Redefining Family

I know it has been awhile since I posted last. A lot has happened since Aug. 28th 2011. I left off talking about exploring the idea of adoption, but I never told the story of what happened next. The best word to describe it is simply:

AWESOME.

I can't even begin to put into words how the universe took over and opened my eyes and heart to the possibilities out there. But I will try.

I called a local adoption agency to get more information about how adoption works, and about what an "open adoption" meant. The lady I spoke with was friendly and very forthcoming with any and all information I requested. She gave me a lot of resources to look at and left me to digest it all. Hubs and I went back and forth about what we wanted to do, mostly because our families, mainly our mothers, were giving us static at the thought of adoption. Ultimately though, we knew this is what was best, we felt this was the path we were to take and we just had to take our journey and hope that our families would understand and perhaps even join us.

As I began the search into adoption and perspective families, I was drawn to a couple from Seattle again and again. When I called the representative at the agency back to begin the official process of paperwork, she brought a few "family books" with her as samples to look at. Imagine my surprise when the book that caught my eye first was the very book this same couple had made. I knew there was a higher power at work at this point, but to be fair, I wanted to look over all the families books before making the final decision. We were given a bag with about 30 family books in it to go through. I took my time and read each and every one then after narrowing it down to a top three, set the entire pile aside for hubs to go through. His method was far less time consuming, more of a cliff-note version of glancing at each one, but he ended up with the same top three. The couple that had caught my eye early on was there. I told him what I had experienced and felt and he agreed, they were the ones we needed to contact.

Our first meeting was casual, a quick little breakfast gathering with us, them, the lady from the agency, and our son. Sissy was at school and was quite disappointed she didn't get to be the first to "vest" them. :-) The meeting went well, completely natural, we felt like we'd known them for a long time and we left excited to know we had found "the ones".

After that day hubs and I knew that this is exactly where we were supposed to be. This is why it had happened. We were merely vessels meant to bring a baby to these wonderful, amazing people.

The next few months went by fairly quickly. We got to know each other better and opened our lives and our hearts to a whole new extended family. They visited down here and we traveled up there for a weekend to meet their family and see where this baby would call home. Every interaction with them was one more step validating what we were feeling in our hearts.

This was their baby.

I was asked many times throughout my pregnancy from friends and family, "are you sure you can do this?" "how do you think you will feel about giving it away?" Truth is, yes, I am sure. I know in my heart this baby was never intended to be here with us, he was meant for them. And I don't see it as giving anything away, in fact it is just the opposite, we have gained an entirely new branch of family and friends and I couldn't have asked for a more amazing group of people. :-)