Waiting Too....

Things are always the most calm right before the storm, right?  I think we can apply that theory to more than just the weather. 

Over the past couple months, my wife and I have essentially poured our lives out to "strangers".  Not strangers in a strange sense, but strangers in the fact that we just didn't know them, but would come to.  "Tell me about your childhood?...What are you strengths?...Tell me about your sister?" she would ask.  "Good and happy....open-mindedness, empathy, and resiliency....haven't spoken to her in years" I would answer.  All of this, on top of having to endure criminal background checks from three separate states, despite the fact I already hold a top-secret government security clearance.  Now I'm not saying I can talk intelligently about alien landings, but I think that is just enough to show I'm not a criminal. 

Another kick in the nuts (or in my case, just nut; we'll get to that later) came when, after all this, one of our strangers, K, would tell us to find pictures of us having fun on vacation for our profile, but "No Sunglasses In Your Pictures!" 

Now my wife and I love the beach and tropical places.  After going through our pictures of us having fun on vacation in warm sunny tropical places, just as K had asked; how many pictures do you think we found of us not wearing sunglasses?  Not many. 

It was a heartbreaking feeling to think after pouring our lives out to strangers, we could potentially be "unfit" parents because we wear sunglasses at the beach. 

So far, I think I was just being dramatic.

Back to the storm.  After all this, the inquisition with one stranger, the picture orders from another, and learning from Georgia, Kansas, California and North Carolina that I'm not a criminal, the "easy" part was now over.  Now we wait. 

The storm came last week, when after being "out there" for a week, the emails came.  K, who is becoming our closest stranger, started filling our inbox with hope.  Unfortunately, some of them were just not a good fit for us.  Too expensive and history of drug use were the major obstacles, but one caught our attention.  I was at work when these came in; my phone started vibrating like crazy, and my wife M would give me the good news. 

I came home to very emotionally filled household.  I gave M a hug and a kiss and read a profile that might be a match.  After reading it, I wasn't getting a "warm fuzzy." 

Now one of the things I have vowed to do during this process is make the best and smartest decisions from the best information available, and not out of emotion.  Just like West Virginia University learned after the 2008 Fiesta Bowl, the worst decisions are the ones made out of emotion. 

The next major obstacle was explaining to M just exactly why I didn't have a "warm fuzzy".  With this being our third profile, and potentially the third one turned down, She even even questioned if I was showing a lack of commitment to this process.  That could not be further from the reason.

The way I see it, we have one shot at this and that one shot has to hit the target.  A miss would be devastating.  Storms are like buses; it's ok to let one pass, another will be shortly behind it.  I couldn't intelligently explain why I didn't have a "warm fuzzy", you can't explain instincts.  You have them and you listen to them.  If it doesn't feel right, it doesn't feel right.  You cannot force it.  We both wanted more information on this profile. 

Our favorite stranger, K, was our conduit to that information.  After a couple frustrating days of just not getting it, the "silver bullet" email came in.  K, who is becoming less of a stranger now, informed us that she was also unsure.  The lawyer involved was questionable, the birth mother's story was flimsy, and the agency she was talking to, turned out to be "Bobs Adoption Agency", not very credible.  Now the names are changed, but the story is the same.  We trusted our instincts and it was worth it.  We rode this storm out, now just waiting for the next.  It will inevitably come.