In October 0f 2011 got a call on my cell phone. It was an unknown number so I let it ring. You have no idea how many times I jumped at the phone for unknown numbers, only to find it was nothing adoption related. I listened to the voicemail and it was our adoption agency calling about an expectant mother who wanted to contact us. I immediately called S and when he didn't answer I called again, and again. Until he finally answered to tell me he was on the other line with our agency. Waiting for him to call me back with details was one of the longest ten minutes in my life. I was freaking out!
We got the details and were told the expectant mother, K, would be contacting us via email in the next day or so...and she did. We received a brief, very well written email from K explaining her situation and why she was looking in to open adoption. We wrote back and forth a few times and communication between us all was flowing surprisingly easy. A few days later we got a phone call from K, and we were so nervous...until we picked up the phone. Her outgoing and exuberant personality came right through the phone and we felt very at ease. I don't quite know how we knew, but my husband and I both had a gut feeling that this would be the birth mother of our child.
We asked K what attracted her to our profile and she said she just had a good feeling when she saw it. She looked through several other profiles but kept coming back to us, and feeling really good every time she saw our picture. Turns out we all have a lot in common and it became easy to see why we were connecting. Funny side note: my husband and I both have several tattoos. In the beginning we had asked the agency if we should cover them up on our profile. They said no (and we agreed) because we wanted to be genuine and we wanted an expectant mother to choose us for exactly who we are. More than a few times my dad (not a tattoo fan) had mentioned we might want to cover them up. K says she loved our tattoos and it was part of what attracted her to us. I enjoy reminding my dad of that from time to time!
We spent the next two weeks getting to know K and decided we should meet in person. K and her mom came down here early November. I will never forget seeing them for the first time. When S & I walked in to the hotel lobby we were greeted with big, warm hugs from K and her mom. They were both smiling, as were we. It felt unbelievably comfortable. We went to lunch and the conversation flowed, about life, a bit about adoption. K was very confident and outspoken, flattering S and I to no end.
Then she asked, "Have you picked out a name for the baby"?
This blew my mind for a few reasons. First off...wow...this could be real. K really is considering an open adoption with us. I did not expect such a candid openness. Second, We did have a name picked out and it meant a lot to us that she liked it. Third, it scared me a bit. What if we are putting it all out there and this doesn't work? What if this is what K thinks she wants but changes her mind? We told her the name, (porkchop), and she and her mom absolutely loved it. The rest of the trip K referred to the sweet baby in her belly as Porkchop. I was speechless at how easy this all felt. Nothing about this felt weird. We spent the next few days together. I had toyed with the idea of letting K and her mom meet some of our family. I decided to see how the trip was going and play it by ear. We ended up spending a beautiful afternoon with my brother, sister-in-law and niece in San Francisco. It could not have been more natural. Everything about this situation felt right. When I mentioned this, K's mom said, "Well, when it's right...it's just right."
Before they left to head home we had our Match Meeting with a counselor at our adoption agency. Being matched means that K has chosen us (for now, hopefully for good) and S and I are no longer available to be contacted by other expectant mothers. This was a scary and exciting step forward towards us becoming parents...
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Friday, April 20, 2012
Waiting, Waiting...and then Waiting some more.
Oh, the infamous adoption "Wait". We completed all the paperwork, checks were written (yikes!), our home was inspected and our backgrounds thoroughly checked. March 16, 2010, all was approved and now we wait. We wait for a potential birth mother to go on our adoption agency website. We wait to fit certain "criteria" when she calls the agency that would prompt them to send her a hard copy of our profile because we may be a good match.
Okay, this won't take long! Steve is adopted, we know his birth family, and I am a teacher so people will see I love children. The first few weeks we checked our email constantly. Waited for the phone to ring. Then calmed down a bit, tried to settle in and just live our lives as they were (ha! totally easier said than done).
Five months later we get an email from a potential birth mother. It was the morning of Steve's birthday...perfect! It's fate! It's a sign- because everything becomes a sign when you are waiting. We email her back and go about our day, checking our email every ten minutes, but never hear from her again. A little bummed but it's okay, we move on.
We have to believe everything happens for a reason. Shortly after we heard from this birth mother a close friend of our passed away, exactly around the time the baby would have been born. Obviously we would have made it through somehow, but I like to think the universe was giving us the proper time and space to grieve and nurture ourselves without having to nurture a newborn at the same time.
So months go by and we hear nothing. We have Google Analytics linked up to our adoption agency page, a page all about us. Analytics is both a blessing and a total curse. It can reassure you when you see that ten people looked at your page today. It can also make you lose your mind wondering who was looking and why. For a while we looked often and then not at all. Still couldn't tell you which is better.
On January 3rd we got another email from an expectant mother. It was on my mom's birthday-another sign right?! After two brief back and forth emails we never heard from her again.
It was right around June of 2011 that I actually had my first real meltdown about the whole thing. I had several pregnant friends around me and while I was absolutely thrilled for them it still stung just a little. I was very good at not comparing my life to others and avoided feeling sorry for my husband and myself...except on this particular weekend. I just lost it and cried for two days. It had been over a year and we still weren't parents. I avoided my friend's son's first birthday party. It wasn't the children I was avoiding the conversations that started with, "How's it going? Any news? It's been a long time. It must be hard." On a normal day I love talking about adoption. But I was feeling far from normal. So after two days of feeling really sad I snapped out of it and moved on. I've never been one to wallow and my sweet hubby took excellent care of me. It is the total unknown of "ifs and "when" that make waiting so incredibly hard sometimes. How do you wait for something so intangible?
One weekend in early October S and I were at various functions with different groups of friends, many we hadn't seen in a long time. Everyone wanted to know how the adoption process was going, how it works etc. We were in a really positive space and it felt really good to talk about it. S & I both said a few times, "We feel like something is going to happen soon. We are really putting it out in to the universe now.
In the two weeks before this I had two separate dreams that a man called and said, "A birth mother has chosen you. She will be calling soon."
That Monday we got a call from our adoption agency that there was an expectant mother who wanted to talk to us, but she wanted the agency to tell us her situation first. The next day we received a very put together email from the expectant mother, K. We were so excited, yet cautious. Something in our guts thought this all felt right though. We talked on the phone a few days later and wow...I don't think I could put in to words the immediate connection we had. So began the next part of our adoption journey that would completely change our lives in so many unexpected ways.
Okay, this won't take long! Steve is adopted, we know his birth family, and I am a teacher so people will see I love children. The first few weeks we checked our email constantly. Waited for the phone to ring. Then calmed down a bit, tried to settle in and just live our lives as they were (ha! totally easier said than done).
Five months later we get an email from a potential birth mother. It was the morning of Steve's birthday...perfect! It's fate! It's a sign- because everything becomes a sign when you are waiting. We email her back and go about our day, checking our email every ten minutes, but never hear from her again. A little bummed but it's okay, we move on.
We have to believe everything happens for a reason. Shortly after we heard from this birth mother a close friend of our passed away, exactly around the time the baby would have been born. Obviously we would have made it through somehow, but I like to think the universe was giving us the proper time and space to grieve and nurture ourselves without having to nurture a newborn at the same time.
So months go by and we hear nothing. We have Google Analytics linked up to our adoption agency page, a page all about us. Analytics is both a blessing and a total curse. It can reassure you when you see that ten people looked at your page today. It can also make you lose your mind wondering who was looking and why. For a while we looked often and then not at all. Still couldn't tell you which is better.
On January 3rd we got another email from an expectant mother. It was on my mom's birthday-another sign right?! After two brief back and forth emails we never heard from her again.
It was right around June of 2011 that I actually had my first real meltdown about the whole thing. I had several pregnant friends around me and while I was absolutely thrilled for them it still stung just a little. I was very good at not comparing my life to others and avoided feeling sorry for my husband and myself...except on this particular weekend. I just lost it and cried for two days. It had been over a year and we still weren't parents. I avoided my friend's son's first birthday party. It wasn't the children I was avoiding the conversations that started with, "How's it going? Any news? It's been a long time. It must be hard." On a normal day I love talking about adoption. But I was feeling far from normal. So after two days of feeling really sad I snapped out of it and moved on. I've never been one to wallow and my sweet hubby took excellent care of me. It is the total unknown of "ifs and "when" that make waiting so incredibly hard sometimes. How do you wait for something so intangible?
One weekend in early October S and I were at various functions with different groups of friends, many we hadn't seen in a long time. Everyone wanted to know how the adoption process was going, how it works etc. We were in a really positive space and it felt really good to talk about it. S & I both said a few times, "We feel like something is going to happen soon. We are really putting it out in to the universe now.
In the two weeks before this I had two separate dreams that a man called and said, "A birth mother has chosen you. She will be calling soon."
That Monday we got a call from our adoption agency that there was an expectant mother who wanted to talk to us, but she wanted the agency to tell us her situation first. The next day we received a very put together email from the expectant mother, K. We were so excited, yet cautious. Something in our guts thought this all felt right though. We talked on the phone a few days later and wow...I don't think I could put in to words the immediate connection we had. So began the next part of our adoption journey that would completely change our lives in so many unexpected ways.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
In the Very, Very Beginning...
Hi everyone!
I am going to retrace our steps through our open adoption experience, one blog at a time. I hope to reach others and let them know how absolutely life changing open adoption is. Sure, you become a parent, but it also shift something deep inside of you. Your heart and mind open in ways you never knew possible. We are an open book and passionate about open adoption so please, ask anything you'd like! I am going to start at the very, very beginning...how we decided on open adoption.
Briefly, my husband and I have been together almost twelve years, married for over four. We are in our mid-thirties and live in the bay area with our two dogs, a cat, and now our son. Adoption was something my husband, S, and I always knew we would pursue one day. He is adopted and we met his birth family (birth mom and five siblings) six years ago. S's first reaction was, "Christmas just got a lot more expensive!" Beyond that we were excited to have this new family in our lives and we still are. To us, it is just family and you can never have a big enough family.
I'm a teacher and many years ago I had a student who was adopted from China. I got to know her and her mom and something in my heart told me I would adopt one day. Then I met S and it all made sense. Having his birth family in our lives now, we knew the only way we would want to pursue adoption is through an open adoption. This means we would know the birth mother. She would choose us in a pool of waiting families. We would have ongoing contact depending on her wants and needs after the baby is born. For us this felt like the healthiest way to adopt, for all involved.
When we decided we were ready to venture down the road to parenthood, we decided first to try having our own, then would adopt a second child. After a year of trying with no luck (we tried everything under the sun that was holistic), we decided to pursue adoption. It was a personal choice not to pursue any type of infertility treatments, if needed. When the words came out of my mouth, the sense of peace I immediately felt was immediate. The stress of "trying" to get pregnant was overwhelming and bringing us down. In October of 2009 we attended our first meeting at an adoption agency. One month later we spent a weekend there signing papers and learning a bit about the journey we were about to embark on. The reality is nothing or nobody can actually prepare you for how your story will unfold.
We played scenarios out in our head. We heard what the agency had to say, we heard stories from those who have adopted. In the end our story would be our own and nobody can predict what that would be. It is a big leap in to the unknown. How long will this take? What will our birth mother be like? Where will she live? What will our baby be like? You have to wait (and sometimes wait and wait and wait) and see. You have to believe in fate and all things meant to be. Otherwise you may just lose your mind asking questions and trying to predict what you absolutely cannot. For us, there is no greater test of patience than an open adoption.
So...we now have a beautiful son, we'll call him, "porkchop", the nickname he has earned due to his feeding habits. It was a very long road, sometimes hard, sometimes quite easy, it depends on the day (or sometimes just the hour). It took over two years from the day we walked in to the adoption agency until the day we brought our son home. We would do every single frustrating minute of it all over again to bring porkchop and his birth family in to our life.
Will post again very soon and continue our story!
I am going to retrace our steps through our open adoption experience, one blog at a time. I hope to reach others and let them know how absolutely life changing open adoption is. Sure, you become a parent, but it also shift something deep inside of you. Your heart and mind open in ways you never knew possible. We are an open book and passionate about open adoption so please, ask anything you'd like! I am going to start at the very, very beginning...how we decided on open adoption.
Briefly, my husband and I have been together almost twelve years, married for over four. We are in our mid-thirties and live in the bay area with our two dogs, a cat, and now our son. Adoption was something my husband, S, and I always knew we would pursue one day. He is adopted and we met his birth family (birth mom and five siblings) six years ago. S's first reaction was, "Christmas just got a lot more expensive!" Beyond that we were excited to have this new family in our lives and we still are. To us, it is just family and you can never have a big enough family.
I'm a teacher and many years ago I had a student who was adopted from China. I got to know her and her mom and something in my heart told me I would adopt one day. Then I met S and it all made sense. Having his birth family in our lives now, we knew the only way we would want to pursue adoption is through an open adoption. This means we would know the birth mother. She would choose us in a pool of waiting families. We would have ongoing contact depending on her wants and needs after the baby is born. For us this felt like the healthiest way to adopt, for all involved.
When we decided we were ready to venture down the road to parenthood, we decided first to try having our own, then would adopt a second child. After a year of trying with no luck (we tried everything under the sun that was holistic), we decided to pursue adoption. It was a personal choice not to pursue any type of infertility treatments, if needed. When the words came out of my mouth, the sense of peace I immediately felt was immediate. The stress of "trying" to get pregnant was overwhelming and bringing us down. In October of 2009 we attended our first meeting at an adoption agency. One month later we spent a weekend there signing papers and learning a bit about the journey we were about to embark on. The reality is nothing or nobody can actually prepare you for how your story will unfold.
We played scenarios out in our head. We heard what the agency had to say, we heard stories from those who have adopted. In the end our story would be our own and nobody can predict what that would be. It is a big leap in to the unknown. How long will this take? What will our birth mother be like? Where will she live? What will our baby be like? You have to wait (and sometimes wait and wait and wait) and see. You have to believe in fate and all things meant to be. Otherwise you may just lose your mind asking questions and trying to predict what you absolutely cannot. For us, there is no greater test of patience than an open adoption.
So...we now have a beautiful son, we'll call him, "porkchop", the nickname he has earned due to his feeding habits. It was a very long road, sometimes hard, sometimes quite easy, it depends on the day (or sometimes just the hour). It took over two years from the day we walked in to the adoption agency until the day we brought our son home. We would do every single frustrating minute of it all over again to bring porkchop and his birth family in to our life.
Will post again very soon and continue our story!
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