April 18th

Part two of our adoption story...

It was now almost 3 weeks since we were matched and emom was due on April 24th.  However, after many assurances by the agency that emom was "still on board", all we heard were crickets.  We were receiving no updates about doctor appointments that I was told she was going to and the SW didn't seem to be able to nail down a time that we would do that conference call with emom. 

I was trying to remain calm and think positively.  I reasoned with myself that she just didn't want to speak with us and that was okay.  It wasn't necessarily a sign that she was having second thoughts.  I know that I can't even begin to imagine how she was feeling about her adoption plan.

With less than a week to go until the due date, I was really starting to "nest", cleaning and organizing like crazy.  I bought a paper shredder to finally get rid of a wastebasket full of documents.  Looking back, that's really all I remember doing that day....sitting in the kitchen shredding paper. 

It was Sunday and that night I couldn't really get to sleep.  I was thinking about the million things I still needed and wanted to do before baby came....and then the phone rang. 

It was just past midnight and the caller ID said that it was my parents' house.  It was my younger brother on the other end.   I remember a shiver going through me before he even told me why he was calling.  What was up?  What's wrong?  That's the thing about those late night calls.  I quickly thought that he was going to tell me something happened to our mom or dad.  Instead, he was calling to tell me that our brother, the oldest of four, had passed away that night. 

   

March 30th

I'm going to write about our adoption story in phases with dates being the titles of the posts related to our journey to Grace.  This is a quick part one of the story.... 

It had been almost 3 months since our failed match where we traveled to Oklahoma, then learned 12 hrs later that emom changed her mind and decided prior to the birth that she would parent.  

After hearing about several situations over the next several weeks, we decided to submit our profile to a new agency through our consultant for an expectant mom due in late April with a baby girl. A few days later, on March 30th, we learned that she chose us. There were some things about the situation that made us pause. But we were matched again. It was not going to be a long match, like the one in OK.  That was a huge plus to us.  After the failed match, I did not want an extended wait to the due date.   

We opted not to tell family, friends, or our workplaces about the match this time. I didn't even announce it here on my blog. It felt very different matching the second time around. The excitement was G-O-N-E. Hubbs and I didn't speak about the match much at all and protecting our hearts became the first (and pretty much only) priority.

At the time of the match, it was three weeks until the due date. A small part of my brain was thinking that this might actually happen this time.  But I wasn't going to let my guard down.