[Hopp]

Who out here is waiting for a February or March birth? Our match was made in November and the baby will be born during that time frame. I would love to keep up and wait with other expectant parents.

Blessings,

[purplekelli]

Diana

Our Pbmom's EDD is at the end of January. Can I still play in your group?

[Hopp]

That made me laugh...please play away! I belong to the anyone can be in our "club" club!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[purplekelli]

So Dianna, tell me all about your match. What do you know about the pbmom? Do you know what the baby is yet? Let's talk details!

Kelli

[AwaitingBeloved]

Hey you guys!
I'm afraid to say it out loud... we're matched with a pbmom due March 5th. Can I join your group, too?

[purplekelli]

Hey Julie!

What took you so long?! Come on in!

Kelli

[joskimo]

just doing a little evesdropping - a year ago this time I had just matched with our February due date - just wanted to give you all my best wishes

[Beth34]

Hi everyone!

I was hoping someone would start this thread. We are matched with a pbmom due on March 5th with a little girl. (How wild is that Julie?!) We went to a dr's appt. yesterday and both mom and baby are doing well.
I can't wait to hear everyone's updates!

take care
Beth

[Binyasa]

LOL... jo, you beat me to the punch! I also was part of the Feb '05 mommies club last year and will also be eavsdropping here to cheer with you all as you all follow down the path we took a year ago.

Congrats! It's a wild ride.

[purplekelli]

So Beth, you went to the appt along with your pbmom? How exciting!!! I wish we were able to do that. How exciting that you and Julie are both "expecting" the same day!

[purplekelli]

So let's tell our stories so we know what everybody's situations are. I'll go first...

Dh and I have been best friends for over 15 years. We finally got married 4 years ago and a few months later, I got really sick. Sparing you all of the disgusting details of almost bleeding to death, I had an emergency hysterectomy 7 months after our wedding. So we never even had a chance to give TTC a shot. We mourned that for awhile, but then began the "adoption talk."

We contracted with our facilitator in June, but decided not to go active until after the first of the year. We wanted time to get ready and also we were hoping for a summer vacation baby (I am a high school teacher) When we first started talking about adoption, my husband dreamed the same dream 5 or 6 nights in a row. He kept dreaming that we had AA twin girls. (I am AA, Dh is CC) I told the facilitator about it and we mocked him for a while, but then they called us with a twin girl situation. We started the process in a rush (4 months earlier than we had originally planned). We were matched immediately and off and running. It seemed like it was DESTINY. What were the odds that he would dream of AA twin girls and then a few months later we would be presented AND matched with that exact situation?! We were thrilled. Everything went along smoothly until the birthmom had a change of heart and decided to parent the day the babies were born. It definitely knocked us for a loop.

We contemplated just giving up, but that's really not our style. So after a week of crying, binge eating french fries and ice cream, and not getting out of my pyjamas, we jumped right back in. And there was a pbmom waiting for us. She's very sweet and we just adore her! We talk once a week and are developing a nice relationship. We're excited, but definitely guarded.

So what's your story?

Kelli

Those of you eavesdroppers from the '05 club please share your stories too. It gives me such hope to hear about adoption stories with happy endings!!

[AwaitingBeloved]

Thanks, Kelli! I have been missing a lot on these forums lately.. and don't know how I missed this thread!

Eavesdroppers, I can only pray that one day I'll be able to say "I remember when..." too. It's too hard for me to even imagine right now... thanks for sharing the happy endings.

Beth, yes! March 5th girls! I had to check your profile and make sure you weren't in MA, that would've made me nervous that we were matched with same pbmom! But, we're okay! lol.

Here's our story:

DH and I met in September 1995. I was in an abusive relationship, and didn't have the strength to make a permanent break. (I was a big time wuss with the troll...)

Anyway, I saw DH on campus a lot and finally had an opportunity to meet him at a club two weeks into the semester, (the club was named JR's by the way, my married initials!)

We've been inseperable ever since. It was love at first sight. And I suddenly found the strength I needed to save myself.

Everything was going great. Till Sept 97... DH got sick. Found out 9/26/97 he had AML. Leukemia. It was devastating. And I was finally able to provide him with the strength he needed.

He's cured. He's well. We're doing great, all things considered. But the total body radiation made him sterile. He was able to freeze some "soldiers" before the radiation for future IVF use, and we tried that for 3 years. But last year, found out why we kept having miscarriages. I have that antiphospholipid syndrome (treatable) and his soldiers are all deformed. Chromosome mismatches. So... we'd not be able to have a bio child.

Adoption was an easy transition for me. I guess I had known in my heart we'd never have a bio. You know how you just know? I knew. I always knew when a cycle worked and I got pregnant, and could always tell when I was miscarrying... before any visible signs.

When we started adoption in Feb, it was the first time I felt hope about having a family.

Had a couple of very short lived matches. Then, we had a match in Sept-Nov, due in March. She just sort of disappeared. That's the hardest part, is not knowing what her plans were. The last contact anyone had, she told the agency she still planned to move forward, etc, but her life was in chaos and was more or less homeless. So the agency urged us to walk away, feeling that she was going to have a change of heart (or possibly already had).

So, Nov was very hard. Then, out of the blue a couple weeks ago, got a call about pbparents in MA. So unreal. We got to meet them already. They were really bright, sweet people. They're very nervous, and honest. They have admitted they are afraid and not sure what they'll do when the baby is born. But, we're holding our breath and hoping this is the one. And, hoping that since they are so honest with us, if they do have a change of heart, they'll let us know instead of us worrying and wondering. I think they'll let us know.

At this point, it's only 9 weeks and 3 days away... so we're hanging on.

After the last failed match, I started to lose hope. The way I did during IVF. And I hate that. I don't have the excited feeling with these pbparents as I did with the last pbmom. And that bothers me. I don't trust my gut right now anyway. I have more fear than anything else right now about this match falling through, and then I have guilt for having that feeling. I feel bad for them. Especially the pbdad. He's the one out of the two that would actually want to parent. I don't know if pbmom ever wants kids, but it's pretty clear right now she doesn't. I know, that could change when she sees her daughter, too.

So, I'm trying to have faith. I'm getting afraid that we'll never get placed. But trying to plan in case we do.

We registered last weekend at Babies R Us. It was an adventure! And I go online at night to see what else I can take off the registry... it's so long and I know we don't need some of the stuff, so trying to weed it out. It's keeping me busy which is nice.

I have hope this is our baby, and I have fear that it's not. Glad to have people who understand the complexities of my emotions and are going through it at the same time.

BTW, Beth, very exciting you got to go for the appointment. Must have been awesome!

[Binyasa]

Thanks for letting us 'old timers' relive the last few weeks/months of the pre-birth wait!

Here's my story, with the requisite happy ending and everything.

My partner J and I (together for almost six years, married for three) decided in November of '04 that adoption was the path we were meant to take to meet our kidlet. Both of us are fertile (well, we assume), but both were very drawn to adoption for a number of reasons and decided to adopt as our first choice.

We started researching options and decided in November of '04 that we would adopt domestically through private open adoption. We put up an ad about us in an adoption classifieds section of a surrogacy website (it was free, and were just testing the waters -- we didn't think we'd get much of a response). That day was Dec. 18th, '04.

We heard from an expectant mom, S., on the 27th of December (yep, just over a year ago!)-- over the course of a few emails we learned she was in a match with PAparents that she no longer trusted who were asking her to do things she wasn't comfortable with and that she wanted to see if we would be a better match. She was due Feburary 22nd, '05 with a biracial aa/cc baby boy. Were we interested in talking further?



Uh, YES. (lol)

Actually, we were initially quite worried because we sincerely didn't think we would have a match for MONTHS, if not years (as everyone was saying we would take a while to find an expectant mom open to a youngish two mom family) and we knew we would really have to scramble to find the resources to adopt a baby due in SIX WEEKS.

We waffled for a bit -- worrying that we wouldn't be able to complete an adoption plan in time due to not having a homestudy started, having to pull together money faster than we had thoght we'd be able to and the like. My partner J was terrified of the imminent reality that she could actually be a parent in two months.

We talked to eachother -- for hours and then to a lawyer who calmed a lot of our fears, and ended up writing back to S. on January 7th that if she wanted to talk on the phone, that we were game. We talked the next morning, everyone clicked, S. decided she definitely wanted us to parent her child and things went insane!

S. wanted to move to our community for the birth, so on the 14th of January, she and her older son flew to our area. We were able to get to know eachother very well, were able to attend her doctor's appts (she insisted) and eventually, were present for our son James' birth -- which happened after S's water broke in our basement while switching her laundry and after a VERY short labor ten days before his due date on Febuary 12th.

S. relinquished 10 days later, in front of a judge, and flew home to her community the following day. We have spoken to her a few times, which -- considering she initially wanted a completely closed adoption after the birth -- we have truly treasured. We hope she'll come to a place where she wants to be a more active presence in our life, but understand her current choice to create a little space for healing.

The past year has been AMAZING -- and being a mother is more joyful and fun than I had hoped for. James is a happy, silly baby with the most laid back personality and already he has the best sense of humor. He looks a lot like a browner version of his half brother and in the sun, his hair has the bright highlights of his birthmom's fiery red hair.

I think we adoptive parents are so lucky to have these kinds of special stories surrounding our children's introduction to our families. This journey is awe-inspiring, and you will forever feel tied to the people you take it with... I look forward to posts from the other moms in the Feb '05 group -- even those who journeyed with me that had failed adoptions and met their eventual kiddos months later. I cheer with each baby's firth smile or first tooth (still waiting!) or lately -- first steps. I drool over pictures of little feet and chubby cheeks.

Enjoy connecting with eachother and may each and every one of you meet your little ones SOON (and then make sure to post those first tiny pictures of them for the nostalgic moms with older one year olds, ok?!)

I'll leave you with J's hospital picture and then with a recent picture showing how huge he is now at 10 1/2 months.

(and thanks for letting me share and ramble with you!)

[Binyasa]

as promised -- where hopefully all of you will be in about a year!

[Acolo]

Oh my goodness, Binyasa, he is BEAUTIFUL!
I just *hope* we can be as fortunate!