Where We Stand

Thank you all for the love and support following our adoption announcement! I have literally been BLOWN AWAY by the generosity of others. People I have never met have already donated... how cool is that?!?! People have donated that we haven't seen in years, like from Sam's PT school days or from when I was in undergrad, literally years. The ugly cry was a permanent feature on my face Friday as the donations started to pour in... this is such a humbling process. But maybe we all need that every now in then... to be taken to our knees with thankfulness and reminded to stay down rather than stand back up. I really, really like to stand up. Some might call it stubbornness (I've been called far worse), but I try to view this trait in a more uplifting light. I call it tenacity and perseverance and self-reliance. But ultimately, I just don't like asking for help, so yes, this is humbling indeed.

I've been getting a lot of questions and comments since we announced the adoption. Most of them, I don't have answers for. I laugh because well, "we are adopting" sounds insane to me. "We are adopting" sounds a lot like "we are pregnant"... it sounds like something is happening. I think I'd naturally say "we are adopting" once we've been  matched with a birth mother and we have a timeline... that scenario feels a lot more real. What I wanted to say was "we are planning to adopt," but that makes for a really lame banner. I imagine adoption for an infertile couple is pretty different, I mean yes, it's the same process, but I imagine if we were adopting in the way we originally planned with three to five kids at home, this would all feel SO different. I imagine there would be a lot of confidence, a lot of hope. People who haven't struggled with infertility often say "if" I get pregnant, while the rest of the world says "when we get pregnant" without much thought. Interestingly enough, I find the old habit remains: I don't say "when we bring our baby home" and "we are adopting" but rather "if " and "might be".

The prospect of adoption (see, I did it again) has certainly given us hope. It's a feeling I haven't felt since IVF, and I might even have a little bit more hope than I did at the beginning of the IVF cycle, but I definitely don't feel certain. That's a foreign concept that I can no longer hold onto. I mean, we are CERTAIN that we are pursuing adoption, don't get me wrong. Adoption is our top priority right now and we are fully committed to this process. The uncertainty comes from years and years of watching everything I've tried crumble to ash in my hands. I'm praying that our adoption is a smooth journey, but honestly, I won't be surprised if it's fraught with hardship. I say all of that to explain I'm trying not to allow myself to think too far down the road. I'm naturally a dreamer and a planner. Nothing made me happier than to make a five year plan when I was growing up. But now, a five week plan seems next to impossible, so I probably don't have too many answers to your questions, but I'll try.

A lot of people have been asking "is it a boy or girl?"... this catches me off guard every time. I don't know if she's asking from a "you get to choose, right?" type of perspective or if she thinks we actually have a child matched to us. My response is a blank stare while I try to read the situation and wonder if I've led anyone astray. Let me be really clear, we have not been matched with a child, we have not been chosen by a birth mother, in fact, we haven't even presented ourselves to any birth mothers yet. So we have no clue if our future child will be a boy or girl. Yes, we technically could pick a gender to pursue, but we honestly DO NOT CARE. Sure once upon a time, I had my dreams of three girls and two boys and I knew exactly what order they'd come it... but those days are long gone. Boy or girl, we will be ECSTATIC!  And specifying a gender can often add additional costs and time. So, again, we don't know if we will be adopting a boy or a girl... but rest assured, we'll let you know as soon as humanly possible.

A second really common question is "when can we bring he/she home?" Again, my mind kicks into overdrive... did I unintentionally lead her to believe the baby is already born? Or does she think we know the due date? Or is she asking how long after the birth before can we come home? It can be a complex question, especially since it could mean so many different things. I'll try to answer as much of this as I can:

• When is the due date? Again, your guess is as good as mine. :)
• How long will the adoption take? The simplest answer is that our organization lists 2-12 months as the standard timeline. At this point, we are hoping to bring our baby home within a year. We've been told this is a very realistic expectation, but in all honesty, even 12 months seems mind boggling to me. I have a hard time wrapping my head around that idea... I can hardly imagine ever bringing a baby home at this stage in the game, 12 months seems like the blink of an eye. We've also been told that the process could take as little as 2 months... umm, be still my heart. I've put 9 months in my head (I guess because that's the standard "get ready for baby time") but I'm holding onto that extremely loosely knowing that everything could change in a moment.
• When can we bring our baby homes? That all depends on the state our birth mother lives in. If it's Georgia, we can come home once the baby is released from the hospital to wait out the 10 days. If it's another state, we'll be required to stay in that state until we've met the requirements of the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children. So, we could be in Kansas or Texas or Virginia or wherever for 1-2 weeks while all of the paperwork for both states is processed.

I know many of you have other questions... and I most likely don't have answers. It's an awkward place for me to be as I like to have ALL THE ANSWERS. Hopefully, I'll be able to provide a more thorough update some time next week as we have a meeting with our consultant on Wednesday.