The One We've Been Waiting For

Ok, this time the silence means something, my dear reader(s).

Something big.  I've been holding it in.  Rolling it around in my brain, trying to find the words to fully describe the amazing things that have happened in the last few weeks.

They say a picture's worth a thousand words, so here it is:

Yes, seeing is believing!  We've MATCHED!!  

I know...I can hardly believe it either.  Just when we'd settled into convincing ourselves that this might take awhile.  Just after we'd decided to put on a brave face and say ten times a day that it was ok that nobody was calling us.  Just about the time we'd started to face the reality that we may have to buck up and focus on other things, and perhaps our dream of becoming moms would have to go on the back burner for who knows how long.

We got the call.  THE call.  This time it came not from a tentative young woman whispering nervously into her phone, but rather straight from our agency.  The intake coordinator called and let us know she had spoken that afternoon with a young woman who wanted us to be the parents of the child she was carrying.

You could have knocked me over with a feather.  

"Do you want us to show her your profile?", the coordinator asked.  

Is the Pope Catholic?  Do bears poo in the woods?  OF COURSE WE DO.  

To be fair, it wasn't a completely ridiculous question.  This woman lives in a nearby state, where our agency does not have an office.  So, the adoption will involve a little more paperwork and red tape, and some extra fees.  I guess some people have more rigid ideas about what they will or won't deal with in an adoption.  Amber and I aren't those people.  So--in about 2.5 seconds--we agreed that we wanted to move forward and have our profile shown to her.

I am SO GLAD we did.  We could not have asked to be matched with a more amazing person.  We couldn't have imagined a better situation. She is in a relationship with a great guy and they clearly love each other to pieces.  Her family is so supportive of her, of the two of them, and of their adoption plan.  She's smart, she's funny, she's sensitive and she is unimaginably wise beyond her years.  She reminds me a lot of me, actually. (Ha! "She's awesome...just like me!" Modesty has clearly never been my strong suit.)

So, we are excitedly moving forward on this match.  She's due in August, so we have a long time to get to know one another and to plan for the future.  At some point soon we'll have an official match meeting, where we can sit down and really hash out the details of what we each want and expect from this open adoption.  From the little we've discussed it so far though, it seems like we are already on the same page about openness, and I'm thrilled about that.  

Open adoption is the way we chose to build our family because we strongly believe that openness is the best thing for our child.  We want him or her to always know his or her birth parents, how amazing they are, and why they chose us to be parents.  

But, we also chose open adoption because we strongly believe that openness is the best thing for the birth parents, as well.  I'm under no delusion that this process will be easy for them.  It's hard to reconcile the fact that something that will make Amber and I so SO very happy will also be sad and difficult for the very person who is choosing to give us this amazing gift, and making us so happy in the first place.  I want our adoption to be open--to include letters, pictures, and visits--because I want our child and his or her birth parents to get to experience all the wonderful things about one another.  

But, I also want it to be open for a slightly more selfish reason.  I want to experience those things as well.  Amber and I are lucky to have many wonderful people in our lives...our family, our friends, and so many great individuals with whom we've crossed paths over the years.  But, a person who can make this difficult decision at a relatively young age, who has enough maturity and forethought to realize she's not ready to be a parent yet, and who has the bravery and loving heart to put this child's needs and best interest first, and to give us the gift of parenthood, for which we will never stop being grateful.....that's a person I want in MY life forever, too.

x's&o's,

Michelle