Taking a shot...

And just like that, with a little kangaroo hopping sound coming from beneath my pile of paperwork, The Dry Spell ended.

After 23 days of anxiously awaiting another profile to appear in my inbox, I was almost - almost - cured from my obsession with checking my inbox. I was beginning to realize I was driving myself bonkers, and I was making a solid effort to limit the amount of times in a day I would check my e-mail. But as I stood in front of my desk waiting for images to upload, my little e-mail alert sounded from cell phone; I couldn't help but feel a glimmer of hope. I allowed myself to check my messages.

SCORE! A profile! Finally!

I read the profile and, unlike the previous profiles, didn't see any immediate "red flags" calling out other than the at-risk amount that would be due if we were matched. But at some point we will have to take a leap of faith, and the circumstances surrounding this adoption and Birth Mom make it seem as if there will be less risk that she will change her mind about going through with the adoption. I forwarded the profile on to Mike, and gave him a buzz at work to let him know.

The luxury of time doesn't really exist in the adoption process. When we receive a profile the Birth Mom is typically already in her third trimester, if she hasn't already given birth, and will be meeting with her Social Worker sometime within a couple of days to review Adoption Profiles to select a family. We have several printed books of our profile ready to be mailed out at a moments notice, in addition to a .pdf version. In this case, we received the profile yesterday and the Birth Mom was going to be reviewing profiles today. No time to dilly-dally on deciding whether or not we wanted to give this a shot.

Not the best scenario to have to call your hubby at work to discuss something as huge as this, but time was ticking. After giving Mike some time to look over the profile and gather his initial thoughts we were back on the phone with each other. The verdict: we had a few questions, but we weren't ready to say "no, thanks".

This little baby is a boy, and he's due to greet the world in only a couple of weeks. WOWZA!

Fast-forward a few hours and we still hadn't made a solid decision, mainly because we just couldn't really talk while at work. With errands to run we found ourselves chatting as we meandered through the aisles of Target...hardly ideal, but you can only work with what you've got.

By the time we were hitting the sack for the night we had made our decision - we were going to give this one a shot! I e-mailed K to let her know, and then tried to get some sleep. {but how can you sleep with that kind of anticipation!?}

***

So.....now it's a new waiting game we're playing.

Thankfully for this profile we could submit the .pdf version of our Adoption Profile, so I was able to send that off with a smile this morning. The Birth Mom was scheduled to come in today to review various profiles, (on average she will view 10), and hopefully find the couple (pick us! pick us!) that she envisions her baby having a beautiful life with. This particular Birth Mom wants to talk to the couple, and is open to meeting them in person at the hospital. Over the years she would also love to have updates via letters and photos....
this is exactly the level of open-ness we were hoping for.

I anticipated after hitting the "send" button that I would be incredibly anxious all day, but I've actually felt really calm. I realize that however anxious and excited we feel, we certainly can't truly understand how a Birth Mom feels. For as much as I keep thinking "oh, pick us! please!" I also have to hope that she feels at peace with her decision. What a tremendous amount of love she must have in her heart to acknowledge that, for whatever reasons, she cannot give this baby the life that he deserves.

I go to bed tonight with high hopes that tomorrow we'll hear that she really liked our profile, and she wants to talk to us. But I also go to bed with a soft smile thinking that while I'll certainly be sad if she doesn't pick us, that just means some other couple is going to be getting the news they've been waiting . Thanks to this Birth Mom, some family is about to be completed - and you just can't feel bad about that...