“I think this is just part of your personality Amanda… You like to plan, and we’ve been able to plan and pull off a lot of things really well. When we were trying to get pregnant we had no control, and that was hard. We don’t have any control over this either.”
^ Something my husband said to me last night as we talked about our adoption journey so far.
Guys, I’ve been struggling but didn’t know how or what or when to say something. I value transparency from others, but find it difficult to show transparency when in the middle of a struggle. In my mind, writing this blog post felt like something to do when this is all behind us. But we’re still (for the most part) sitting in the middle of it all. At the end of my last blog post that I wanted to hopefully share some of the “gut wrenching” moments. And that’s what this blog post is.
Before we continue, you may be reading this and wondering where the gender reveal is. We still do not know the gender.
GROUND RULES:
We are thankful to have a wonderful support system in place that we are able to lean on as we walk this journey. That being said, before you read the rest of this post, there are a few ground rules I’m going to need you to agree to:
• If the following content is upsetting to you or angers you, please do not share those feelings with me. Believe me when I say that I have plenty of emotions on the subject already.
• The following is being shared so that others can see “behind the curtain” so to speak on our adoption journey, please don’t give unsolicited advice. Even if you really do mean well.
Moving on…
“Walking the road of adoption is really scary. Like, reading an e-mail and legitimately having the urge to puke kind of scary.”
THE E-MAIL
As mentioned previously, the process of matching with our expectant mother was a whirlwind. It happened so quickly, with a lot of us moving forward in good faith and trusting the process. We had no previous relationship with this agency and were purely acting out of trust towards our home study social worker who connected us. We handed over our first payment of $12,000 on December 21, and I internally started to panic.
“Zach… If this fails, we’re not going to get all of our money back. And we won’t get any assistance for the adoption unless the adoption is successful.”
I remember saying in a panic a day or two after the payment. Zach consistently reminded me that we need to proceed in faith. Which helped a little until the next panic.
After we met our expectant mother in person, for whatever reason, I started spiraling into panic again. Not because of the tone of the meeting, the meeting went great. Never felt a single red flag from the meeting. I spiraled because of my own fear.
Basically what it boiled down to was that I didn’t feel we had any documentation that anyone had been verifying anything to be true. Zach encouraged me to send an e-mail to our agency and communicating my concerns. So I did.
In the e-mail I asked to fairly basic background questions that should have been easily answered. The answer I received literally almost made me puke.
Essentially, our caseworker was unable to answer either question and ended the e-mail with “we’re still finishing our intake process with her”.
“You haven’t finished your intake process?!!?!? But you still went ahead with presenting profiles of hopeful adoptive families to her, getting an adoptive family on the phone with her, having an adoptive family hand over $12,000, having and adoptive family meet face to face for 2 hours…. What in tarnation!? Can I even trust you!?!?!”
That’s a pretty accurate depiction of the thoughts going through my head in the hours following that e-mail. After a good distraction of an evening out with some of my girl friends, and sharing my guts with them, I remember coming home and sitting on the couch sobbing to Zach that my gut just has a terrible feeling about all of this and I can’t figure out how to turn my gut feelings off.
So I sent another e-mail at 12:30AM on 12/31 to our caseworker spilling my guts about how I just felt bad about this and asked her at the end ‘in your experience does this look like a good and normal match?’
She was very quick to respond and effectively talked me off the ledge. She shared some more background information, but was still unable to answer either of my questions. She assured me that she would start trying to answer those questions in a week after she finished what she was currently focusing on with our expectant mother.
I felt better. For a little bit.
“Gender Reveal”
On January 2, we were led to believe that our expectant mother was having her appointment that would be the anatomy scan ultrasound (The appointment that checks the health of all of the babies vital organs, but also determines the gender of the baby). Initially we were told that our Expectant Mother would like us there. But then we met in person we got mixed signals about that. Our caseworker told us she’d navigate that for us, but was not very communicative at all moving forward. It mattered because it meant a 5 hour car ride for us to get there… we just needed to know one way or the other.
We eventually wrote it off and settled assuming she didn’t want us there. January 2 came and went and we didn’t hear anything from our expectant mother or our case worker.
Finally the next day I texted our expectant mother… And she told me the gender reveal appointment would be the last week of January but she still needed to schedule the appointment.
Weird, but okay… I was bummed… but life moves on.
Can I even trust you?
Meanwhile “Can I even trust you?” was the thought still burned in my mind when thinking about our case worker and agency. A week came and went, and still no answers to my original two questions… then the second week came and went… then the third week… then the fourth week…
At the end of the third week I reached out a little more assertively to our agency with my questions and was met with an e-mail that ended with:
“Amanda, please try to relax. This is supposed to be a happy time for you.”
As you can imagine, crazy thing is that statement didn’t do much to make me feel relaxed.
By the fourth week (this past week) my anxiety was mounting as each day passed. Not only did I still not have answers to my questions, we still have not heard when the anatomy scan appointment is… or if she had even scheduled an appointment!
We had decided that on that Friday we would make a call to the agency and be very direct with how we were feeling and what position we had been placed in.
That call happened and overall went really well. But I still don’t really have documented/verified answers… and we still don’t know when the appointment is… or if it’s even been scheduled…
I touched base yet again with our agency yesterday (Monday) and was a little put off with their response. But at least they responded? LOL
What it boils down to, for me, is this:
Adoption is like the Wild Wild West. No two situations are exactly the same, what could scream “Sketchy Situation” for one could be completely “normal” for another. Being able to trust who you’re in with is super important. The foundation on which that trust has been built with our agency has been super rocky. Not to say that this agency isn’t super reputable, or has done anything blatantly sketchy, or that this situation won’t end in a successful adoption. It’s not too late for trust to be re-built.
The lesson for myself has been clear: I crave control. When I don’t have control, I need to know I can trust who does have control. When a situation arises that leaves me without control and without a feeling of trust over who does have control, boy do I flounder hard.
Why are you sharing all of this?
You may be wondering the same question. I’m sharing this because I don’t want people to look at adoption and think of it as some glamorous thing. OR see me as some super tough extraordinarily brave person. There is nothing special about Zach or I. This has been HARD. Life is HARD.
Someone recently asked me: “Amanda, if you’re so scared about this, and it’s so hard, do you think that’s God’s way of telling you not to do it?”
Honestly? I think the fact that it IS so hard and scary is often times proof that we should be doing it.
Growing A to Z 
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