Our Goodbyes

Ella James stood at the door watching as Sidney played with Wyatt. The night before, when Sid finally got to meet Wyatt, he didn't want to leave until he and Ella were forced to on closing time. Now Sid woke up bright and early, even before Ella, to get ready for when the house opened for visitors.

Sidney couldn't get enough of Wyatt. He was just so innocent and such an easy baby to handle and care for. It seemed like he was always ready to be played with and liked playing the stuffed penguin that Sid got him.

"Ella, are you ready?" Anna Vance asked from beside Ella, who nodded. "He seems to really love Wyatt," she commented.

"Yeah," Ella agreed. "Hey, do you mind if Sid comes with me?" she asked.

"Not at all."

Ella thanked her gratefully and walked over to where Sid and Wyatt were happily playing. "Hey Sid, I was hoping you could come with me to my evaluation."

Sidney looked up at Ella and smiled. "Yeah, of course," he agreed eagerly and placed Wyatt back in his crib. "Mommy and me will be right back," he told Wyatt.

Smiling, Ella put a hand on Wyatt's head and ran it through his dirty blonde hair. She sighed nervously and made her way into Anna's office with Sidney right beside her.

"So how does this work?" she asked once she sat down on the chair in front of Anna's office.

"I read your evaluation, and to be honest the government doesn't see you suitable to adopt," said Anna sadly.

Ella's heart dropped. That wasn't the answer she was expecting. Tears started to pool in the corner of her eyes; then she felt Sidney hold her hand. She looked at him and tried to force a smile on her face.

"You don't have a job, Ella. That's the problem; you don't have a stable income. Not only that, but you're adopting as a single mother."

"But I would be there with Ella. I'll be helping her," Sidney butted in, making Ella feel a little bit better. "Also, she's been looking."

"I understand that you would be helping her, but the state won't see that. It would be much easier for Ella to adopt if she was married. The government prefers married couples over single parents. Ella, I'm sorry but you're not suitable yet. It also doesn't help that you had a record of giving up your baby under the circumstance that you were addicted to drugs. Judging by the looks of it when you first came into my office telling me you wanted to give up Wyatt, you didn't look like an addict. I've seen addicts so why did you give him up?"

Ella's heart was beating so loudly she couldn't hear herself think. If they found out that she was raped, they may never let her adopt Wyatt. She couldn't lose him, especially when she had just found him.

"I-I was raped. Wyatt was the result of me being raped," she admitted quietly.

Sidney's heart broke for Ella. He knew that she didn't like talking about her rape. It was a touchy subject that neither of them ever talked about. It just brought up too many painful memories.

Anna looked shocked. She wasn't expecting to hear that from her. "You were raped?"

Nodding, Ella held on to Sidney's had tighter. "I was at a party and someone drugged me and I got raped. But that wasn't the reason I gave him up. God, I wanted to keep Wyatt so badly, but my mom cut me off. I was, at the time, studying in Juilliard and my mom and her husband were paying for my tuition. When she found out that I dropped out and had been using the money to get by, she cut me off. I've never worked a day in my life, and no one would hire a pregnant girl. So did the only thing I could and gave him up. I thought that if I did, and he would get adopted by a family that could give him a better life than I ever could, I did something right," she explained, tears now falling down.

"And now?"

"And now, I'm confident I could give him a better life. A life I wanted for him."

Many hopeful parents had walked in and out of Anna's office, and many times she had to reject them because they were deemed unsuitable to adopt. Ella was unsuitable to adopt by government standards, but it was obvious how much she loved Wyatt. Ella had gone through so much in her short life and taking away Wyatt would have been too much for her.

"I can't approve you right now," she started and watched as both Ella and Sidney's faces fall and heart break. "But I can take Wyatt out of the adoption list and put him as pending until your next evaluation."

Ella's face broke into a contained smile. She disappointed that she couldn't adopt Wyatt as quickly as possible. But she knew that it was better than not being able to adopt him at all. "Thank you," she whispered.

"One condition though, the next time you come into my office I want to see that you have been going to therapy to help with cope with what happened to you and that you have a job," Anna said sternly.

"Of course," Ella agreed eagerly and got up to leave the room.

"And another thing, there's something you should know about Wyatt," Anna stopped Sid and Ella. "When he was a few months old, Wyatt had undergone an open-heart surgery."

Hearing what Anna said, Ella felt like she had been punched. Her breathing became heavy; she sat back down on her chair because she started to feel dizzy. So many things were passing through her head. Was it her fault? Did she cause the surgery because she wasn't healthy while she was pregnant with him?

"W-Why?" she asked, her breathing shaky.

"Wyatt has a disease called Tetralogy of Fallot. It’s a congenital heart disease where there are abnormalities in his heart."

Sidney looked at Ella sadly. She didn't need any of this. He knew that she probably blamed herself for Wyatt having a heart defect.

"He has a heart defect," she said out loud as if trying to wrap her brain around it. "I-Is he okay now?"

Anna looked at the young mother sympathetically. "For now," she answered honestly. "The doctor said that he might have to go through another open-heart surgery to correct more of whatever is affected."

Looking at the ground, Ella's eyes furrowed. She tried to make sense of everything that she was just told. Her son had gone through an open-heart surgery even before he was one years old. He had a heart defect that could possible kill him.

All of a sudden she felt like vomiting. Ella could feel the sweat accumulating in her forehead; it must have been her fault. She didn't really take care of herself when she was pregnant. Ella worked as much as she could and sometimes forgot to eat.

She ran her hand through her hair and looked up. "Was it… was it fault?" she asked quietly. Ella was afraid of the answer. She was afraid of Anna telling that it was her fault, that she was a bad mother even before she could be a mother.

"No, the symptoms showed up when he was three months old. The doctors reassured us that it could have happened to any baby," Anna tried to reassure Ella.

"I-I need to be alone," Ella excused herself and got up swiftly and was out the door before anyone could say anything.

She ran to the bathroom as fast as she could and threw up in one of the toilets. Even though Anna reassured her that it could have happened to any baby, she still blamed herself. If only she took better care of herself when she was pregnant, it was the least she could have done for Wyatt.