The emotional rollercoaster that is adoption

Not too long ago, I shared only part of our first adoption experience in my blog “The Not So Pleasant Side of Adoption - Being Scammed”. The actual events that led to our first placement, and the events that followed, go well beyond the one scammer. If you remember, the scammer was the first “expectant” mom we met. Though we tried to remain unbiased during both adoptions, we could not shake the feelings that we associated with that experience. Fortunately, for us, our determination to continue building our family through adoption was strong.

During our first son’s adoption finalization process, we discussed pursuing a second adoption with our agency. Once his adoption became final, we began the paperwork. The benefit of having adopted once before – assuming that you use the same agency, and not much has changed – is that you only have to “update” your information to what is current. For instance, instead of the required four state-mandated homestudy visits, the social worker only visited twice to “update” our homestudy to include what life was like with our son. The questions posed on the paperwork asked us to describe what was different or new and asked how we would handle two children. Within three months, we were ready to match.

With one child under our belt, we felt much more at ease with the process. Likewise, we approached the “wait” with much more patience. We patiently waited…

At the end of February, just seven months into our waiting period, we received an email from our agency notifying us of a potential situation. Although the expectant mom’s history posed some potentially serious “issues”, we chose to pursue to the next step. A few days later, the agency sent additional information about expectant mom’s history. Again, we were steadfast in taking this to the next step. Days passed; the agency called. When I answered, the agency’s director told me that we were the only family of interest. Were we still interested? My heart skipped a beat. “Yes,” I replied with cautious optimism. Why shouldn’t we? We were only taking it to the next step.

We met expectant mom a few days later on a Wednesday evening for dinner. By the end of our meeting, the three of us – expectant mom, my husband and I – all agreed that this was a match. We had to work fast. We had 11 days until d-day. Little did we know that our son would come five days early.

Looking back at our experience, we realize how lucky we are. We have two healthy, happy boys. Our first son is 22-months and looks at life with eyes wide open. Our newest arrival is only 12-days old. We could not be happier.

If you are contemplating adoption as an option to building your family, know that the road can be long and bumpy. Yet, if you approach the process with patience, go in with your eyes wide open, be open to things outside your comfort zone and prepare yourself emotionally, the journey can be very rewarding.

Note: I write for Adoption Under One Roof (www.ouradopt.com). I submitted this blog on March 23, 2009. This blog has not yet been posted.

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