This is the last of my retrospective updates......On May 9th we drove 4 hours for lunch with our birthparents. We knew nothing about them except that they were going to college and the baby was healthy with no known drug or alcohol use. So we had a vague idea that they were younger and making good decisions for their baby. I had 10 days between getting the call and our first meeting. Honestly after the first couple days it took for reality to sink it that week went by pretty fast. Somewhere I've come up with a new coping technique and have been applying it to our entire adoption journey. I'm not sure if its good or bad but I don't think about things, I don't try to control them, I just let God worry about it. In some ways its a form of denial and distancing myself from the situation, on the other hand it is complete surrender to Him and His will. So the entire time I told myself I was just taking a road trip to have lunch with my hubby. I hate being late for things and we always end up driving around lost so I planned an extra hour into our driving time. Of course this is one time we didn't need it. So we were there an hour early, drove by the restuarant so we knew where it was and then hung out at the nearby Petsmart to kill some time. Our meeting was scheduled at 12:15. At 11:30 reality hit that this wasn't just lunch with DH. This was a huge deal! At 11:50 we left and sat in the car for 10 minutes. Arrived at the restaurant at 12:00. The hostess asked if we wanted seating for 2. I said we were meeting some other people. She asked if I would like to go look around and see if they were there. I said well I'm not really sure what they look like, a puzzled look comes across her face and she says "okay, that's weird". Your telling me this is weird?! So she seats us and we wait, wondering if they are already here or not. It was seriously the most agonizing 15 minutes of my life. They say in situations of stress creatures are wired to fight or flee. Well the devil was on my shoulders filling my ears with doubt again I wanted to flee. I told DH I can't do this, its too huge and I desperately wanted to go hide in the car. He reassured me like he always does and we kept waiting, staring everytime some couple walked in. Finally I heard them come up behind us and tell the hostess they were with us. Immediately I felt better. They were like us. I didn't realize I had so many fears that they would be snobby or think we weren't good enough for their baby. Their social worker introduced us but did a poor job of it. She got my name right, called my husband by our last name (which is sometimes confused for a girl's first name), then said oh well good thing its an open adoption. Called BMom by the wrong name and couldn't remember BDad's name. I don't think she instilled confidence in any of us with this situation. And it made me doubt if she was giving them necessary counseling they needed.
This restaurant was a mongolian grill so we had to get up to get our food and wait for them to cook it. We didn't say much at this point except about the food. Once we all sat down I can't remember what was all said. They showed us ultrasound pics and told us it was a boy due in July. For some reason the ultrasounds made me uncomfortable and DH said later that I didn't seem real excited about them. Now I feel bad that I didn't hide my feelings better. I guess ultrasounds go into the same category as baby showers when it comes to infertility wounds that still cause pain. While I feel I've overcome and moved on from our infertility there are obviously some things that will always be with me. Pregnant women in general always made me uncomfortable and feel a little bitter but it has gotten better this past year. When we went to a marriage retreat weekend there were all kinds of pregnant women there that didn't bother me, because I knew I was an expectant mom too. But sitting across the table from a pregnant woman did still make me uncomfortable. What is wrong with me?! She is pregnant with MY future baby and I still had issues with it?! I feel so guilty that I'm so jaded about pregnancy.
The meeting went really well and everyone left happy. I expected our social worker to direct the conversation and ask questions but she basically just sat there and let us talk. Which worked out fine because we were all getting along so well but I didn't feel like we talked about a lot of things we should have. They had 3 pages of questions but only asked us a few. And I didn't really ask any. We mostly shared stories about our families and childhoods. We have a lot in common and even though our SW discouraged us from putting things about our farm life in the profile that was one of the reasons they liked us. What does she know anyway? God is in charge here! On the way home I texted our SW and she said that she talked to their SW and that they thought everything went great too. Even though I could tell everyone was happy it still made me feel really good to hear it from her. The following week we got a call that they want to meet again on May 29. I was expecting to meet again, I know they were doing their hospital plan the following week and would want to discuss it with us. But I thought they would wait longer. I wish they had since I'm not looking forward to another day spending 8 hours in the car. With these meeting so close together I'm afraid we will be meeting a few more times before July. And I get it, if your making an adoption plan for your child you want to meet the adoptive parents a few times and make sure your happy with the decision. While I'm excited to see them again and get to know them better, it is definetly a burden for us to take off from work and make the trip just to have lunch. To me, we have the rest of our lives to get to know them better but I know from their point of view its different and I know I'm being selfish. Maybe they don't realize we live several hours away. Maybe after our next meeting we can have phone or email contact.
I know I sound ungrateful but I'm not, just a little stressed and overwhelmed with the whole situation.
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