What to Expect When You're Expected Not to Expect Anything

I reminded myself last night why I started this blog earlier this year. It wasn't meant to be a rambling journal chronicling the lives of TaJ. It was to keep you all informed because we were getting a lot of interested questions about the adoption process and what we were going through. We've certainly given you plenty to absorb in response to your inquiries. We wish they were all good stories, but we're feeling like these disappointments are the trend with our journey. Still, we carry on.

Lately, the questions have returned. "You're not giving up, are you?", "Are you sticking with your agency?", "Have you heard anything more about the case in CA?", "Does it happen often that the birth mother changes her mind like that?"

True to our commitment to ourselves, and our unknown babies, we'll answer what we have answers to and what we feel we can share. Today, I wanted to update you on what we've requested from the agency moving forward.

After last week's disappointment, we were asked if, in the future, we would want to know about the match before the baby was born. It was presumed, with good reason, that the "knowing wait" which resulted in disappointment was becoming too much to bear. We took a night to think about it and we considered our personalities, which played a key role in the anxiety of the waits we've endured. Remembering that we were advised to just "pretend like we're not waiting on the list", we tried to think of the most comfortable way to go on expecting nothing and expecting everything all at the same time.

We decided that if we're matched, we'd like a couple of weeks notice, or less. We thought about it like giving notice at work. We certainly don't need any more time to come up with supplies, clothes or names. If we're called someday to go to the hospital that very night, that's fine too. However, waiting around for three months and then spending six weeks away from home won't happen again.

The part you, as followers along this crazy path, might appreciate, is that we requested a daily check-in from the agency once we know we're waiting again. So, there might be a lot of "we haven't heard anything" texts from them, but at least we'll know that a tornado didn't sweep the agency away to Kansas (see, I told you we could come up with some doozies in the absence of info).

Maybe there will be another story to unfold soon for us, but maybe you'll have to endure posts about what we did to keep busy for another year or more. We'll try to leave out the bits about cleaning the chicken coop and washing the car. We just know you're out there following along and we want more than anything to have something to share with you.

Have a great weekend, TaJ