Another couple and the answer we had been waiting for (post #5 of 6)

This is part of a series of posts about our most recent failed adoption.  The first post is here and the second post is here, the third post is here, and the fourth post is here, in case you want to start from the beginning.  I know this is getting onerous but I think one more post and it will be done.

We had been emailing almost 4 months at this point (it was early June - around the 5th or 6th I think) and for her to ask us whether we would go see her for a face-to-face visit and how we felt about being in the delivery room set off all sorts of bells in our minds.  She was choosing us! We were going to have a son!  What else could that possibly mean?! 

We shouldn't have gotten our hopes up. 

We wrote back immediately offering any number of weekends to come visit but specifically asking if the 5-8th of July would work since Paul had extra time off work and M (the birthfather) was supposedly going to be in Florida for the entire month of July.  Yes, we knew it would easily cost $2k-3k just for the face-to-face and we would have to turn around and fly back a few weeks later for the birth, but it was worth it to us because when you want an open adoption, you know how important that interaction is.  We got to do this kind of visit with Kayli before Clara was born and it was amazing and we were so thrilled that we would have this kind of opportunity again for our second birthmom and child. 

But B didn't respond at all about the idea of a visit in any of her emails for a week until finally I prompted her.  Very, VERY long story short, she had simultaneously invited the other couple out and they told her the only possible weekend they could do was the 5th-7th of July and she told them okay, they could have it, but didn't tell us that weekend was out and to go with one of the alternatives we had offered.  After learning this, we essentially offered every single weekend to her, all of which she declined because one weekend she had a family reunion she couldn't miss and the next weekend she had a wedding she couldn't miss, etc.  We offered to split the weekend of the 5th-7th with the other couple and she said she would check with them to see what they thought.  She kept putting off giving us an answer though.

Thoughts of her being a scammer resurfaced.  She didn't want us to visit because she wasn't pregnant after all.

But even if she WAS pregnant, to us, the writing was on the wall:  if she wants to see the other couple in person and won't find a way to see us in person, it is obvious what her decision will be.  And I told her as much in an email, analogizing to "The Bachelor" and if it comes down to two people and one doesn't get a hometown date or a fantasy suite date and the other does, the audience knows who the bachelor is going to choose.  She wrote back and said that analogy offended her because it wasn't like that at all and if she had to choose a couple right then and there (like if she went into labor early) she would be calling us and not the other couple.  She told us she had basically made her decision and just wanted to meet them for "closure".  So weird and backwards, right?  A caseworker could have helped her work through this and come up with a much better approach, but she was adamant about her plan.  So we came up with a last minute trip through Northern California for the 4th of July weekend to keep us distracted from the fact that she and the birthfather were visiting with the other couple during those days.  We tried really hard not to think too much about that fact while we were driving and hiking but it wasn't exactly easy.

We never heard anything about how the visit went or whether the other couple even came or not.  But there was lots more about M from this point on.  She sent us a few pictures of him, including one of the two of them at a school dance the previous fall.  She talked about how they were going on dates and to the movies and out to eat.  How M didn't like either name we had been considering and how B only liked one of them.  How M was golfing everyday in Florida and how he got accepted to medical school.  Eventually she told us that this trial had brought them closer together and they were going to give their relationship another chance but that adoption was still the plan because of their ages and stages in life with her going on study abroad and doing an internship next year and him having med school just beginning. 

The emails got more and more intense and B kept saying that they were getting "so close" to making their final decision but wanted to be 100% sure.  Finally we reached a point where we felt so strung along that we emailed and essentially said that it was killing us to not know and to please, please put us out of our misery one way or the other (although we figured it HAD to be us because why would she spend so much time and energy on a couple she knew she was going to say no to?). 

Finally, 5 months to the day of her first email, on July 15th she texted us this picture:

...along with a very sweet message, part of which said: 

"M and I picked you guys and we are both so excited that you guys know how we truly feel now!  ... It's such a relief to have found the right couple for this little guy and I am more than excited I found you guys.  I could have asked for a better couple!

Her due date was less than 2 weeks away but after five long months, we had our answer.  We were going to have a baby boy.