Hellobee

A little interlude from the nuts and bolts of the adoption process to let you know that we have been chosen by an expectant mother!  We’ve moved from being a waiting family to a matched family.  This new status is still fraught with risk, but we’re definitely in a new “pregnancy” category than we were a few weeks ago. Being matched involves allowing yourself to dare to dream about what may come!

Let me tell you a little bit about it happened, and then we can go into the mechanics of the process in more detail.

At the end of October, we became a “waiting” family.  This means that an independent social worker and our agency approved us to be eligible to match with a birthmother.  Our agency would now be able to present our “profile” or the story of our family to different birthmothers who were choosing families for their babies. Typically, many profiles are presented to the birthmother and she chooses the one that she feels is the best match for her child.  Waiting families are counseled that the process of being selected takes between 6-18 months on average, with many presentations of the profile before selection.

We were ready for this grueling process.  Right away, we had one opportunity to be presented to a birthmother.  It seemed somewhat soon, but we decided to provide our profile for consideration.  We were mentally prepared for rejection, and frankly were probably not ready at that point to be matched.  When we got the call that we hadn’t been picked, it may have seemed kind of odd to the case worker that I was so chipper about the decision, but it was fun to see the process in action. There was an element of a thrilling chase that I hadn’t expected… almost like dating again.

Our second presentation was over the Thanksgiving holiday in November.  We became incredibly attached to the idea of that particular situation.  We anxiously waited for a full week before we heard from the case worker.  We got the bad news that we were not picked during the Thanksgiving weekend, and it. was. hard.  We had these magical thoughts that we would be the perfect match for the baby based on what we knew about the situation, and we were wrong.  This turn of events sent me in to a bit of a self-doubt frenzy.  Should I alter our profile?  Did we look too… I don’t know… eager, happy, casual, chaotic… something?  The self-doubt was pervasive.  I struggled to keep my usual rational approach to putting the information into perspective. As usual, Mr. Jacks was a voice of calm and reason.  After some intense self-reflection, we decided to keep our profile just as it was, and wait for the match that would be best for our most authentic selves.

To top it off, there was a drought of appropriate situations.  We went through Christmas without choosing to be presented once.  Then, just when we were about to wallow in our lack of opportunities and still mourning that match that never was, we saw a situation pop up a couple days after Christmas.  We agreed to be shown, although in a more cautious fashion than we had the first two times, since we were now afraid of the possible rejection to come.  We waited with guarded hearts, trying not to hold our breath at every phone call. 10 hours later, we got a late night phone call telling us that the expectant woman had picked us!  I don’t think I slept at all that night.  Mixed with the  excitement was concern, fear, and awe that I had never felt before.  It was almost like a completely new emotion that has never been named before. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, indeed!

Once the news sunk in, we realized that there was still a fair amount of waiting to be done.  We, of course, have to wait for the baby to be born (though the due date is coming up fast!), and to meet the expectant mom.  We wait for our weekly updates through the agency.  There is also much to be done.  We need to cram 9 months of mental and physical baby preparation into 40 days.  There’s a room to get ready, our daughter to prepare, and of course the ubiquitous paper work to fill out.  This is a paper pregnancy after all!  Things could also change at a moment’s notice, and we need to be prepared for possibilities that we dare not even say out loud…

We wait. We dare to hope.  All good thoughts and prayers are welcome for this new and difficult leg of the journey!

An image from our profile.  You may recognize it from our wedding reception!