Second Meeting with K and J

I just finished our meeting with K and J today. It was so nice to be able to meet with them again. We met at Starbu.cks so it was so much more comfortable than meeting at the agency. The meeting was great. We were able to laugh and share stories and discuss names. It was so nice to be in such a relaxed environment. It was great because K brought her mom so we were also able to meet her as well and more importantly, she was able to meet us. It was such a nice meeting and I think we all feel really comfortable with each other.

It sounds like she's right on track with her due date and might potentially be a little bit early. She was also kind enough to bring an ultrasound picture for us. It's surreal to look at and to think that that might be my daughter. I'm still having a hard time wrapping my brain around what is happening. I'm not sure why this is. I can't explain my emotions at the moment. I look at the ultrasound and feel hope and excitement mingled with sadness.

Adoption is so intense. As much as you want to experience the joys of adoption you know that the process contains so much sorrow as well. It feels so hard to think about everything that K and J are going through. It's got to be such a painful process and I think my mind right now is having a hard time getting passed that. I just keep thinking about what our caseworker said to us, "take one day at a time".

For today, I'm very grateful for an amazing meeting with some very amazing people who are soon to become an intimate part of my life. I'm also beyond-words grateful for a glimpse at my future daughter.

Continuing a Tradition

Joel's parents came down to visit yesterday and brought with them a bassinet that they had lovingly restored and finished. The bassinet has been passed down to numerous family members. The tradition is that each child's name is written on the base of the bassinet to indicate that they have used it.

Joel's parents both spent quite a bit of time refinishing and staining the bassinet to perfection. As you can see, it's perfectly restored. I've also received some beautiful heirlooms from my parents including hand knitted sweaters that my mom had worn and a beautiful quilt in which each of my aunts embroidered a square for me when I was born. It's so amazing to have all of these family heirlooms. I'm so grateful that these have been saved to be passed on to us.

The baby room is still a work in progress. It took Joel a few days to paint the baby room. He re-painted the ceiling, the walls and finished the trim. The room looks great. I have yet to put back together the crib or get anything else together but it's in the closet when I'm ready.

We are meeting K and J tomorrow for coffee. I've had a lot going on in my life this last week, including, unfortunately, a death in the family, so I haven't really thought about this much. If anyone is on the other side of adoption and has any recommendations of things to discuss that I might not think of, please leave me a comment. My mind is not in the best place at the moment.

Bambino's Story

It's been fun to slowly start telling people that we have been matched. It's a difficult decision to make because, obviously, nothing is definitive. But, I've decided to start to tell people, especially people at work, because I just can't disappear for 3 months and have to have plans in place. (Although disappearing sounds so appealing). I wanted to wait until after we met K and J to gauge the situation and then begin to spread the news.

It's been interesting sharing with people because immediately everyone wants to know all about the birthparents. This is information that we are not sharing because it is bambino's story and not ours to share. I can't tell you the number of times in the last two days that I've said, "I'm sorry, that's not information that we're sharing". I don't resent anyone for asking. I think it's the first place that your brain goes when someone tells you they've been matched. Once I explain to them why we don't share the information they tend to understand immediatley.

It's mostly been hard not to share with my family and sister. I tell my sister everything and it's the first time that I've not shared something with her. Of course, she is great and completely understands.

It's interesting to already feel a protectiveness over bambino before she is even here.

Meeting K and J: Bambino's Birthparents

We had our first meeting yesterday with K and J, Bambino's birthparents. I had worked myself into an utter disaster in anticipation of this meeting. On Tuesday I developed what I think might be eczema. The skin on the palm side of my fingers looked like I'd been in a bath for about a week and my skin was flaking and peeling off and felt like sand paper- very sexy I know. My co-worker commented that while I didn't seem stressed she hypothesized that bottling it up was making it ooze out of my fingers. (I think she's not too far off because right after our meeting my "condition" has vastly improved.)

Needless to say, I was a complete wreck. We had our meeting yesterday morning and I actually slept well the night before and seemed fine. The moment I got into the car it became very real and I was so stressed. We had to take the dog to the groomer first, which was a bit funny because he hates the groomer, so he was really stressed out too and was anxiously pacing around the back seat and panting loudly. Everyone in the car was a complete wreck, dog included. I really thought I'd become ill at any moment.

We finally arrived at Adoption Options and met with our caseworker. We strategized about how the room should be set-up and what would be most comfortable. We decided on cramming around a small circular table as that would be most intimate. We then just waited for K and J to arrive.

K and J walked into the room and it's a strange feeling to be seeing them for the first time. I never had an image in my mind of what our birthparents would look like and I had no expectations but it's so remarkable to see someone for the first time. I'm sure they had the same experience laying eyes on us for the first time as well (although, of course, they saw us in the video).

I can't even articulate what utter nervous disasters all of us were. It actually made me feel better that we were all equally as nervous. I felt like we were a group of pre-teens meeting for the first time and the caseworkers were helping to move along a normal adult conversation. I'm generally a fairly articulate person and I felt like I was bumbling through everything that I was trying to say. It's such an awkward and difficult meeting even though we clearly all liked each other off the bat. Luckily, our caseworker had warned us that this meeting is just awkward for everyone. That was reassuring.

I really liked both K. and J. They are very amazing, thoughtful and self-less individuals. I felt at ease with K. as she actually reminds me quite a bit of my cousin and that familiarity helped. She was so very thoughtful and has given a great deal of thought to her plan of adoption to the point of finding a space for us during her hospital tour. She has welcomed us into the hospital and myself into the delivery room because she thought that I might like to have that experience since I wasn't able to have that on my own. I felt that that was incredibly thoughtful and selfless. I'm trying to give her as much space as I can because I can't even imagine what giving birth would be like and I told her that she can just see how she feels minute by minute and we will respect whatever she wants and not take anything personally.

K has given so much thought to her plan of adoption that she's creating a baby book for the baby with photos all about her and her family and information explaining her decision. I can't tell you what this means to me. I'm so incredibly grateful to her for her love and devotion to the bambino. It is so utterly clear in every decision that she makes and everything that she does.

I think K and J are trying to be very sensitive to boundaries but I really want to make sure they are comfortable with us so I offered another meeting if they'd like. They decided to take us up on another meeting and we'll be meeting with them again in early September at a more casual location. I'm so grateful for another opportunity to meet with them where we will have our initial jitters out of the way and it will be more relaxed.

We ended the meeting by taking a group photo. I still can't believe that this is really happening. I think I've looked at this photo many times over the past 12 hours to make it sink in that this is real. I have to keep looking at our camera to remind myself that this is happening. I was yet again looking at the photo this morning and Joel commented that K and I actually have very similar faces and smiles and that we actually look alike.

I feel so blessed to have K and J as our birthparents and to have this incredibly wonderful situation. This is far better than I could have imagined.

One Year and Waiting

We have been so busy that I feel like I'm perpetually a couple of days behind in my postings. I think this is most apparent in the fact that I neglected to acknowledge our one year anniversary of being accepted into the adoption pool. On May 12, we've officially been waiting one year for bambino.

If you look at past posts, I've been plenty whiny about the fact that we've been waiting. Being matched in January has made the wait seem a bit longer. We also received a call a couple of weeks after being accepted about being profiled to a mother. I think these calls set us up to have unrealistic expectations about how quickly this process would go. We were told by our caseworker that it would take a year to a year and a half so we're well within that range.

We asked our caseworker not to tell us if we were being profiled. I couldn't handle that roller coaster so we don't really know if we've just not clicked with the right mother or if the agency is really slow. It's so hard to tell.

The Morning After

So, for all my stoicism and "I'm just fine " yesterday, today was much harder. I woke up and it sort of sank in that I wouldn't be picking up bambino this morning. Of course, I knew that, but sleeping on it somehow made it worse and more real.

I think more than anything I was just thinking about how we might not have a girl. I don't really care what gender our baby is but knowing a gender is the closest we've ever come to parenting. I could actually think about having a baby girl. An African-American baby girl at that. That's the only opportunity I've had to this point to actually have a realistic mental image of our child. It's always an ambiguous baby with morphing gender and ethnicity. I think it was a little bit harder because I had a mental image of our baby.

I took today to work from home so that if I randomly burst into tears I didn't have to feel awkward and run for the bathroom. If anything, I'm definitely NOT a public cryer. It was nice to be at home, get work done, and have time to process. I'm feeling so much better this evening after having some time and space. I'm so grateful that if this had to happen it was over the course of four days rather than two months. I'm also wishing all the best to birth mom in her new journey.

My husband, friends, family, caseworker and colleagues have been so phenomenal through this process. It has really made me realize how loved and supported we are. That's an amazing gift to have.

Back on the List

I woke up this morning after very little sleep, cautiously optimistic about the prospect of meeting our child today. We had spent last night going through names on Post-it-Notes to come up with a short-list for our meeting today.

I couldn't sleep all night (as noted in my earlier 1 am posting). I know that movies make me pass out so I put on some bad Netflix film that Joel has refused to watch with me and ended up falling asleep on the couch. Joel was very sweet and woke me up on the couch and moved me to bed. He woke me up several hours later with a steaming latte. Nothing could be better. I woke up a little bit pessimistic and didn't have a great feeling but also knew that I can't predict the future and that I've had a range of emotions over the last twelve hours.

I did a couple of things for work and then hopped in the shower. I contemplated whether shaving my legs would have any baring on my future of parenting and decided to skip it to save time. I agonized over what to wear. If I was meeting our baby and birth mom had been in labor all night, maybe I should wear jeans. I also wanted to make a good impression. I settled on a casual skirt, shirt and boots. I didn't really look like a mom when I looked in the mirror - whatever that means, but, that's what went through my head. Maybe I should wear something more matronly. So silly. I decided to go with a skirt and black shirt accompanied by the necklace that I wore in our adoption video (just in case that sealed the deal) and my boots.

Joel and I decided to stop at Dazbog and grab a couple more coffees and breakfast burritos. We started our trek to south Aurora. We were on I-225 almost at the Mississippi exit when I got the dreaded call. I saw the blocked number on my cell phone and knew it was our caseworker- birth mom was feeling like she wanted to parent. She said that birth mom's caseworker was still trying to meet with her and our caseworker would call us back before noon to give us an update.

I signaled to Joel to turn around. I didn't really cry. I just wanted to drive somewhere else super fast. I asked Joel if we could head east on I-70. We headed past the airport toward Watkins. It felt really good to be moving and watching the landscape fly by me. Going home meant dealing with my reality and I need to avoid it for a little bit. After awhile, we decided to turn around. On our way back to Denver our caseworker called again. It was definitive- birth mom was going to be a parent. She told us that birth mom wanted us to know that it was nothing personal and that she really liked us. I think our hunch was right that she held baby and couldn't imagine being without her. I can certainly appreciate that. It wasn't our baby. Ours is yet to come.

Joel and I decided to go on a hike to get out some of the extra energy and angst. It was 70 degrees in January and there really wasn't a better day to hike. We got to spend time talking about how we were coping. Strangely, we both seemed to be coping with everything very well. I think years of infertility can prime you for disappointment and you know a little bit better how to roll with the punches.

We're now back on the list waiting for the next call. Today was super-hard and I wouldn't want to repeat it but it definitely confirmed that our baby is still out there somewhere.

The Call

I spent the week in a conference in Portland with my colleagues from the Western region. On Thursday night, Joel flew in to spend a long weekend with me. I had a half day left of conference activities. While I was sitting in the conference, my phone was ringing. I received two calls from the same blocked number and then a voice message. I didn't really think anything of it and thought it might be Nina calling to give me an update from a date she had the night before.

The conference ended and I rushed back to the hotel to pack and check-out. After we checked-out of the hotel, we began to wander toward our lunch destination. I finally remembered that I had a voice message on my phone that I needed to check. The second I heard, "Hi, Jen. This is 'caseworker' from Adoption Options" I knew that this was "the call".

I immediately almost burst into tears with Joel trying to calm me down. We had no where private to go to make the call and nothing to write with. We ran across the street to a pharmacy, but, they had no pens. We then realized we were a few blocks from Powell's Books (my favorite bookstore). We ducked in there and quickly bought a Powell's pen and ran back outside to call our caseworker back.

She informed us that we had been chosen by a family. Birth om had watched our profile and chose us. She had watched four other videos and began to jump up and down when she saw Joel and I. She liked our sense of humor and thought we seemed fun. The next step is to set-up a meeting with our caseworker and her caseworker for a formal presentation and then meet birthmom the next day. Today is Friday and this was all to happen on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week. Everything seems very positive and like it should work out very well.