Reflections of a Wish List on May Day
Another anniversary has come to pass. One year ago today, we met with the agency to complete the process of training, paperwork and background checks. The last step was to answer pages of questions that amounted to our "wish list" about the baby we wanted to welcome home.
It's funny how time and experience change a person's perspective. Before that meeting, we tried to anticipate the questions. We discussed things like how comfortable we would be with drug exposure in the womb, how much the mother drank or smoked while she was pregnant, what level of financial support we could provide her, and the ethnicity of the baby.
In the meeting, each of those questions was broken down into as many categories as there are types of cereal in a U.S. grocery store. We were not prepared for the degree to which our preferences could be dissected. We spent the long drive home rethinking our responses and emailed updates to the agency a few days later, then again a few months after that, continuing to question our thoughts and feelings on different topics. It carried the weight of an anvil bearing down on us. With every "yes" or "no", we felt that we were directing the fate of who would find us. What amazing life experience were we eliminating with a "no" to a potential illness in the baby's background? If we said "yes" to certain characteristics, was it a guarantee that our baby would have them?
Now that the recent year has passed, we know some of those answers might still set up the plot of our tale, but we also know that our story will not be written by the responses to questions about our preferences, but by something completely out of our control. Answering those questions in a particular way does not dictate who walks through the agency's door. When a woman brings her own unique story to our agency, there are always decisions to make about our comfort levels on various topics, all while the potential placement of a baby is staring us in the face. Making these decisions while wrapped up in the emotionally charged hope of being matched can be nearly impossible, but it remains important to consider things carefully. After all, it isn't wise to quit your job after buying a lottery ticket. You need all of your numbers to match the ones pulled in the drawing to achieve success. At this point, the only remaining wish on our list is for a speedy, successful placement.
I recently learned about one May Day tradition from two good friends. They both grew up placing a May Basket of treats and flowers on the porches of their friends' houses, knocked on the door and ran. Hmm, could it be that we'll receive a very special May Day Basket of surprising news today, one year after our Wait officially began? Of course it could.
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P.S. On another note...Yes, it is snowing here, AGAIN, four supposedly springtime weeks in a row. Whether it is a beautiful snow globe storm or not, we're ready for the flowers to bloom. It seems there is very little that gets more stale (see various posts about The Wait) than the persistence of winter when the flowering buds are forming anxiously on the trees, trying to break through to brighten things a bit.
