Momentum

I had to title this post like that because right now my life feels a little bit like a giant snowball rolling down a mountain....picking up speed and more and more "snow". In a way, I feel like I should be resting up like a woman in those final stages of pregnancy - in anticipation of the sleepless nights to come... but since there is no way of knowing exactly when those nights will be a reality - it's hard to plan.

Yesterday was the beginning of our home study, which I've said before consists of three parts. A couple interview at the agency's office was the first meeting, and it went really well. There was a lot of information shared, not as many questions as I thought - but the ones that she did ask were tough.

One question was about how we'd handle a situation when our 5 or 6 year old was grieving over being put up for adoption. Or what we'd do if they came to us one day while in that same age range to tell us that they want to go live with their birth mother.

Basically these questions would be the result of the child trying to process and understand what it means to be adopted and trying to figure out why their birth mother chose to give them up for adoption.

I must have looked like a deer in headlights because I didn't know what the appropriate response would be. I can't imagine anything more difficult, and not having ever been faced with anything like that before - it turned into a moment for her to counsel us.

What they'd tell us to do would be to validate the child's feelings and explain the situation to them. She said, it might be painful to hear those words - but it isn't about them missing anything or not loving us... it's more about them trying to understand why their birth mother put them up for adoption... and if it's because they were a bad child.

It'll be interesting, no doubt - but we're up for the challenge!

We also talked through some of the other things that we need to do as part of the process, some of the legal issues that can come up, and much more... I honestly can't remember it all at this point.

The neatest part of this whole process has been how wonderful the women at this agency are - it really does feel like we're part of a family. I mean we only met this particular lady in passing last time we were there - because we were meeting with someone else, but when we saw her yesterday - she immediately gave me a hug and asked if I was ready for all of this.

We scheduled our meetings for the second step of this process, which mine is today at 3... I will be interviewed on my own about my family and our marriage. John will be going through this same meeting on Thursday afternoon at about the same time.

From there, we will schedule the final meeting which will be the visit at our home - likely to happen next week at some point.

We turned in all of our paperwork for the profile, and several other documents yesterday - but we didn't initially know that our profile wasn't complete without the video that we needed to prepare. So we rushed home last time to get that done - it consists of a tour of our home and a short bit of discussion from us. It is for the birth mothers to watch and sort of give us the chance to tell them why we want to adopt, that we plan on keeping in contact with them, and those sorts of things. The idea is that they will hear it from the agency, but then they will also hear it directly from us too.

So we got all of that filmed, and John will work on getting it edited tonight while I am at a Bible study - with the hope that he'll turn it in when he goes on Thursday... which then... GASP!... means that as the agency sees a potential match for us - they can give our profile to a birth mother to make their selection for the family to adopt their child.

Please keep us, the baby, and the birth mother in your prayers right now - BIG things are happening... and we pray that everyone is safe, peaceful, healthy and secure with all of the decisions being made right now.