"Placement"

This part of the story may be shorter because it's a little hazy to me. I can't believe that this happened just over nine months ago.

The snow continued to fall up until Sunday. Bro. Hull came and saw me right before we left the hospital. We sat there forever waiting for a nurse to release me. When the time finally came, we walked down the stairs and out the hospital door. When we got to the family service office, I was all but crying and as soon as I walked through the door the tears started. I sat off to the side and my case worker was a sweet heart because she had everyone there say something. I wanted to be able to talk when she told me to tell them about Braxton. But I couldn't control the tears. Finally she took me, my parents, and the couple into the back room to do the final placement.

Sitting in that room was difficult. There were tons of pictures taken, and tons of tears. I tried to control myself (as I've mentioned before I don't cry in front of other people very well). When my case worker told me it was time to leave. I kept myself composed as I gave one more hug to the couple and little kiss to Braxton. We walked down the hall and out the door. My mom kept her arm around me. Instead of picking up some of my stuff, I walked straight for the door and the car sitting outside. I let my mom get my stuff which I know was wrong, but I was so emotionally raw that doing anything was almost beyond my means. I climb into the passenger seat of the car and finally let it go. This was the terrible wailing sobs. The kind that they would never show in hollywood movies, because it was just the really miserable tears.

After leaving, my parents, and I went to eat with Shane. I could barely taste the food or focus on the conversation. I sat there.

How can life go on like normal now? I can't go back to school. I've gotten used to be the pregnant one, now I'm nothing again.

After that we drove home and since it was Superbowl Sunday, I told my mom that I didn't want to go home, so we went to Erin's to watch the game. Of course we had pictures to show. All I could do again was sit there. I tried to act normal, tried to talk normal. I watched my mom look through the pictures, and one of my neices stood her. Erin's family saw the most of me when I was pregnant aside from my parents and AnDe.
Tailor watched over my mom's shoulder and then whispered to her, "Is that Shanna's baby?" I tried not to start crying again.

I guess that game was pretty good, but I couldn't help but fall asleep. Tyrel had to give me a hard time about falling asleep but luckily I had other women there that knew how exhausting it is to have a child so they backed me up.

The next few months were not easy. For the first two weeks I cried every night before I went to bed. Eventually I went back to school which wasn't the easiest thing to do. There were many good friends there, but also many people who had negative things to say to and about me.

Finally about March, I started to try to live a normal high school life. I helped with the musical, doing makeup and running the lights, and then after that joined the golf team. I started to hang out with some new friends. Of course, some how Kyle and I started to spend more time together. He reminded me about how we had met in August, because before I really started helping with the musical, I hadn't paid alot of attention to him...I didn't pay alot of attention to anyone. He was in one of my art classes while I was pregnant.

This past year has been bumpy but now it isn't as hard to look back and remember everything. This month is national adoption month so I thought it would be neat to have this finished before the month was over. Braxton is an amazing little boy and I love him so much. He is always smiling, at least when I see him. He's going to grow up knowing how much everyone loved him, and how much love went into bringing him to earth. I will forever have a special place in my heart for him and even down the road when I have my own children, I will never forget that little boy that brought me back to grips with my life before it was too late. If I hadn't gotten pregnant who knows where I'd be. He was almost like the Lord's way of hitting me up side the head and telling me to pull my act together. As I have told my mom millions of times, "Braxton was not a mistake, no baby is, they just came at an unplanned time." He wasn't planned by me, but I'm sure glad someone else planned him to come when he did.