Paper Pregnant

I'm coming out of the closet: I'm paper pregnant.

Now, some of you either already know about this or suspected, based on things I've said or hinted at over the last couple of months. And others of you may find this term offensive, as I've seen hinted at on the adoption boards I frequent, but I don't care.

When, on the last day of our training, the social worker announced that we were now "paper pregnant", the term resonated with me, and I fell in love with the idea. We still have cross-cultural training to do (this Saturday!) and a half day left of FASD training since one of the social workers was sick on the day we were scheduled, but we're moving into the waiting process.

It's funny, the first time I was pregnant, I read tons and tons of pregnancy, birth, and baby books. Now it's adoption, child-raising, and special needs oriented books. Before we planned a nursery, and now we're planning bedrooms. Before, and now... it's better now because I'm not sick, but it's scarier now because there isn't a set "due date".

I haven't wanted to talk about it much because it's such a long process with so little news here and there, and so fielding a lot of questions about where we were is sad and difficult sometimes.  The waiting is so hard on us, especially when we want to have our family home with us so badly.  So instead of having lots of conversations, how about I update you all here?  Sound good?

Richard and I are adopting.  Yay!  We've done a lot of researching and investigating and considering where and how.  We stopped and started and stopped again.  We decided against international and private domestic in general (though we are open to private domestic if it drops in our laps somehow, which is possible - part of why I'm "coming out") and began in-depth pursuit of public domestic adoption.

Last night we were out with a large group of friends, and we mentioned something about adoption.  A friend across the table looked up and said, "I wish I'd known, as I have a friend who was looking for a family for her 2-week-old, but I think she found someone now."  Oh, did my heart ache in that moment.  By keeping our journey private, were we cutting off the universe from possibly sending beautiful possibilities our way?  Maybe.  Or maybe it was just a wake-up call for me to be open about this, because what is meant to be is going to be, and if that baby was meant to be ours, they would be ours.  But by being open about this, we are at least not closing off that avenue.

Lastly, for my local friends, if a match comes unexpectedly quickly (which can happen, in some circumstances) I would love to hear from you if you are willing to loan us a car seat, booster seat, and/or travel crib/cradle/toddler bed short term if we're matched suddenly and need a little time to shop!  It would be helpful for me to have a list of people I could call in case of emergency. We were told a story of one of our social workers calling a couple and saying, "Sooo, I have a baby for you at the hospital that needs to be picked up!"  That's rare of course, and we're expecting a toddler and up age-range wise but it could still happen. And better to be prepared just in case than to be tearing my hair out at the last minute.

We're scared.  We're excited.  We're happy.  We're on an emotional roller-coaster just like any pregnant couple, even if our added weight is a giant binder of paperwork and our doctor's visits are actually visits with social workers. We miss the family we want to bring home, and can't wait for them to arrive.  I hope you can share in our excitement on this amazing journey.