Inconceivable by Alex Johnston

Author:Alex Johnston [Johnston, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Memoir; Biography
Publisher: Sutherland House Inc
Published: 2021-02-24T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight: Game Day

In that late fall of 2008, as we prepared for Georgia’s homecoming, we were also getting ready for the birth of her sister in Green Bay.

Diane was scheduled for a C-section in early January around her January 5 due date. I asked her to broach the subject of moving up the date with her doctor. She raised the issue, but the doctor refused. She clearly felt that I was trying to move the date so that it would not interfere with my Christmas holidays. I asked to speak with her directly. I explained that I was concerned that Diane, who usually went into labour before her due date and who had had unexpected complications late in one of her pregnancies, could go into spontaneous labour and be rushed to the hospital for an emergency C-section. I said that between Christmas and bad winter weather, I worried about staffing issues and wanted to avoid an unscheduled procedure. I explained that we had lost a child in labour delivery and that I knew that things did not always go as planned. I told her we had a baby born at twenty-nine weeks who had just come home from the NICU and that my sole focus was the safety of the baby. Once she understood, I could feel her tone soften. She scheduled the C-section for December 22.

Before then, there were important legal issues that needed to be navigated, given that we were doing this outside of Canada. For Georgia, we went to court after her birth to finalize the legal documentation. This could not be done in Ontario before her birth. In Wisconsin, you could apply for a pre-birth order, the legal document declaring us as the parents. This meant that right after the birth we could apply for a final order which, in turn, allowed us to apply for the formal birth certificate. These final steps could happen within the first hours after birth and we would need all of these documents to be able to bring the baby across the border.

In the weeks leading up to the birth, David and I worked with a U.S. lawyer to get the documents ready and to prepare for a court hearing by telephone. Obtaining the order was not just a formality. The judge, the lawyer, and Diane were present in the courtroom. The judge asked us questions over the phone around why we were doing this. He asked Diane questions to ensure she was doing this of her own free will and that she understood that she would be relinquishing all rights to the child once there was a pre-birth order in place. He was very professional, and the hearing was straightforward, but I was conscious of the enormous power that he held over all of our lives that day.

When my dad asked me about a month before the delivery date who I was bringing with me to Green Bay, he should not have been surprised when I told him that he was coming.

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