A Big Day

If I sound a little nervous on the air today it has nothing to do with what's going on here at the Radio Ranch.  Instead, there's some big goings-on at home.

If you are a long-time listener to WOSH, you know that my wife, Michele, and I are looking to adopt a child.  Well, after a more than two-year wait, a birthmother has picked us!  Later today, we need to drive over to Eau Claire to meet her face-to-face for the first time.

We found out about her decision late last week.  It's a bit ironic for me, because I had just started thinking that perhaps it would never happen.  When you first get into something like adoption you start out thinking every day "Is this the day a birthmom will pick us?"  After a few months you only think about the adoption once or twice a week.  And after a year or so, you think about it maybe every month or so.  At the two year mark, you start thinking that maybe parenthood just isn't going to be in our future--and you set about to accept that reality.

To make things even more exciting (or worrisome, depending on your perspective) is that the birthmother is due on May 19th.  That gives us less than a month to get everything we need, rearrange the house and clear schedules to start child-rearing.  Usually, birthmoms make their decision on a potential family for placement around the five or six month mark--giving the lucky couple a bit more time to prepare.  I'm okay with the shorter time line--just less time to worry.

It's funny how "the call" changes your priorities in life as well.  Until last week, my focus for the summer was to get my golf handicap back into the single digits and winning the City Match Play Tournament.  Now it's all about finding a family attorney, stocking up on diapers, adjusting our budget to a one-income family for a while and opening up that Education IRA so our child won't have to get those student loans that "everybody has to get".

Nothing is definite yet.  We may come out of this meeting thinking this might not be the best match for us.  Or the birthmother could reconsider her choice of parents--or the choice to give up her child for placement altogether.  But today is a big first step on what we hope is the best journey ever.