It all starts with a phone call...

It all started with a phone call around 11:00 on Thursday September 15, 2011. Kristy answered a call from the Building Blocks Adoption Agency that would change our lives forever. After the initial greetings, the person on the other end of the line said "Kristy, you guys have been picked. A Birth Mother in Florida liked your profile. Can you and Matt get on a conference call NOW?!" That was the event that turned a cold and wet Ohio day into a whirlwind of nerves, tears, and ultimately excitement.

We arranged a conference call with the Birth Mother and her agency, which is also her OB/GYN physician. It was probably the most awkward conversation that 3 out of the 4 of us have ever had in our lives. We made some small talk and answered some questions about ourselves. But it turned out that the Birth Mother already knew everything about us - she had really studied our profile. We ended the call around 11:45 with the understanding that she would be discussing things with her husband and that we should expect to hear something within 24 hours to 1 week.

At 3:25PM Kristy's phone rang again. "Congratulations! You have a match!"

We can only imagine that the feelings we were experiencing must be similar to seeing that big + sign on a pregnancy test. The understatement of the year - emotions were a little high yesterday afternoon and evening.

The Birth Mother and Birth Father are both in their early 30s and live in Florida. The baby's due date is November 13, 2011. We don't know the gender of the child, and we don't know whether the Birth Parents do either. Everyone is healthy and there is no significant medical history. Since they are residents of Florida, we will travel there to get the child. All of the specific arrangements still need to be made, so we don't yet know when we will head down and how long we might have to stay. We will need to remain in the state of Florida until both Ohio and Florida process the necessary paperwork and agreements to allow all of us to come home. A safe estimate for that process is 2 - 4 weeks, but who knows when there's bureaucratic paperwork involved.

In any event, it looks like this Christmas will be A LOT different than last year!

One thing that we will all need to keep in the back of our minds is that the Birth Parents cannot sign over custody until after the child is born. And are well within their rights to change their minds up until that time. We will not be dwelling on that though and will be enjoying every minute of this time! It's just a fact that it does happen in some cases, even at the last minute.

So as Kristy said, "This will be the shortest pregnancy in history!" Two months until our worlds are changed forever. Thank you all so much for all of your support thus far. We could not hope to stay sane during all of this without all of the love and support that you, our family and friends, have provided. It truly takes a village to raise a child, and this one will be lucky to have the love of wonderful people like all of you.

More information will follow as we sort out these details. Wish us luck, cause we're definitely going to need it!

love,

Kristy & Matt

Light reading.

I've been doing a lot of reading lately about the wait, and trying to figure out how I'm supposed to fill the time. This article gives an interesting take on waiting. The website is full of good information if you're interested in reading more.

For now, our wait continues...

http://www.adoptivefamilies.com/articles.php?aid=159

Still waiting

Well, nothing new to report. We're still waiting to hear about the last situation we posted. We have also submitted our profile to three more birth moms since that post. So we are now waiting to hear about a total of four decisions.

This sort of waiting is worse, I guess because there's such a small chance of good news at the end of the wait. We're trying to stay positive though, and definitely trying to keep busy.

Suddenly, the wait for LeBron's decision seems so inconsequential...

Back to the races.

We've been presented with another situation. Baby boy is due in September. Keep your fingers crossed and say your prayers (if you're so inclined)please! We hope to have an update regarding mom's decision by mid-to-late next week.

First "potential match" situation

We received an email yesterday from our adoption agency about "a potential birth mother situation". There was a young woman in Texas who was due any day and had decided to pursue adoption. So we submitted our interest to the agency and went back to the waiting game. This was the first time we have been faced with an opportunity that felt real, so the "waiting" became a whole different thing. Now, waiting consisted of checking email every 15 seconds for any kind of update or news.

Every single time I saw the New Message icon my stomach dropped and my heart raced - only to find out the latest sale from Crate & Barrel or Las Vegas casino deal we'd love to take but can't. We have no way of knowing how many of our agency's clients expressed interest in this opportunity, let alone how many other agencies were contacted. All we could think about was the very real possibility that we'd be driving to Texas. We started looking at Google Maps to try to figure out where this place was (in the middle of nowhere), and where we might set up remote Baby Camp Stenny for the few weeks we would likely be required to stay "in-country". Probably somewhere in the DFW area. Yeah, that seems good...

Needless to say, it was not an easy night's sleep for either of us. To put things into perspective, we have never made it to Christmas morning to exchange gifts. Patience in a time of excitement does not come easy to the Stenberg household. Making things even more complicated and emotional was the knowledge that Matt had to be in North Carolina next week for a certification exam and dealing with the very recent death of our beloved dog Harvey. Seemed about the right time for fate to throw some more complication into the mix. We weren't exactly sure how, but we were definitely prepared to take all of these things in stride and be in Texas if we were selected.

This morning, around 11AM, we received an email from our agency informing us that the birth mother had selected another family. Statistically, the odds were not in our favor. However, it's hard not to be disappointed. There are a few positives to take from this most recent experience. First, we have gone through the offer/non-selection process so we know what to expect and how to deal with it. Secondly, the level of anxiety and emotions that we both felt has reaffirmed how much both of us want a baby. We are so lucky to have a partner who understands and is having the same feelings during these times.

The most important result of this is that a child has found/will find a very loving home. These birth parents (I neglected to mention that the birth father was also involved in the decision to seek adoption) will be able to give their baby an opportunity for a life that might not have been otherwise possible. The area of Texas in question is one of considerable poverty and the details of the birth parents lives that we received sounded pretty rough even without the difficulties of raising a child.

So now it's back to the previous level of waiting. Our time and opportunity will come, we just have to try to leave those wrapped presents under the tree a little longer. Eventually the greatest gift will come our way.

Love,

Kristy & Matt

Waiting

This is the stage of the process we've fondly come to know as "hurry up and wait."  Months of gathering information and references, and now there's nothing for us to do.  It feels a lot like finishing school, or what I imagine it feels like to retire.  We've become accustomed to following all the steps and filling out all of the paperwork as quikly as possible, and now that the approval stage is over I come home at night and think there must be something I should be doing. This is the waiting stage, it's pretty much out of our hands now.

The websites all say this is the time to prepare. In the circumstance of a pregnancy, the couple spends their 9 months prior to the baby's arrival to prepare their home and enjoy their last days as a family of two.  Not knowing if our "pregnancy" will be a few weeks or many months we're finding it hard to start the preparations. So for now, we'll just start with the little things--painting the baby's room, buying the essentials...We'll wait, and we'll keep our fingers crossed that the wait isn't too long.

We're in the game now!

Today our profile was posted to the agency's website!  We're officially on the market. We also got our first taste of how quickly situations pop up and how quickly they change.  This morning we were asked if our profile could be sent out to a group of birth mothers.  Then, "oh, by-the-way, how do you feel about twins?'  Talk about a panic attack! Turns out that mom just reunited with the birth father, and for now they think they will try to parent.  Thankfully this was not a situation that we were emotionally invested in, but it served as a reminder of how volatile these situations can be. Mom can decide to parent at any time before signing away rights. 

You've seen our profile in a previous post, but if you're interested in checking us out on the website you can do so at http://www.bbas.org/article/article_view.aspx?UID=d1e9c4f0-0d90-45d4-9afc-f546a6427285  It's exciting, and a whole new level of scary.  Wish us luck!