decisions, decisions...

Our second adoption was a little out of the ordinary. Okay. It was completely bizarre, start to finish. We had kind of dipped a toe in the water in January with a completely new adoption agency as our cute little non-profit agency had been forced to close their doors. The new agency was really slick. To the point where they would send regular emails updating us on what babies would be available. Complete with prices. Kinda like a baby-sale flyer. It felt really icky compared to what we’d experienced the first time around (my personal recommendation…if your agency does this, run like hell!). That, plus the effort, drama and money involved in adoption made it easy to put the slow brakes on things. Eh, we’d get to it to it one of these days. 

And then, I got an email, out of the blue, from a woman I had worked with for about a minute years ago. She was fabulous. Reminded me of cute, perky When-Harry-Met-Sally Meg Ryan with her curly blonde hair, perfect body and impeccable fashion sense. Not to mention she was really cool and smart. But I hated my job at the time and only ended up working with her for a few weeks before I left. How she even tracked down my email address, I still don’t know. But there it was. A seemingly innocuous email asking for some advice that also contained the pot of gold:

My niece is pregnant and considering adoption. Do you have any advice?

Uh, yeah! Give us the baby! (really, tried not to be that obnoxious but that’s how we felt.) So, we had a meeting with her about a week later. In the meantime we were scrambling to get all of our paperwork in order, find an adoption agency we trusted, get a profile book knocked out (the first one took like 3 months, this one was 3 days), and I had the Surf-City half-marathon in California the day before the meeting. So no pressure at all. A couple of days before the meeting, our adoption coordinator called and said she needed our profile information right away because she had a meeting with a birth mother who was due the same day as the girl we were already talking to (we’ll call her “the niece”). So I instantly assumed it, as you would, that it was the same girl and the agency was confused or something was weird. Once we compared notes, turned out it was two different birth moms. Two different potential children. One boy, one girl. Both due within a couple of days of each other. Holy shit.

So we met with the niece on Monday, at Starbucks, with her mom. We had a great conversation and even though it was a little awkward – what do you expect from a job interview/meeting the parents for the first time/first date on steroids?! – But we all got along and had a great chat and she seemed very committed and solid about her choice with lots of support from her mom, who was also amazing. It just felt kind of natural and we were all feeling the “fate” moment. The big thing for her was knowing that she’d be able to be part of her child’s life in some form or fashion. We were really up front about how open our relationship was with Tagg’s parents and how we hoped to be in a similar relationship with our other children’s parents. Our feeling is that you can’t ever have too many people to love you and families are made in all different ways, but it’s always the love that bonds you together.

We met with the other birth parents later that week. They were a cute couple but very, very different. A little more rough and rocker, they already had 4 children between them and they were both just 21. They were only parenting one of the children. One had been placed for adoption and the other two were living with their birth mom out of state. She seemed very sullen and emotional the whole time we talked and the conversation felt awkward and stunted. Kind of like I expected every first meeting to feel, but this was the only one that actually felt that way. I suppose it was only natural, considering her little guy was right there playing with toys and being adorable and she’s seriously in the process of placing his future brother for adoption. Their reasons were solid. They were both unemployed with absolutely no support network and they knew they just couldn’t give this child the life they wanted him to have. But you could tell that they were unsure. So we left feeling unsure. Excited but scared.  

As the next few weeks unfolded, we had decisions to make. Niece and her boyfriend were dragging their heels on a decision. Torturous, of course, but you have to give them credit for really, really thinking through everything. This is, after all, perhaps the biggest, most important decision they’ll ever make.  At the same time the other couple said, yep…we want you. So what do you do?! We were less than 8 weeks from due dates and the clock was ticking. Who do you pick? How do you know they’ll go through with it? And, if they do, who do you have a solid, long-term positive relationship with?
 

When you’re going in to an open adoption, that’s a really, really important thing to consider. You have to know, 100% (well, as close as you can get) that your family and style will mesh with theirs because this journey is nothing but a leap of faith. For both of you. After a few days of complete insanity — at one point I thought we should take both children, one because it was so meant to be and one because I felt like that child needed all of the things we could give him and because we were so ungrateful for turning away a gift that so many people are desperate to have, like twins. Cute, right? Scott was like hell, no! He really does know some stuff. — we decided Niece was the right decision for us. 

Do I get how lucky we were to be the ones making the choice? Absolutely. Were we panicked that niece would ultimately choose to parent and we’d blown our one and only chance to have another child? Absolutely. But when you embark on your adoption journey, you can really only bank on a few things. Honesty. Faith. Trust. Hope. And most of all, Love. The rest of it just sorts itself out. And it may be horrible or wonderful, but it’s real and it’s yours and you get to decide to shape it into beauty and greatness no matter what.