I can hardly believe it has been over a year already. A year since what, you ask? A year since our son, Josiah was instantly our son and brought into our lives with a phone call. Actually, our story starts even earlier than that. Our adoption journey started in September of 2008 when we met with the social worker in our town to inquire about adoption. I had thought about adoption many, many years earlier even as a child. I remember talking about wanting to adopt as a girl. Little did I know that I would be taking this trip many years later. My husband and I met with Dia in a tiny little office as we discussed how it all worked and whether she thought it could be possible for us...she encouraged us to start the process and we decided to launch into a whole new world. A new world of piles and piles and reams and reams of paperwork, definitely not like the traditional method of childbearing....Our first adventure after doing our initial application was to attend an adoption workshop in Billings, Montana. That is an eight-hour trip from Kalispell and we were looking forward to making a trip of it. Going out for a dinner or two and staying at a hotel. The only problem was, as is typical in Montana, an early winter snowstorm through the passes made the driving slow and harrowing and we white-knuckled it through, all we knew is that we wanted to get this show on the road as you might say. We were not spring chickens- just starting out as prospective parents at the ages of 42 and 44. I like to think that we look young and are quite active, but nonetheless, we still needed this process to get going. Even though my biological clock was not a huge issue in the physical sense of the word, it was still ticking...Anyway, once we arrived at the hotel and I get a call from Sheila, another social worker from LSS in Billings, that she was canceling the workshop! She must be kidding I'm thinking. I told her that we had just arrived in Billings and were just settling into our hotel and she said she would call back once she figured out what they were going to do for sure. They even had power off at the room we were going to meet at...Wow! This is getting interesting already!
She finally called us back and said they were going to go ahead with it as some couples were already here and some were from Billings. Whew! So, we went the following morning to St. John's campus and met several other couples who were also wanting to adopt. We learned of the laws, talked of open adoption a lot, I remember I wasn't so sure about the whole open adoption thing, I wanted that child to be "our" child and I didn't want any "competition" or confusion to get in the mix of our relationship with our child. Anyway, after that we met with the social workers and they recommended us to continue on in the adoption process. We also met with adoptive parents in Billings and then birthparents in Bozeman and heard their perspective on meeting adoptive couples and what they were looking for and what they expected in open adoptions that they had with their children.
On our way home we were to stop in Bozeman to meet with two different birthmothers to get their perspective. That was the best part really. The group of us got to ask questions and hear how they felt about adoption now and what they were looking for in prospectice adoptive parents. Their feelings on open adoption and the naming of the child. Wow, there were lots of things to think about...
We drove home excitedly talking of all that we had heard and learned and ready to do whatever it took to get "our" baby.
So much more was needed to be done until we could be on the "ready and waiting list." We were to meet with Dia again for a homestudy. We had more questions to answer about the quality of our marriage (even our sex life). That was stressful. It felt like no stone would go unturned in our pursuit of being parents. I understood the importance on one hand and yet I struggled on the other as parents who birth their children do not go through such invasion of privacy and I was a witness to so many parents that were young, immature, and selfish who were having children from different boyfriends and the novelty of having a cute little baby was thought to be cool. I talked to one girl who had several children and her current boyfriend was in jail...for the second time...and yet we had to do all this stuff to just prove that we were suitable prospective parents. At the time it was a burr under my saddle.
Once we got through the homestudy, we started working on our profile. This is the the little booklet that tells the potential birth parents what kind of life their child would have if they chose us to parent their child. It is a bit unnerving. You had to explain who we are and hopefully "we" appeal to a birthmother and she chooses us...then there is the meeting of the birthparents. The other thing is that birthparents, specifically the birthmother has seventy-two hours to change her mind from the time of birth until she signs the relinquishment paperwork. Which means the prospective birthparents are likely "hanging from the chandeliers" while they wait and pray. At this point, an adoptive couple totally feels this is their baby, you can't help getting your heart involved, as it should to be to be a good, loving parent...
We got our profile ready and then waited. I would call Dia and just ask if our profiles were sent. That was the hardest part, the waiting and wondering if anything was going on behind the scenes. It helped to call her and just talk sometimes. I would get asked all the time if we had heard anything from co-workers, friends, family, etcetera. They were well-meaning, but it was hard to continually say no we haven't heard anything...
While we waited, my husband lost his job. The economic times here in the valley had just taken a nosedive and the building industries were slowing down to a crawl. He worked at a plumbing supply warehouse as a delivery driver. As soon as he lost his job, we were put on hold for the adoption. We were angry and disappointed. What would this mean for us? At that point we had no idea how long it would be before he would find another job. We would both vacillate between despair and frustration and hanging onto the faith that God knows all and is orchestrating it all out just the way He had planned...
