Nervous First Meetings

This past Friday, May 18th, Jeff and I were able to do something we never dreamed we would be doing. We met our future baby girl’s birth mom. With International adoptions, we will most likely never know our child’s parents. With domestic adoptions, especially here in Florida, most adoptive parents not only know their child’s birth mom but the birth moms are also in their child’s lives long past their birth.

At first glance, the topic of open adoptions seems to unnerve most people. But once Jeff and I really wrapped our brains around it, we were okay with it. We want our children to know from day one that they are adopted. We want it to be an open conversation so that there is never confusion, misconceptions or questions surrounding their birth. We also want them to know that their mother(s) loved them SO much that she gave them to us so that we could love her.  Open adoption does not have to be scary.  Adoptive parents do have the ability to control just how “open” the adoption will be.

Thursday night, the night before our first meeting, our adoption coordinator texted me and told me to put on TLC because there was a show about adoption on. (The show was called Birth Moms.) Jeff and I watched the show and it was enough to make us pee in our pants with nerves. The show followed three teenage girls in Utah who were deciding whether or not to choose adoption for their babies. We watched the girls talk about their thoughts on adoption. We watched one girl order a margarita (while 8 months pregnant). We watched another girl shoplift jewelry. We watched the girls interview perspective birth parents. We watched weary birth parents meet the girls after they had already been burned by prior, failed adoptions. Let’s just say that the show made Jeff and I nervous.

Friday came around and it was finally time to head out to meet the mom. We were meeting at a restaurant over an hour away so we had plenty of time to let our nerves fully settle in as we drove there.  And if you know Jeff and I, when we get nervous, we get punchy.  So we spent most of the drive giggling thinking about how this was the worst blind date ever.  (He’s never been on one – I went on one in college.)  We considered this to be a blind date times 1,000.

In an attempt to fully respect the birth mom, I’m not going to give much information. But I will say that as we met her and spent more and more time with her, everything got less awkward. We were so nervous as we tried not to saying anything that might be taken the wrong way. My hope was that through our conversations, she would be able to ask us questions to get to know us better and that we would get to know her too. The conversation flowed pretty smoothly, thanks to our coordinator who filled in the gaps with questions or conversation prompts.

Jeff and I left feeling good about the relationship that we are starting to forge. I can’t say that I feel any more optimistic about August than I did prior to our meeting. There are just too many variables out of our control. Whether the birth mom loves us or hates us, she will still have 48 hours after child birth to change her mind. But Jeff and I felt good knowing that we could see a future with this girl who was kind, had a fun sense of humor and seemed to genuinely like us.  And we genuinely liked her.

She did tell us that she wants me at her ultrasounds as well as at the delivery. Her next ultrasound is scheduled for this upcoming week.

Crazy times. I’ve spent many hours in the middle of the night wide awake. I’ve shelled out many prayers asking for peace and wisdom. I’ve been a puddle of tears when I’ve felt the world is judging us for asking for help to fund this adoption. But God is good – all the time. And God knows our future child and we are resting in the assurance that He will lead us through the next couple of months of uncertainty, fear, and excitement.