Third Time's a....Double Play?

If only we weren't on the wrong team. In baseball, a double play is when a team gets two consecutive outs in the same play action. In the world of adoption, our third at bat resulted in the hope, and loss, of an adorable sibling pair.

When we returned from one of our recent travels, we had a message waiting for us. Our uncle always shares with people that we're planning to adopt hoping that someone he knows will know someone who knows someone who is pregnant and is interested in meeting us. He received word from a friend that there was a woman who was due soon and that she was planning to place the baby for adoption.

The woman didn't want to talk with us directly yet, but her friend did. Unfortunately, we don't speak the same language, so a good friend was our mouthpiece as we tried to figure out if this was a real, promising conclusion to our Wait. For the past week or so, our friend has been communicating on our behalf with the friend of the birth mother.

Surprisingly, the friend mentioned that she had the birth mother's older child in her care as well and was interested in placing both children with us so that the kids could stay together. We had a lot to think about. We had recently decided that "one is enough," after years of hoping for "as many as possible," mixed in with a healthy dose of "two would even things out a bit" and finally settling on "whatever happens, happens." We shared that we would consider the situation when there was a baby born and the birth mother wanted to place him with us.

Along the way, some of those familiar red flags began to surface. The most glaring, blinking, screaming, SMACK YOU ON THE HEAD sign for us was the mention of money in exchange for this baby. Apparently, there was another family who was supposedly willing to pay for this baby and if we wanted to pay more, then she'd consider us. (Are you throwing up yet?)

Our friend did a superb job of explaining that once our agency was involved, we would discuss what medical and legal expenses would be covered through the legal process of adoption. The birth mother didn't like that. She didn't want to work through an agency. (Are you running scared yet?)

Today, we received pictures of a healthy newborn baby boy. We also received pictures of his older sister, who turned one today as well, sort of like those twins I've always wanted. And, we were told again that there was another couple and that they were writing a personal check to have the baby placed in their care in two days. Unluckily, we've already been engaged with the type of people who would consider selling their babies to the highest bidder. We are finished with the conversation at this point. Nothing more to say. We didn't sit suckered in a hotel room for 6 weeks this time, but our hopes were dashed again, for the third time out. Still, no money was lost in our pursuit of a larger family. (Are you breathing a sigh of relief now?)

We have been quiet lately because we wanted to see where this third venture into match-dom was going to take us. We're glad to have spared you the back and forth this time. We're not happy to be in this boat again and are left wondering what it is about us that attracts such twisted characters.

Supposedly we're still in the game to grow our family. If you can stomach it, stick with us. We're still hitting foul balls into the upper deck like Roy Thomas and the game is dragging on and on and on...but we're not out yet.