I am dropping out of Secret Pal 8 because.....

we just found out that we will be adopting a baby in June. 6 weeks away as a matter of fact. We have been waiting for about 18 months and on Monday (as I was leaving Susan’s) I got a message that the agency had a birthmother situation to discuss with us. My cell was dying and I was driving so Charley called from home. They didn’t know when the girl would call as she didn’t have a phone but she was supposed to call their office on Thursday for information. Well, the next morning I got a call that she would be calling us after 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday night. She had just gotten a phone installed and called the office early. When she called, I was the only one on the phone with her; most birthmothers are not comfortable talking to the adoptive fathers. During our conversation she said that we were the only ones she was talking to and she chose us because we had everything ready. Out of my mouth came “oh, we’ve been ready for a while” but my head was going “oh, crap, we are even close to being ready”. A few minutes later it hit me that she was telling me she wanted us to raise her baby. Well, in typical girly fashion, I cried. I couldn’t help it. There was no quivering or slight tear. Nope, I just cried! My friend Melissa says the tears were a nice touch and she is pretty sure I rehearsed it.

We didn’t find out anything for sure until the next day. We are cautiously excited. I know people think we should be running around the block with a banner but we know the reality that lies in front of us. We will have many years of being excited so having that little knot in the pit of our stomachs for 6 weeks won’t make a difference. There are still mounds of paperwork to be signed. Most people don’t realize the legal aspect of adoption. In addition to following the laws of our state, we have to follow the laws of her state and an agreement called the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children. In addition, the birthmother is 1/4 Native American. This probably would not have been an issue if her father were not registered with a tribe. Now there are new laws involved and the tribe has the legal right to find a family or tribe member to adopt the baby and turn us down. On the good side, Wisconsin has no waiting period for termination of birthmother rights. Some states are up to 30 days!

Anyway, there is still a lot to do since we are also putting our house for sale in a week. The carpets are clean (for now) and the touch up painting has been done and everything left for repair is Charley’s domain. In the meantime I supposed I will be hitting the Babies R Us pretty hard. Oh, we don’t know the sex – long story short, she had a sonogram at 3 months and the Doc said “it looks like a boy but I’m not sure enough to put it down on paper”. We have had 3 completely separate friends have dreams that we had a boy. That means if it is a girl – we aren’t done. And, I really want to be done!!!!!