An Exciting Post to Write :-)

Ok, Ok...I promised myself that I would clean the house from top to bottom BEFORE I allowed myself enough time to get online and type this out. :) Sorry if my delay drove you crazy, but my house is now sparkling....(or getting there, at least)!
As most of you know, we had a meeting with P, the owner/founder/boss-lady of our agency. P can be intimidating, but if you know how to talk with her she is helpful, understanding, and really just works her arse off for everyone on alllll sides of adoption. We went to her office, not knowing what to expect. Was she going to yell at us and say we were the problem, and reiterate what D has been telling us? Was she going to say that, due to the latest developments and my "conversation" with D the previous day, our agency was going to have to cut ties with us? Was she going to hadn us a baby and say "now get OUT of here! jeesh!!" We had no idea. But we went armed with facts, details, and a mental list of expectations for how we wanted to be treated moving forward. (We don't have ridiculous expectations, believe it or not. Just call us in a timely manner, and return emails when we send 'em! You'd think we were asking them to solve infertility!)
We had been told that P had an appointment before us and an appointment after us, so "please be punctual". I ignored the fact that I thought that was stupid and condescending and we arrived 20 minutes early. (I mean, we are grown adults, and we have never been late to ONE meeting we have had with anyone at the agency...why the warning? I wanted to whip out the "old Kathleen" ways and say something like "You must be forgetting that *I* pay your salary...we will take up as much time as we need to resolved our situation. Thankyouverymuch."...but I thought better of it.
So, we go in and sit down with P. She nicely explained that she already knew about the situation, that she receivs info on every case and situation, many times a day, and that D had filled her in on our concerns. P starts to cover for D's lack of communication, stating that D is at the mercy of the workers in the field, the birthmom coordinators and the social workers. We will continue to HAVE to play telephone tag and email tag because the agency is not allowed to have just one person be the liason between birth parents and adoptive parents. They need to have people who are solely responsible for birthmom communications, and people (D) who are solely responsible for adoptive parent communications. D seems to be continually waiting for answers from the bmom coordinators, who are often "soo busy" that they cant find time to answer emails or return calls in the field. Ok, excuse understood...even if we dont like it. I get it, I get it. I continued to express our disappointment in D's tone and some of the things she said to me in our previous meetings and phone calls. P addressed each of them, and a few we just had to agree to disagree on...but we were able to do so with smiles.
P gave us her stance on our current situation. She said that she doesnt trust T, given the latest developments, and then she gave us even MORE info we didnt know. (Apparently, T called and started a fight with M the Money Girl, on Tuesday because she wanted to ensure that her June bills would be paid...and then she asked if we had recv'd the ultrasounds...and a few weeks ago T was in the car with a bmom coordinator who was trying to get her to talk about post-placement plans, and T was avoiding and redirecting the conversation and clearly was NOT open to talking about things after the birth.) So, she refuses to talk about post placement PLANS, but is DEMANDING payment for June bills since that will be post-placement...?? Is she implying that she isnt going to place, by refusing to talk about life after placement? Or is she implying that she IS going to place, since she wants to talk about her June bills and she knows that NOTHING is paid if she doesn't place?? She is confusing even the most trained professionals at this point. And I cant imagine how confusing this all must be for her. She is all over the board and no one can read her. (FYI: T's expenses are paid for 6 weeks after she places. The first week of June is in her 6 weeks, so she was apparently requesting (P said "demanding") payment of ALL of June's bills. M brushed her off with a "I will check with the Board of Directors on that one. Call me back tomorrow." But T never called back.)
We talked a little bit about T "forgetting" about her counseling appt on Monday, despite her concerns and problems with placing the week before. If she's so concerned, why'd she "forget" about an opportunity to get some advice and counseling on the matter? Then T didnt go to her doc appt because "i had a brain cramp...just couldnt make it out of the house that day". Does that mean she doesnt plan to go to anymore appointments, or does that mean she was just overwhelmed with the thought of seeing the baby again, or talking about the baby again, or with taking care of her other two little ones that she just couldnt take it that day? Who knows? These are just some of the concerns that P had in regards to our current match. I explained to P that those are the reasons we want to be un-matched with her, but then we have soo many reasons we want to STAY matched to her. P completely understood our explanations and agreed that this was "sticky", and we all went back and forth over all the positives and negatives to this current match.
I told P that, IF we were to throw our hands up in the air, listen to the pessimistic/guarded side of our hearts, and say "we want out", I don't think it is fair that we would have to wait with the 70 other families who are waiting to be matched for the first time. P then tells us that she agrees and that she has placed us on the Stork Drop list, effective immediately. YEAH! We were stunned and really, truly grateful that P was listening to our concerns, helping us see both sides of the coin, and working WITH us to help us become parents in the least-dramatic way possble. :) I told her that, if D had told us that last Friday when all this madness started, then we would have felt much more protected and wouldnt have been as upset, and I certainly (well, probably) wouldnt have yelled at D the way I did. She said that D didnt have the authority to place us on the Sotrk Drop list, and that they had another family on that list a week ago so it wouldnt have realllly made a big difference in the long run. She said "remember how I said I am the boss-lady around here? *I* am the only one who has the ultimate decision about Stork Drop candidates. D asked me to look at your situation and consider you candidates, and after listening to her and reading everything we have on this situation, I just dont see any other way to move forward. You guys have been through enough already, and might be headed for even more. Let's see how we do with Stork Drops, and ride out this T situation, and hope and pray for the best end result for all the babies who may be involved."
P told us that D has really "gone to bat" for us over the last few weeks, and that she has been upset with the field girls who are slow in reporting back to her. P said that D feels bad that we are upset, and that D clearly has her heart set on making us parents. I told her to give D a hug for me and tell her that, while i still want to know stuff as soon as she does, I am sorry if she felt attacked on Thursday.
So, we are still matched with T AND we're on the list for a Stork Drop. The best of both worlds! Basically, this means that any woman in an area hospital who has already given birth to a baby and is considering an adoption plan will be shown our profile first. Our agency has 8-20 Stork Drops a year, and they never know when the next one will occur. They all work out differently, but to give you an example: P told us that, a few weeks ago, another couple "Brad and Jen", started getting the same kinds of feelings about the birthmom they were matched with. The birthmom wasnt returning phone calls, was missing appointments, and was basically giving them worries. They told the agency, the agency tried working with the birthmom and couldnt really get a feel for her either way. This birthmom is due TOMORROW, but these worries started a few weeks back.
So this past Thursday, the day before we were sitting in P's office, the agency received a phone call from a hospital in a neighboring county. The nurse said that there was a young girl there who had already given birth to a healthy baby, didnt have any support, and was considering an adoption plan. The agency sent a case worker to the hospital to meet with the new mom. They talked for a long time, filled out paperwork, and the young girl decided to place the baby for adoption. She signed consents for termination of parental rights, and the agency was then the legal gaurdian of the baby. This particular mom did not want to view profiles or pick the couple who would raise her baby, and P said that is fairly common in Stork Drop situations in her experience.
With this new healthy little baby in their care, the agency called "Brad and Jen" and asked if they would like to consider parenting this lil newborn they just picked up. "Brad and Jen" drove to the agency, sat in the very chairs Eric and I sat in yesterday, and prayed and agonized over whether or not to take the "sure thing"baby that was in the other room, or wait to see what their match-momma was going to do tomorrow, after the birth. Take the "risk" of going with tomorrow's "maybe baby", or take the baby in the room next door who needed a home immediately and literally didnt have a plan?
"Brad and Jen" went back and forth and eventually took the Stork Drop baby home with them, and couldnt be happier.
It stinks for their match-momma since she may just be having cold feet, and she may still want to place the baby she is delivering tomorrow. Now she will no longer be placing her baby with the couple she had chosen months ago, the couple she had picked out herself, the couple she got to know over dinner last month. But if she delivers and still wants to place, she will be given profiles to look at after the consents are signed. (and ours will be in that pile, since they now consider her baby another kind of Stork Drop.)

If they get a stork drop in the next 24 days, she is ours. If they dont, and we wait it out 24 more days and find out T DOES plan to place with us, then her baby is ours. If T DOESNT place with us, then we are the only people on the Stork Drop list, and wont wait long at all, according to P.

The story of "Brad and Jen" was exciting and made my heart race a little, knowing that it could all happen so fast. And then P told us about yet another situation. There is a baby, right now, in the hossy in our town, less then 6 miles from our home. S/he (i dont know gender) has been matched with another couple for a few months. The couple has been struggling to come up with the money and they are likely going to have to fall through because they cant afford the adoption. :( If they definitely fall through, they will bring our profile to that new mom, too. So it could happen in the next few days/week. Or, we could wait 24 more days for T and be fine, too. OR, T could fall through and we will just be offered every baby who arrives without a match.
Remember that baby girl from December? She was a Stork Drop. That birthmom had asked to see profiles at the last second. She was shown our profile and the profile of the one family waiting on the Stork Drop list. The agency told her that the other couple had just suffered a failed placement, it tugged at the birthmom's heart-strings, and she placed the baby with them.

So we now feel like the agency has us protected financially and emotionally. At this moment in time, we are fine either way. Knowing what we know today, if they call us with a healthy baby, we would likely take the "already-here" healthy baby. BUT, if T goes to her doc appt this week, responds to the card we left for her, or goes to her counseling appt this week and gives us good news, then we would have a very hard time deciding to walk away from her baby we have grown to love. A lot rides on the next few weeks and what does or does not happen.

Please do not think that we have given up on T. We definitely have not. We are willing to work with T and meet again and talk some more if she needs us. If she needs us to back off and go away, we understand that, too. I think we are just learning that we are on one rollercoaster of emotions, and she is on another rollercoaster of emotions. Somehow, they have dips and dives in similar places, but they are never going to be the same. Just as I wouldnt want her to be forced to take a trip on our rollercoaster, I really dont think I could handle a ride on hers....let alone two at a time. So I think she needs to get everything figured out for HER journey and her baby's future. If something new happens in our journey to parenthood in the wait for T's due date, then we will have to do what is best for OUR journey and our child's future (whomever that child may be). We are guarding our hearts and praying for hers.

We will keep you posted, of course. And I promise not to give long FB updates without planning to quickly blog the details. :) My house and I sorta parted ways in the cleaning department while Eric was in Texas....you know...only vaccum the rooms you go in....only clean the bathroom you use.....etc....and it was time to get back to "real life". My friend Carrie called it "nesting".....and maybe she hit the nail on the head. :) It made cleaning windows a littttttle more enjoyable when I thought "i want this house to be squeaky clean when our baby comes home.....and maybe she will arrive sooner than we think!"