"congrats! wanna hear a nightmare adoption story?"

the process of telling people about our news has been fa-scin-a-ting. by far the most common response goes something like this:

"oh my god!! im so excited for you!! what are the chances that she might change her mind?"

while this question definitely comes from a good place (ie. wanting to protect us from harm), it has started to get pretty annoying. i have decided that from now on, when i see a pregnant woman im gonna say "congrats! im so excited for you! what are the chances that the baby could die?". lol. kidding, kidding. but you get the point.

another interesting thing that we are learning is that most people expect that we will be adopting an older child. when we mention that we will be at the hospital when he is born people often say, "wait... youre getting a baby??! like a baby baby?!?" then the excitement goes through the roof.

these reactions remind me of how many misconceptions i used to have about adoption, birthmothers, legal nightmares, etc etc. its funny how something that once seemed so foreign and scary has now become so run-of-the-mill.

anywho... i have gotten lots of questions about what we know so here goes:

* birthmother is a 19 year old college student
* birthfather knows about the baby and has already signed away his parental rights. (this is a big deal because if the birthfather isnt int he picture, we would have to run ads in newspapers announcing the adoption to give him a chance to come forward. as you can imagine, few people even read the paper anymore so there is always a fear that a birthdad could resurface and say, "i had no idea this baby existed and i want rights")
* birthmom is super healthy... no drugs or alcohol.
* birth family lives locally and all seem to support her choice for adoption


the only somewhat negative part about the birthmom is that at this point, she prefers a closed adoption. for folks who dont know, a closed adoption means that we wont get to meet her or know any identifying information about her or her family. we had really hoped to have an open adoption so that our kid could have access to his birth family and grow to know them. we believe that everyone has the right to know where they come from so this part is kind of a bummer. its not that we would want to co-parent with them or anything... but occasional visits and photo updates would have been great.

our caseworker said that the birthmom is feeling super overwhelmed right now and is pretty miserable physically. it sounds like the pregnancy has been really rough on her so we are hopeful that maybe after all is said and done... and some time has passed... she will reconsider the no-contact rule. *fingers crossed!*