Whoever said becoming a dad would be easy?

Whoever said becoming a dad would be easy?

I guess I went into this adoption process thinking it would be like a fairy tale, beginning with "once upon a time" and ending with "they lived happily ever after".  Remember how easy the fairy tales made it seem?



Fourteen months after being approved to adopt, Jason and I are still in limbo with nothing to show for all the effort, heartache, and disappointment we've been through. "Happily ever after" is hardly how our adventure has been going.

Let's recap....I haven't written a blog post since we were approved to adopt back in January 2012. I'm not exactly sure why, but life gets the best of you especially when you are putting all of your energy into meeting your baby.

2012 was a tough year in our pursuit of a family. We started the year off on the right foot, getting approved to adopt in January. Everything was moving along, and we had several contacts with various birthmothers (email/phone) that Spring. Although the contacts never materialized into anything, it was still nice to know that someone was interested in us as parents. During this time there were scams....people looking to take money from us; people looking for a "high price" for their unborn baby (as horrible as that sounds); people looking just to talk to us with no intention of ever placing their baby for adoption; the examples go on. So, we were always on guard to watch out.

In May 2012, we made contact with a birthmother who wanted to place with us. We had many phone conversations, emails, and even met in person. Everything was so right....until it wasn't. She ended up having a miscarriage at 18 weeks, which is a horrible thing to go through. I can now say I understand what it feels like to lose a child to a miscarriage, and it is no picnic. Despite this setback, we have still remained in contact with the birthmother on occasion just to check in on each other to see how we are all doing.

Over the next few months, we continued with new birthmother contacts through email & phone, but again nothing materialized into anything too serious.

In July 2012, we received another contact from a birthmother who wanted to place her baby with us. The kicker on this situation was that she was due in 1 week, so we had to act fast. Fast forward through a few days, and we received a call that she was in labor. Jason and I went to the hospital, and a little girl was born and we were there for her first 24 hours of life. Everything was so right....until it wasn't. The birthfamily ended up changing their minds, and in the state of Virginia they have until about 2 weeks after birth to change their minds. Jason and I are powerless to stop it, so we were just left hanging out on the line. To read more about this, check out Jason's August 2012 post in the archives of this blog. Here's a picture of us with her at the hospital:



Shortly thereafter, we had another phone contact. This time from a birthmother in Phoenix who was due in December. As hard as it was to talk to someone after going through our summer setback, we had no other choice but to pick up our heels, lick our wounds, and keep moving forward. Naturally, this situation didn't pan out either as the birthmother just stopped calling/emailing us. No explanation. No reason. Nothing.

Mind you....this happens a lot during the open adoption process. Lots of contacts and conversations, and then NOTHING. Think of what an emotional roller coaster that must feel like.

In October 2012 we received another contact from a couple living in Florida. We had about a month's worth of emails and phone calls, and this one looked as if it was heading in the right direction. Well....can you guess what happened next? Nothing. They stopped all contact with us and to this day we don't know why.

After this last contact, I kind of went on the "I don't care about this anymore" train and stopped working on adoption as much as I used to. Jason was working on finishing his Master's degree, and we had both had enough. Although we had additional emails/phone calls, my heart was just not into it anymore and I needed a break.

On December 31, 2012, we received a phone call from our lawyer stating that a potential birthmother had contacted her looking to place her baby for adoption. Our lawyer had given our profile website to her, and she had decided that she was interested in talking to us. A few weeks went by and we made contact on the phone. After several days of phone calls and talking about our life stories, we decided to meet in person. We met in mid Janaury 2013, and then continued texting/talking as the weeks went on. In early February 2013, we were invited to go to her OBGYN appointment, which is where we saw the baby for the first time on the ultrasound. What an experience that was...seeing what was to be our little girl! Here's some pictures:



We were so excited that someone really wanted to have us parent their child. But this time I made sure that we remembered that she could change her mind at any time. I wasn't going to let us get too involved or wrapped up into everything and get hurt like last time. This time was different, though, as the background situation of her life led us to believe that she was stable in her decision to place her child for adoption.

About 2 weeks ago, Jason and I finally let go of the "she could change her mind at any time" wall of safety, and really started to believe this was real. We picked out a name (after many weeks of debate). We visited a daycare, and got that set up. We called insurance companies to find out what we needed to do. We scheduled baby care classes & infant CPR classes at the local hospital so we would know what to do. We let our work know about this and scheduled time to take off. We even went shopping and bought the essential necessities to get us off the ground running. See...here are some pictures:



Well, today, we receive a call from our adoption agency that the birthmother had changed her mind and decided to parent the child herself. Despite all of her hardships, her troubled background, her financial issues, her dedication to making this adoption work......she changed her mind.

And there is nothing Jason and I can do about it!

I'm all about making sure a child is with their biological parents.....but I want to be selfish here for a minute and say what about us? What about all of the emotional turmoil we are going through. What about all of the financial commitments we have made to ensure this baby was well supported? What about all of the education, classes, and opening our lives up to everyone in the world? What about how we feel?

I'll tell you how we feel....POWERLESS. We have no control over anything in this process, and it sucks and I'm pissed!

There will always be this risk no matter who we work with for an open adoption. Always. Let me repeat that...Always.

What this means is that we have to weigh the risk against the potential outcome. If this is always a risk, and now TWICE this has happened to us, do we think it is really worth the effort anymore?

At this point (and since this just happened today), I can't answer that for sure. I feel like I've been hung out to dry, yet again, and I don't know if I have the strength to go through this anymore. I'm still in shock and denial that this is really happening AGAIN, so we shall see.

The only bright side (if there can be one) is that she let us know now, and not while we were at the hospital during the birth. Or worse...if she had waited until we came home with the baby and then she changed her mind.

So, alas, here we are again. Right back to square one with nothing to show for our 14 month effort except for broken hearts, shattered dreams, and less money in the bank (did I not mention that adoption is not cheap and each time we pursue anything it costs money?).

Whoever said becoming a dad would be easy?



Anthony~




You can learn more about us and our adoption profile at www.anthonyandjasonadopt.com