Our Domestic Adoption Journey – Part 1

I wish I would have seen more stories and heard more advice before we started our adoption journey in September, 2009. While it doesn’t define me, or the relationships I have with my kids, it is how God chose to make me a Mom and one I’m thankful for everyday.  And honestly, even after all of the heartbreak and tough decisions that led up to our adoption journey, I wouldn’t change a thing or have it any other way. I really can’t even imagine my life without these two EXACT little pint-sized rocket ships of love.  But geez… how to even begin?!?!

Like many, it all started with a journey of infertility. After multiple attempts at IVF, it came to a point where my husband was actually the one who put the kabosh on any more invasive procedures. He saw how hard it was on me, what a toll it took on my body, and the lack of long-term information on how it might affect me 50 years down the road (with all of those fertility drugs), and he was done.  We already had been told that IVF would be our only chance of conceiving a baby because of some medical conditions, so we never even wasted time on other less-invasive procedures. It was straight to the fertility clinic and onto IVF for us. We tried 4 fresh cycles and 2 frozen cycles (so many fertility drugs in the span of a couple years, but that’s for another blog!), all which gave us incredibly great looking embryos, but for one reason or another just wouldn’t “stick”. Our fertility doctors couldn’t explain it and there was really nothing more they could suggest besides trying again and tweaking things here and there. We were lucky enough to both be working in Illinois at the time, which is a mandatory coverage state for infertility, so it didn’t break the bank.  It sure came close to breaking our spirit, though…

After our last negative IVF cycle, I knew we had to make a change. With friends and family in every direction expanding their own families, it was by far one of the darkest times in my life. It was difficult to even be around babies or pregnant friends and family – many people didn’t understand that. It felt isolating. And when people would complain to me about not being able to get pregnant after only trying for a few months?!

My husband and I took a vacation after our last IVF attempt and just cleared our heads and enjoyed our time together and by the end of it, we knew we were ready to start the adoption process. Neither of us had ever been against adoption or were hesitant on creating a family through adoption, but we needed time to mourn not carrying my own child. Once we were at a good place to begin,f it all started moving full-steam ahead!

After researching and talking to the few people I knew who had adopted, we decided to move forward with American Adoptions, headquartered in Kansas.  We knew that we wanted to adopt domestically and we wanted to adopt a newborn. They are a national program who works with adoptive parents and women who are looking to place their newborns for adoption and do an absolutely wonderful job. As an extra bonus, they tend to only work with states where the laws are conducive to making things as easy and pain-free as possible for both parties. After our initial consultation with them, we knew we found our adoption home.

And than it came time for being “Paper Pregnant”! Anyone who has gone through adoption or if you are seriously looking into adoption, this is a term that you will come to know well!  There is a never-ending flow of paperwork and it will require organization skills you never even knew you had! We started the paperwork process in September, 2009.  With all the paperwork that needed to be done, along with the multiple home studies that needed to take place, getting copies of about every personal record we have, and working with the agency to develop our ‘Profile’ that would be shown to birthparents, we finally moved our way onto the Active List with the agency by early February, 2010. Once you are “Active”, your profile can now be shown to birthmothers who fit the criteria you have chosen and now you are in waiting mode until one of them picks you to parent their soon-to-be-born bundle of joy. Can you say nerve-wracking?!?!

While going through the paperwork, you fill out an EXTREMELY detailed questionnaire, which you then go over with the agency, about things you would and would not be willing to handle as an adoptive parent. Think you can handle multiples? Check the yes box! Are you open to only certain nationalities? Choose all that you would be comfortable with. Are you OK with birthparents having certain family history conditions? You decide. Did the birth mom drink or do drugs during her pregnancy? Choose which specific cases you would be comfortable with. What a stressful questionnaire! You don’t want to get yourself into a situation that you know you wouldn’t be comfortable with, but you also don’t want to limit your choices so drastically that you would have a hard time being presented to any birthparents. Luckily, this is what you have your adoption agency for. They assign an Adoption Specialist to each family and ours was a LIFESAVER! I can’t imagine going through this journey without someone as knowledgeable and understanding as ours was.

Back to February, 2010: We were now Active and simply waiting to get a call from the agency telling us that we were chosen by a birthparent. Just a quick and easy phone call, right?! I would have to say that I think my husband and I kept it together pretty well during this waiting period.  We made sure we had things planned and kept ourselves busy. We took a trip to Florida over the winter and had plans with friends and family all along the way. I had a business trip to NYC that March, it was business as usual. For anyone going through this waiting period, it’s CRUCIAL you keep yourself busy. Based on the agency you go with, you’re going to have a relative timeframe that they will give you on how long it generally takes to get placed with a birthparent. There are always extenuating circumstances and every situation is going to be different, but at least you’ll have a bit of structure around your adoption plan.  For me, I really think this waiting period was easier for me because I knew eventually it was going to happen. Unlike our numerous IVF cycles, which always felt so “do or die” to me, I knew that we would eventually be matched with a birthparent.  You didn’t know exactly when or what the situation would be like, but somewhere down that line, I was going to have a baby! For me, that big picture mentality really made it more bearable than any of our fertility treatments did.

It is recommended not to get a nursery ready while you are waiting to be matched or even after you are matched. Things could happen where the adoption may fall through, or it may take longer than originally expected. It’s a way to protect the hearts of all of us eager Moms-to-Be from going through anymore heartache. Which I totally get and understand. However, I also totally didn’t listen. I think this is a really personal journey that you will know what you can and can’t handle.  While I didn’t go and set up a nursery, we did start buying things here and there.  We bought gender neutral clothes and our families bought us bedding and other things that would eventually be needed in the nursery. It was so exciting for me to actually be buying some of these things now and while we did hold back on some things, my husband knew it was a useless battle to fight me on!

So imagine my surprise when I got a call in the afternoon on March 30th, 2010, from our Adoption Specialist telling me to call my husband ASAP and get him patched in with us on a conference call because she had some big news! OMG!!! It had only been about 6 weeks since we had been placed on the Active list! As soon as my husband got on the call, she proceeded to tell us that we had been chosen by a birthmother who was due on May 12th, 2010 (That was only about 6 weeks away!!!).  My husband and I were both at work and I still can only describe that moment as being totally out of my body and absolutely oblivious to anything else that was going on around me!  After getting more details from our Adoption Specialist and her faxing over the necessarily paperwork that we had to fill out and send back, she left my husband and I alone on the call where I think we were completely OUT.OF.OUR.MIND excited!  How did this happen so quickly?

We told a handful of close friends and family right away, but since Easter was only a couple weeks away, we told most of our family at our holiday celebration. I have to admit, it was actually a lot of fun to have that information all to ourselves for a couple weeks and just revel in the fact that with God’s blessing, we were going to be parents in 6 short weeks! May 12th was coming quickly and we had TONS to do to prepare! We also would be traveling to Texas to meet our little guy (yup… it was a BOY!) and our heads were swimming with to-do lists and next steps. How do you prepare yourself and your home in a matter of weeks for what you’ve been waiting and praying for for years?!?!

STAY TUNED FOR MORE TO COME IN PART 2 IN APRIL!