Hellobee

After what seemed like days, Mr. Jacks finally called me back. I had told him earlier in the day that the agency had called and that I must have somehow been in trouble with them. So it wasn’t surprising that his first words were, “What did you do?” in a Ricky Ricardo voice. My response was, “Well, you are not going to believe this, but the call wasn’t about me being in trouble for anything. Birth mom is having a new baby. She wants to place the baby with us.”

After a long (and I’m assuming stunned) silence, the ever practical Mr. Jacks said, “Well, it’s too bad we can’t do it.”

I said, “Why can’t we do it?”

He said, “Well, we don’t have a big enough car for three.” (That is a true statement.)

My response was, “Ok. Is that the deal breaker for you?” (stay calm, stay calm.)

He at first said yes, that it was a deal breaker. Then he immediately backtracked and said that it might not be (after all, that can be fixed, he said). Then he said that he thought we had decided to be done with the two kids we had. Then he started processing the whole situation and said, “But wait… this is Jack Jack’s sibling!” I think it suddenly dawned on him that this decision was bigger than just us.

While writing this post, I asked him what went through his head in those first moments. He said he remembers being confused and excited. He said he felt really good about birth mom seeking us out, because it meant that she must think that we are doing a good job with Jack Jack. It’s not typical to get a lot of validation from the birth family about how they perceive us or the care we give our child– so that was what really resonated with him in the moment. But, ever the practical partner, he wanted to know more details and was concerned about finances and logistics.

Many of his questions had to go unanswered at the time of our phone call. I knew that the baby was due sometime in February. The predicted due date was one day before Jack Jack’s birthday, but it is difficult to know how accurate the dating is. We were told that the baby was a boy. Now, before you all (and Mr. Jacks) get too excited about this fact, we haven’t had official confirmation. With Jack Jack, I was told she might be a girl… but that they weren’t able to say for sure. We treated it like a Team Green situation and confirmed her sex at delivery. So, while this is likely to be a little boy, I cautioned that we make the decision independent of the baby’s sex. You just never know in adoption!

I called the agency back and told them I’d need until the next day to give them an answer. They agreed to 24 hours. I wasn’t sure we could even get to the answer by then, but we would try our hardest.

I gave one of the most distracted presentations of my life and then rushed home to discuss this strange turn of events. I couldn’t get it out of my head that Jack Jack might grow up with a biological sibling in our home! Somehow to me, this was the most important aspect of the situation. I’ve always worried that our lack of shared biology might bother our adopted daughter, but that concern seemed to fade away when I thought about her sharing a link with a sibling. I’ve always joked that we are “kinfolk” with Jack Jack’s birth family… we see them yearly for her birthday and we e-mail or text sporadically throughout the year. But placing this little one with us would seem to make our link ever stronger.

Also in the back of my mind was that my sister was once asked to adopt her daughter’s bio-sibling. At the time she absolutely had to say no… but she says that it is one of her great regrets. I didn’t want to have those what-ifs running in my head for the rest of my days! I was ready to fling my heart wide open. So much for my newfound peace with being a family of four!

But I also had some major concerns. Finances were a huge factor. Mr. Jacks and I have always tried to live as close to debt-free as possible. We planned well in advance for Jack Jack’s adoption and did everything we could to keep her adoption costs manageable. This current situation was going to be out of our control completely. The costs were already fixed before we came into the picture… (in part 1 the costs associated with this particular situation were enough to squash any ideas of adding to our family through adoption again). For a number of different logical but also preventable reasons, this was going to be more expensive than the average adoption. And it was too late in the process to control those costs. So one of our biggest questions was whether we could do this without going into debt? If we couldn’t, we would have to take that as a sign that maybe this wasn’t meant to be.

We were giddy as we crunched the numbers. I think we were tired, nervous and maybe a little scared. Just how much could we save between now and February? Would it be enough to make up the shortfall? We genuinely weren’t sure it was going to be possible. We worked the numbers several different ways and it just wasn’t coming together.

Then there were other considerations as well. I hate to say it, but now that I’m in my 40s, age is a factor for me. Would I have the stamina for another toddler? The patience? For the most part, I feel young for my age, but there are certain times at the end of the day, where I just don’t have a whole lot left in me. Could I add nighttime feedings to that? How would I feel about being 60 years old when this child goes to college? Mr. Jacks seemed convinced that this wouldn’t be an issue, since I still have a lot of energy. But it was something to think about.

I was worried that Mr. Jacks was going to be more fixed in his position that our family was meant to be just the two girls, but he was surprisingly more open than I thought he would be. Mr. Jacks is a pretty agnostic guy, but he wondered out loud if the Universe was trying to tell us something here. What are the chances that Jack Jack’s birthmom would be pregnant again at this time, that might be a boy (!), and whose situation we just happened to see when we randomly logged into the agency website on a whim one day, and who went through over a dozen profiles but only wanted to place with us?

I called it a “God thing” and couldn’t really see it any other way.

So our hearts were telling us yes. For Jack Jack to grow up with her bio-sibling would be a priceless gift. We had to find a way to make this work! But the finances were not cooperating with us. Should we take it on faith that the money would all work out in the end?

We were going to have to call in some help to figure this out. I was starting to worry about meeting the deadline the agency had set out for us. I also couldn’t imagine how Jack Jack’s birthmom felt while she waited for us to make our decision.  It was going to be an agonizing and sleepless night! (To be continued)