Deja Vu

I was kind of neurotic on Tuesday. The agency website lists "available situations" of babies that are to be born soon and have not been matched yet. On Tuesday there was a baby listed that was born on Sunday at 31 weeks gestation. He was doing well, but expected to be in the NICU for 4-5 more weeks. I couldn't get a hold of Mitch, so just decided to call the agency for more information and to tell them we were interested in this situation if the birth mother would be interested in us! Well......after 3 phone calls and 2 e-mails to two different people, I was frustrated. I mean how long does it take to quickly return an e-mail, right? THEY were the ones that put this baby's information on the website, actively looking for a family, right?

Then an e-mail and a phone call yesterday put me in my place. As it happens, the premature baby situation is very tricky as the birth mom spent 2 weeks in the hospital pre-delivery and without insurance. The hospital bill is very high (like $50,000) and in most adoptive cases, the adoptive family pays the medical bills of the birthmother. The social workers at the agency have been very busy trying to work this out as it would be extremely difficult to find adoptive parents that could afford this in addition to the regular adoption costs.....

The team at the agency ALSO had another mom deliver early this week and are working on finding placements for about 8 other babies. Additionally, a woman walked in to the agency yesterday with her 4 month old son, desiring to place him for adoption.

The crew at Heart to Heart has been BUSY. Understatement. And they DO care and apologized for not getting back to me sooner.....boy did I feel dumb. God bless these people for what they do every day. Can't imagine the emotions of it all.

So at the end of my phone conversation, the social worker asked if she could show our profile to a woman with a baby girl due on April 14!! Like less than 3 weeks. And then said that the EARLIEST they might induce is April 1st!! Like next week! Wowsas. Of course I said yes, please show our profile and now we are having a waiting weekend again....trying not to get hopes up, yet thinking it's possible we could have a baby in a week or two. So do I start getting things, girl things, ready? Do I just play it cool and wait to hear if she's chosen us before doing anything? I've pretty much decided to wait. But that doesn't stop me from getting attached to yet another birthmom and baby--not to mention her other daughter, who is five. I hurt for these sisters who will not grow up together and hope that whomever the adoptive family is, somehow a healthy relationship of some sort can be maintained. At five years old I'm sure the child has some thoughts on mom having a baby and baby going to live with another family....It's these kinds of things that are keeping me distracted and causing me to become choked up at random times.

What a journey adoption is. Despite all the heart-hurt things about it all, I know that we will be very glad we started down this road. More news on Monday!