So here we are, the final chapter. There will be a very long and very cheesy note at the end of this, so up here I just wanted to give a quick disclaimer that all information in this is not guaranteed to be completely accurate. I did as much research as I could, but the internet can only provide so much compared to personal experience. Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy the final installment of Break Me Like a Promise.

Happy reading!

Erin

Three Years Later

"You ready for this?" I ask, my hand clutching onto Jay's as we stand in the gate at Midway getting ready to board the flight to Wilmington. This day has been a long time coming.

About a year after our wedding, we decided that we wanted to adopt. We both always knew that we wanted kids, even though I couldn't have them. It still stings, knowing that we wouldn't be able to do it the same way of my friends did, but I can't change it so I just had to move to accept it.

We talked about it for a long time and through surrogacy is an option and the best one for a lot of families, we knew that domestic adoption was the route we wanted to go. Especially with my past, it just adoption just felt like the right way to go for us, everything coming full circle.

So we contacted an agency, and once we completed the home study and the seemingly endless amounts of paperwork, we finally became an actively waiting family on the site. It took a long time, every day that the agency didn't call was another punch to the heart. But one day, I'll never forget it, April 3, 2020, seven days short of my 31st birthday and almost exactly three years after Jay and I came back into each other's lives, we got a call.

They told us that there was a woman who saw our profile on the site and she wanted to get to know us better, that she thought we could be good parents to her little girl. We didn't know what that meant at this point, but we knew that it was good. So we emailed her, using the account name that the agency gave us and when she told us her name, I knew that it was perfect. Anna. Her name is Anna, Camille's middle name. If that's not fate, I don't know what is.

So nearly four months later, we'd exchanged countless emails, spent several late nights on the phone and we'd gotten to know her so much better. We didn't know her last name and we'll never to get to meet her in person, but she's giving us the most priceless gift anyone could ever give.

Jay and I prepared as much as we possibly could, buying every baby product we could find and so much more, freaking out about the color of her nursery and spent nights pouring over the perfect name for this little girl. As her July 22 due date came closer and closer, the anxiety grew as we waited for the phone to ring, telling us that Anna was in labor and to hop on the next flight to North Carolina.

But instead of a call, on July 22nd we got an email from Anna telling us that the baby was late and we were going to have to wait just a little bit longer. So we waited and it felt like forever. Then, July 30th, I was sitting at Emily's around their newly built pool, sitting around a chatting as her kids flew limbs all over the place into the pool, I got the call. I almost burst into tears, from shock or joy or relief, I'm not sure, but I was there and I was crying.

I called Jay and he could barely understand me, but I think I got out that I was going to the house to grab the suitcases and files and files of papers we've had ready since like July 1st and I was coming to the district to get him. And then we we're going to go to the airport and fly to Wilmington to meet our daughter. That brings us to here.

"You have no idea," He tells me, pressing a kiss to the side of my head as we advance towards to the gate agent.

"I'm nervous," I tell him, my hand crinkling my boarding pass. I was feeling okay until we got the call, but since then I've been overthinking everything. That me being infertile was some kind of weird sign that I just ignored and the universe is going to punish me. I'm trying to convince myself that it's just my anxiety, that most moms are anxious about the birth and I don't have to do that part so I'm freaking out about this. It's not working that well.

"Don't be," He assures me.

"I know, but it's just, this has been a long time coming. What if she hates me?" I ask, for some reason putting forth my most irrational fear. There are so many other things I could have brought up. I'm scared that I'll fail as a mom. That I'll do something to mess her up. Most of all, that I'll be like Bunny.

"She isn't going to hate you," He tells me. "You're her mom,"

"Some kids hate me," I argue.

"Erin no they don't, you're a first grade teacher. Children love you," He assures me.

"But what if this one doesn't?" I say again, clearly driving myself crazy.

"She'll like you," He tells me again.

"How do you know that?" I ask, moving closer and closer to the gate agent.

"I just do," He tells me, signalling me to stop freaking the hell out because we have to see the flight attendant now and I can't look like a total crazy person as I freak out.

"Enjoy the flight," The blonde woman tells us with a warm smile as she scans our passes and hands them back, her name tag reading Delia.

"It's going to be fine," He tells me as he pulls me into his side for a quick hug as we walk down the jet way, "It's all going to be fine,"

If I thought I was nervous at the gate and on the plane, I don't know what I'm feeling now. We're sitting in this little room in the Maternity Unit of New Hanover Medical Center, that infectious smell of babies all around us, mixing strangely with the strong scent of antiseptic.

Our adoption counselor Heidi brought us here while she went to talk to Anna. Because of the terms of our adoption, we can't actually meet Anna face to face and our communication has been limited to emails, conference calls, and pictures. While I would love to meet this woman in person, I know that we have to respect what she's asking of us.

Since we can't meet her, we're here, waiting for Heidi to return to the room with both a nurse and our newborn baby girl. Grace Lindsay Halstead. It took us forever to come up with her name. When we found out that Anna was having a girl, I told Jay that for her name, I wanted her to have my name in there somewhere. I dropped my maiden name when we got married, but I do still love Lindsay and I wanted her to have that piece of me with her.

But her first name was a little more of a challenge. There were so many women that we wanted to honor, so many people that we wanted our daughter to represent with her name. So after many nights of talking back and forth, making lists and crossing off names, we came up with Grace.

For me, I wanted her to have a piece of Camille and we both decided that we wanted to discreetly honor her birth mother in her name. The obvious choice, of course was Anna, her birth mother's name as well as Camille's middle name, but we wanted to go further than that. We looked up the meaning and it turns out it means grace, both of us instantly falling in love with that name.

A little unexpected perk was that Hannah's name also happens to mean grace. I know Jay would never mention it, but I know that he would love to have Hannah somewhere in there. I know they got off to a rocky start, but over the past three years they have saved each other's asses more times than I can count and they have become closer than I could have ever imagined. So that's her name, and if she can carry on even part of the legacy that all three of these women have created, she's going to be just fine.

"Erin, Jay?" Heidi says as she pokes her head in through the door, "You ready to meet her?" I instantly sit up a little bit straighter in my seat.

"Yes," Jay says eagerly as he reaches over the gap between the two chairs to grab my hand.

"Okay, give me a minute, I'll bring her right in," She tells us with that bright, bright smile.

"This is it," I say breathlessly. These are the last few seconds of my life before I become a mom. These are the last few seconds of my life before I'll know my daughter, a chapter of my life is ending as I begin a new one.

I take a deep breath and squeeze Jay's hand tighter than I think I ever have before as the door opens, sucking all the air out of the room as her bassinet is rolled into the room. Before I can even see her, my breath catches in my throat, the tag on the end of her basket reading Baby Grace Halstead. This is real, she's not just an idea anymore, she's real. She's here. She's ours.

"Say hi to your baby girl Mama," Heidi says with a wide smile as she places my daughter in my arms for the very first time. I feel my heart skip a beat as I look down at her. She's absolutely beautiful, a few pieces of dark, almost black hair peeking out from the bottom of that baby pink hat and big green eyes staring up at me, that baby smell just radiating off her tiny body. She doesn't look anything like Jay or I, we knew she wouldn't, but she's ours. She's our daughter, our gorgeous girl. And as I look into her eyes, all my fears and anxieties melt away, a certain peace falling over me and I know that everything is going to be okay.

"She's beautiful," Jay says. I can hear him getting choked up. There aren't many things that can make Jay Halstead cry, but I can tell, he's only just met her and she's got him wrapped around her little finger. He is going to be at her mercy until the day he dies.

"I'll give you a minute," Heidi says quietly as she slips out of the door, neither of us really paying attention as we stare down at this gorgeous baby girl.

"We did it," I say, breaking my gaze from Grace for one second to look up at Jay. "We really did it,"

"Yeah," He says, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. "Welcome to the family Gracie,"

"Babe wake up," I hear from Jay, his shoulder nudging me. Oh Lord I fell asleep. I promised myself I wouldn't, that I would stay up the entire flight with Grace. But I guess that didn't go as planned. After ten days in Wilmington, and endless paperwork and lots of sleepless nights, we were finally allowed to go home. But I'm exhausted. Grace isn't sleeping great, which I expected because she's a newborn, but I didn't realize just how much we were going to be up in the middle of the night.

"I fell asleep," I say disappointed as I turn to Jay, Grace sleeping soundly in his arms. "I'm sorry, I wanted to be awake to help,"

"It's okay," He assures me, "baby girl slept the entire time, I think we might have an avid traveler on our hands," The entire time that we were in Wilmington, I was freaking out about flying home with Gracie. It's not a super long flight, but still, she's eleven days old and neither of us knew how she was going to react.

"Well I'm glad, I didn't want to leave you hanging there,"

"Don't worry about it, besides we're just about to land. You want to hold her?" He asks.

"You know I do," I say with a smile as he lays her down into my arms, Grace making those cooing noises that we've learned she tends to make in her sleep. I smile down as my girl, my eyes floating between her, my husband, and the city skyline outside our window. We're bringing our baby home. It's a surreal moment, a moment that for so long I never thought would happen, the reality not setting in through descent or landing or taxi into the gate. But if this is a dream, I don't want to wake up.

"If you're visiting, please enjoy the wonderful city of Chicago and everything it has to offer, and if you're on your return trip, welcome home," I smile and start to tear up as I look at the little girl sleeping against my chest, the familiar buzz of activity all around as we dock into the gate. But for me, it's so much more than that.

"Welcome home Grace,"

First off, I want to give a huge shoutout, giant thank you, and big virtual hug to everyone who has sat down and read this story, left me a short review, and favorited and followed.

I started this after I was feeling a little Linstead deprived this season and I didn't think that anyone would actually like it, but you guys have blown me away with your response and I cannot thank you enough for that. I've loved writing this story and out of all my fics, this was the one that I was always the most excited to sit down and write for and I've had such a good time with it.

I know you that some of you guys are slightly disappointed that I'm ending this story, but I do feel like this is a good place to wrap up their story and that I have brought them full circle. Also, a little shameless self promotion, you can head over to my page and read three of my other stories that are currently in progress (The Thoughts and Prayers of Yesterday, Coming Home, and Once You Say Goodbye).

But once again, just thank you to everyone that has read this story because it has meant so much to me and I am so grateful for all of you and for one last time, please review!

Xoxo,

Addie