in if we had the delivery ourselves. It was such a tremendous experience. She slept in her cradle next to our bed and we were so unbelievably happy. We decided to name her Vesper Lily.
