The Selection Process

Our adoption profile has been up for a little over a month now, and we have had 3 (and a halfish) contacts which we think is really good (even though our profile has been viewed over 230 times).

The first contact we received was from a girl named Sara, who lives here in Arizona. We emailed back and forth every day for about a week, and then asked our caseworker what to do next. She suggested we could meet Sara for lunch, and maybe bring a caseworker along. We met Sara at Olive Garden for lunch about 3 weeks ago. She was really great. We still make contact about once a week, but she is still in contact with other couples as well. She's due with a baby boy in July and has until then to make a decision.

The second contact was from a girl who didn't even write her name in the email, just an Idaho phone number. She is due with a baby girl in August. We emailed her back and didn't hear anything, so a few days later I tried calling her (a little awkward since I didn't even know who to ask for). Once I told her why I was calling, she said she had picked a family the day before!

Last week I was looking up our profile and the system couldn't find it. I called our caseworker and she said someone in Michigan had put a "soft hold" on our profile. That means that someone was seriously considering us and didn't want anyone else to pick us until they made a decision. It would have been very exciting if that person had actually contacted us! Whoever it was removed the hold a few days later.

The 3rd contact came today from a girl named Veronica. She is due in September and doesn't know the gender yet. She said we were the first family she looked at, but then our profile disappered before she contacted us, so she made sure to send an email when she saw we were back up. I emailed her back tonight, so we'll see where this goes!

It's exciting to have a couple of people interested, but we're keeping a bit of an emotional distance. Either of these contacts could be the one, or neither of them could be. We know we'll end up with the baby we are supposed to though! For now it's still great to get to know other people and find out what matters to these mothers who are giving someone such a priceless gift!