Second Possible Case

Today is the due date for that first possible case I had. I was sad today thinking about how different my day could have been. All the what ifs surrounding the possible birth.

I am not sure if I feel sad bc it was my first chance at being an adoptive parent or if I will feel this way each time I get turned down.

I finally got around to checking my email. I am old fashioned bc I like to check it on my desktop with the large screen and not the tiny screen on my phone. I was scrolling the list of messages when I saw the SW with the title possible case.

OMG I was so excited to get my second chance. So far there is nothing to go by other than the BM was 5 months along and wanted to have 2-3 visits per year. The SW wanted to know if that was ok with us. Then she was going to gather more info.

I wrote  her back  saying yes as long as she was within a few hours, I said that I assumed the BM was somewhat local or within our state. We will see what she says. Hopefully I did not ruin my chance. I hope saying "a few hours" is vague enough. I have to make this commitment so if I say I will visit 3 times a year, which is every 4 months I have to make sure that I am capable of doing so.

I also said if she was close enough we could do more than that. I am very open to visits. That is not an issue for me. When I first started I was scared of visits with the BM but after reading about how important it is for the child, I am comfortable with it.

So we will see what tomorrow brings. Hopefully the BM does not live too far, bc I would like to learn more and see if this would be a good match.

The timing would be great bc I think that would be April or May which would work out great with my teaching schedule. This would also give me time to prepare. On the other hand, she is only 5 months along so she would also have more time to think about it.

First Profile Showing part 2

I was tired of waiting, so I emailed the SW. She wrote me back one sentence. Something like the BM chose another family, sorry... let's move forward. No feedback, just a sentence. I did not really expect much due to her personality.

So know we know. At least now I can relax.  There are a lot of crazy things going on in the next few weeks, so on one hand I am relieved that we did not get picked.....but that is me trying to stay positive. It would have been nuts, but we would have dropped everything  and made it work. I am disappointed that we did not get picked. =(

It was my first showing so I did not expect to get picked. It was a crazy tww trying to think about it actually happening for once. It is so wild that I could have brought home a baby next month.

My hope is that now we have had our first showing, more will come.

First Profile Showing

Last week, the SW emailed me to ask me if she could show my profile. This was the first time she asked. I was so excited to finally get a chance. We read over the case. It is confidential so I can't really tell you much. When you sign up to adopt, you have to check off yes, no, maybe for tons of items. The SW said that many people have many issues and you never know how truthful they are so there are no real guarantees.

This case seemed to fit within our comfort zone. There were a few items that could become future issues, but there were also many that were missing which was good.  We decided to give it a chance and said yes.

She is due next month. That gave us many emotions all at once. We were scared to get picked, scared not to get picked. Excited at the chance to become parents, scared that we would become parents in less than a month. She could also go into labor early.........

I felt totally unprepared. OMG it was nuts. We had to just put it all in God's hands and not worry. She may not even pick us.

That was ten days ago. I have no idea how long they give the BM to pick. I would love it if the SW would even just let us know if we are still in the running, if she had narrowed it down a bit and excluded us etc. I understand that this is a really important decision for the BM, but it is also a life changing decision for us. I feel like I'm in another dreaded 2ww.

If anyone has any experience with this, please let me know what time frame is normal to expect a response. Does the SW usually tell you if you are not picked?

Confession

I have a confession to make. I gave into the TTC temptation and I regret it. Now that I am over it, I can write about it. I am much happier now that it has passed.

A few months back when I was just about ready to get approved to adopt, someone who I never thought would get pregnant did. It was a miracle for her. I was truly happy for her. But then it hit me. I had accepted that some women just don't get pregnant for unknown reasons. She was one of them. It threw me off that she finally got pregnant after years of not trying anymore. She did two things differently. One her DH got some testosterone treatment and the other was to take a supplement.

I could not control the urge to try something new. So I took the same supplement in hopes that it would be my miracle cure. The first month seemed fine. I had a 28 day cycle and no symptoms. The next cycle was crazy and I had symptoms to make me ponder. I had mid cycle spotting. Then I had intense sore nipples in the 2ww. I mean they were out of control. I was in so much pain. They could have cut glass. I started to have some early spotting, but then AF came on day 25.

I was going to try the supplement for the third month, but then I decided that it was enough. I was tired of riding the roller coaster. I stopped the supplement and then I realized that it had made me incredibly constipated. I usually battle that issue, but once I stopped the supplement I was so regular and I started to get my appetite back. I heard my stomach growl for the first time in a while. AF came again on day 25. This month my nipples were not sore at all.

I know you are thinking that having no appetite is great, but for me it makes me gain weight bc when I am not hungry I don't want to eat anything healthy. I ate a lot of ice cream, bread, and other junk food and gained 15 pounds. I have lost 5 this month.

I also got an email last week about a possible case. I will write about that in my next post.

Waiting Time:Two Months

Today I thought I would check my blog and saw that it has been two months since I last posted. Sept is the start of a new school year for me so I have also been very busy. There has not been anything new to report on the adoption process. We have been waiting for the past two months to get a match.

At first I was content with just being done with all of my paperwork and was happy to relax.
Then reality hit me............We have been waiting for two months and I have not heard anything from the sw. She said she would call me before she showed my profile. I guess it is possible that if there was a perfect match she would have just shown it without calling.

We are going into  the time of year with lots of  holidays and then the weather gets colder. I am not going to harass her yet. I will give it a few more months.

Officially Waiting

The profile books came in a day early. I looked through one and loved it. I was not sure how it would look in print which is not the same as the screen. My text was 16pt which sounds really large so I was not sure how it would come out. It was great. I figured that if someone was not a good reader a large font would be inviting. Of course DH finds a spelling mistake that I made. It was in a title and I  wrote Altanta, erggh so I was really upset for about a minute and debated about reprinting them. Then I thought abut the money and time I would waste and just ignored it.

I drove over to the agency and I handed her my profile books.  Even though my agency is national, it seems that they focus on the states in their local area. She wanted 5 books for the 3 offices in my state and one in two  other states. So for now it seems that I could travel to one of three states, but they are all close enough to drive to.

I wanted to get her impression of my book and get on her good side. We had a great chat that lasted for almost 45 min. She loved our book. The cover is blue with white swirls and we are wearing blue outfits.... honestly that was not planned but it looks nice. She went through and oohed and ahhed over it. It made me feel great. She loved the colorful backgrounds. We made the left and right pages the same color but then we made every two pages a different color. I used, purple, blue, yellow, green, and pink.

I have lots of pictures so if someone just looks at it you can still get a good idea. The SW said she can tell that we are happy, and have lots of hobbies. She did not catch the spelling error. =) I did provide text for those who wanted to learn more, but since the text is 16pt it is not as much as you might think.

I am very excited to announce that we are officially waiting to get matched.

I ordered My Books

My DH's friend came through for us with a couple photo from their wedding. I was so happy bc it was a nice photo of us outside. YEAH  Then I had my best friend edit the book for spelling, grammar etc. Then we looked it over again. I made a few small changes.

I got to the point where I had to just order them before I went mad worrying about it. Shutterfly usually has coupons, so I found one for 30% off, free shipping, and free upgrade to expedited shipping. The SW wanted 5 copies, so I ordered another one for us to keep bc you never know who you might run into. Each book was $30, plus tax and shipping. I put in all the codes to see what would happen. The 30% and free shipping both came off. Then I saw that free shipping could take 2-3 weeks.

I decided to use the upgrade for expedited shipping instead of free. I paid $30 for the shipping but it should get here on August 15.  I am so excited!!!! I will drive the books over to the agency the day I get them.

Today I also got a completed final draft of the home study in the mail. They sent me one to keep, and one to sign and return. HMMM that is interesting that they needed a signed copy all along bc I have requested this document about four times. I will just bring it to them when I deliver the books.

So now I can relax for a few days. =)