Leo's Story, part 1: The Match

The time has come to tell our adoption story, well at least to tell mine and Lincoln's end of it.  There are some parts that will be left out for Leo's sake.  He deserves to share the more intimate portions of his story with whom and when he wants.

The Call

All you adoptive parents and hopeful adoptive parents know about "THE CALL."  The one that announces that ***YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN***

It is the day we wait for and the reason our hearts skip when our phones ring and our breath quickens when we see an adoption related email.  In reality, though, it rarely works that way.  Usually we get a call telling us that a potential birth parent wants to meet us, or that we are being profiled, or that we meet the criteria of a potential birth parent, (so could you update your profile?)  Then we wait, and we wait, and we wait to hear if this first phone call will lead to another phone call.

Well, we had received THE call three times by December 2009.  In October we had gone through a very painful failed adoption and had decided to take our profile down for a month or two in order to process and to heal.  We actually hadn't bothered to tell our LDSFS caseworker that we had taken down our profiles, as we had never had any sort of contact from any birthparent through LDSFS, and we did not expect to complete our eventual adoption through them.

So, when I noticed a phone call from LDSFS on my caller id in mid-December I assumed it was just someone calling to remind us that our home study needed to be renewed (as if I had forgotten.)  Pam, the adoption worker, had actually left us a message telling us to to call her ASAP, but I missed it somehow.  Our voice mail goes to my email, so if I get a lot of emails one day I sometimes don't see the voicemails.  (Also, my inbox is a giant nightmare of information, but I'm sure that has nothing to do with it.)

A couple of days later I got an email from Pam (who I'm sure was wondering if we had fallen off the earth - we have got to be the only couple who didn't call her back when they were told a birth mother was interested in them INSTANTLY.)  She, in a very nice way, said "HELLO, are you daft? Call me!!!"  So I did.

She gave me Lisa's* email address and told me something that I was not expecting to hear.  Lisa was not interested in just getting to know us a little better, or meeting us, Lisa has CHOSEN us.

WHAT???

Wow.

I was scared.  My first thought was, I can't do this again.  I can't go through another heartbreak.  I waited for Lincoln to get home that night and then we sat down to compose a very carefully worded and thought out email.  (Lisa, if you had any idea how carefully we wrote that email, you would laugh yourself silly.)

check back for part 2: Getting to know Lisa

*this is not Leo's birthmother's real name.  To protect her privacy we have changed it.

Birthmothers 4 Adoption

You all know that I love the ladies behind Birthmother's 4 Adoption, right?

Truly, you will learn more about birth mothers and their perspective there than possibly any other place on the internet. They also offer other birth moms and prospective birth moms a ton of support and a safe place to be, to ask questions, and to "have their own experience." (Love that, Desha!)  Anyone associated with adoption should be following their blog.

Right now they are sponsoring a great adoption book give away.





They are giving away both of these lovely child focused adoption books.  No links on purpose, I want you to click through to Birthmother's 4 Adoption!  Head on over and meet these wonderful women.