Cautiously Optimistic

The other day I asked for prayers, so I thought I'd give some more details. We are in a match with a birth mother due in just a few weeks! As I'm typing these words my stomach is twisting into about a million knots, which is why I haven't posted this sooner. We have known for a couple weeks, but we kept it pretty quiet for a while. We are extremely nervous. We've been through this before. In the end, we came home from the hospital with an empty car seat and baskets of baby clothes to store away. And that still breaks my heart to think about. I can't imagine having to go through that again. And yet, here we are again. We're putting ourselves out there with our hearts on our sleeves. We can try to distance ourselves, but at the end of the day what good does that do? This may be our child, who we may actually bring home and share our lives with forever. We should be excited and prepare for that. The sting of the heartbreak is just so painful, which is why I feel like I'm stuck. One minute I'm extremely excited, and the next I'm having a panic attack. I feel like each new person I tell, it becomes more real. And the reality that it could end in heartbreak again also becomes real. And that is why I ask for your prayers. Pray for us, that we can enjoy this time of preparation, that this birth mother will be guided in her decisions for what is best for her and her child, and that we can accept whatever that may be. I hate to admit it, but it pains me to even write that. I just want to scream out, pray that we bring home this baby! Blah, this adoption stuff is most certainly not easy. So please keep us in your prayers. I ask that you pray that we may bring home our child soon. Hopefully this is it, but if it isn't that it happens soon. I'm not sure how much more I have in me. I have said that about a million times throughout this adoption journey, that I just can't go through these steps all over again. I always find the strength, but my tank is getting close to empty. 

Now that I have dumped a million emotions onto the page, let me share the exciting things! Over the past few months, we have been called three times about potential matches. One ended with a mother choosing to parent before she chose a family, another ended with her choosing a different family, and the last is our current match. After going through two disappointments in just a couple months, we decided to keep the third call to ourselves. Each call gave us more hope (as we have never had so many in such a short period of time). At the same time, each time we got a call we got super excited, told a bunch of people, and we all were on edge for two weeks. So this time, we decided not to tell anyone. It was actually one of the best ideas we've had in a while. Somehow, without anyone knowing about it there just wasn't as much stress around it. It didn't feel like as many feelings were on the line. I was able to actually forget about it for a few minutes a day. 

About a week in, we hadn't heard a thing. Our counselor was preparing us for the birth mother to choose to parent. So at that point we pretty much checked out. It just didn't seem like it was going to happen. At the end of that week, our counselor called to tell us we were in a match. My jaw nearly hit the floor. I was completely shocked. It was so amazing completely surprising our families. So now, here we are. We meet the birth mother this Wednesday, as in two days from now! We are so excited, but we are probably even more scared. So here we are trying to be cautiously optimistic, the lovely term we hear all too often from our agency (Along with the term red flags... that's another favorite). Please continue to keep us, this baby, and this birth mother in your prayers. We have 4 weeks until the due date. It's going to be a long month.