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The Waiting Phase
Continued from previous post
We started our paperwork in May and turned in a draft of our “Dear Birthparent” letter in mid-July. Adoption professionals tell me that it takes most people 2-4 months on average, to complete the homestudy.
Then the wait begins! We had everything all planned out – we would turn in a draft of our “Dear Birthparent” letter in July, get feedback on it during the next month or so, then revise it and turn in a final draft in September. We expected that a birth mother would “choose” us somewhere around November and that she’d give birth in May, just in time for the end of the school year (we were both teachers).
Where did we ever come up with this harebrained scheme?! It seemed so logical at the time. So well-planned, just like a pregnancy. Adoption does not function under the rules of logic and its timing is almost always unexpected.
So here’s a bit of unsolicited advice: if you’ve got your adoption timeline all neatly planned, lay it to rest. Because very likely, God has a different plan for you than the one you have for yourself. He certainly did for us.
A week after we turned in our “Dear Birthparent” letter draft, we got a call from our caseworker. We had been “chosen.” Stunned silence.
Huh? What do you mean, chosen?
It was true. A young couple wanted to meet us. Immediately.
We hemmed and hawed and finally responded, “Okay…yeah…sure. This is a little unexpected…sure, we’ll meet them. Um…just how far along is she?”
“Eight months.”
More silence. “Ohhhhhh…wow.”
We agreed to meet over the weekend at “a neutral location” (read: restaurant). We weren’t sure about this whole open adoption thing – we agreed to meet the birth parents once and we felt comfortable exchanging letters and pictures with the agency as middleman. But exchanging last names and addresses? That felt a little too threatening.
So, as we drove our car into the parking lot, we parked as far away from the restaurant as possible. In our paranoia, we feared that they would try to spy our license plate number and track us down. I think we were petrified that if we did adopt their baby, they’d find us and steal the baby away from us.
In the next post…The big meeting
