We're going to Nashville

We have booked our trip to Nashville for next month. We'll fly out on June 14th early in the morning, and then go with M to her appointment at 2 PM. We will stay overnight, and then I'll fly home Thursday evening and David is off to Vegas for our friend's 30th birthday weekend. We will be getting the ultrasound video and I'm so excited! I am very excited and also anxious to meet M and her family, but I'm glad we're going.

M also called the agency and the attorney in Tennessee and set up appointments with both for Thursday. The lawyer says she will get the birth father information and attempt to contact him and get him to sign his relinquishment, which he is allowed to do before the birth. We would also hire a private detective if need be, but he knows of the baby's existence and has stated that M can do whatever she likes, so we think he'll sign. Worst case is that TN has a putative father registry. The birth is published in the paper, and if no potential father comes forward within 30 days, the birth father rights are terminated.

So, things seem to be moving along.

One-on-one Conversation

I just spent half an hour talking to M on the phone, just the two of us. Earlier I got a call from T's assistant, telling me T was in the hospital with a birth mother (isn't she great?) and couldn't conference us, but M said to go ahead and give us her phone number. So I called her. I was really nervous, and when I dialed, I got this weird pop music singing, and then her voice, saying something like "if you're just calling to bug me, don't bother leaving a message because I won't call you back." Then it went to voicemail and told me that this subscriber could not accept messages at the moment. I thought that was really strange, and figured she just had a really bizarre outgoing message.

I waited an hour and called back, and the phone rang and she answered. We had a really nice talk, for about half an hour. She had her ultrasound today, and all looked good. It is definitely a boy, and he is now up to 1.5 pounds. She asked for a 3-D ultrasound for us and they said he had turned already and couldn't get a good image. She also said she had some blood test for Down's for us. She said she got video for us, and she'll give it to us when we come. Her next appointment is June 14th, a Wednesday, not a great day of the week, but we'll figure it out.

We talked about how she was feeling (tired but otherwise good), work (she quit, the midwife said it was okay - I know she knows she has support coming soon), the agency (she will call them back tomorrow), names (she told me how she named all her kids, and I shared our name with her and she seemed okay with it), lactose intolerance (all her kids needed soy formula), and more on names (we both have the middle name Anne - mine with an "E", hers without).

She told me that since it was a boy on the u/s, that we could start buying stuff. Little does she know I already have!

Ultrasound update

I just spoke with T and all is well. The hospital needed to cancel M's appt next week but said they could see her tomorrow for her ultrasound. We won't be able to be there, but they're doing photos and video (cool!) that we will get. And then she will schedule her next appt for a Friday or a Monday and we'll make a plan to go for the weekend then. I have to say I'm relieved about not having to try and coordinate travel over Memorial Day weekend! We are supposedly going to have a conference call tonight or tomorrow to talk again. And M has been referring friends of hers to T and that is good, because it means she really trusts T. M will be calling the agency this afternoon to get squared away with them.

OK, I'm starting to believe this might actually happen. I did score a nice lot of baby boy clothes on eBay for $66!

Phew - crisis averted

M had a doctor's appointment on Wednesday and said she'd call afterwards. Wednesday night passed, but I figured she was busy with putting her kids to bed or something. I called T on Thursday afternoon to see if she'd heard from M, and she called me back and said she'd spoken to M's mother and M got home really late from her appointment and was exhausted, and that she was working all day Thursday. She said she would have M call T on Friday. Friday at 8 PM T called me and said she hadn't heard from M, and she was a little worried. But she also reiterated that M wasn't one of those warm, fuzzy, chatty Cathy birth moms and that she was hopeful to hear from her over the weekend. At this point, I started freaking out a little bit and having that sinking feeling in my chest and stomach that something was wrong. I started thinking I shouldn't have told anyone, I let myself get too excited, and of course this was going to fall through. Years of being an IF patient will do that to you.

At 9 PM T called back and said she was just drifting off to sleep when her phone rang and it was M. She said everything was fine, she was just tired and working and hadn't felt like talking. She asked if we still wanted to work with her - I wonder if maybe she was testing our commitment to her? Unfortunately she couldn't get a Friday doctor's appointment, and T thinks it is the Tuesday after Memorial Day. I kind of hope it's not that weekend, just because it's so hard to travel then. But, we'll make do. So for now, everything is fine and the crisis I was imagining in my overactive mind is averted.

Waiting for the other shoe to drop

I have to tell you, I think that being matched and waiting for the birth is so much harder than waiting for a match. Now I am obsessed with what could go wrong, and I am anxious all the time and not sleeping well. We have a wild card in the father - but he is known, and should be able to be tracked down, and he is allowed to sign his rights away before the birth. Tennessee also has a putative father registry, which means that if he doesn't come forward within 30 days of the birth, his rights are automatically terminated.

We also had some issues with expenses for M. Without going into personal details, let's just say she really needs the financial support we will provide her. We learned last week from our wonderful TN attorney that funds are only allowed in the 90 days prior to birth. Since M's due date is 9/13, this puts her at 6/13 before she can get funds. She really would like to move out of her current living arrangement on 6/1. She had a doctor's appointment yesterday, and she was going to ask the midwife if she would put a range on her due date, and say 9/1 to 9/13. If not, she did agree to stay put for the extra 12 days. It was very reassuring to hear her say that she wanted us, she chose us, was committed to us, and didn't want to look for another couple. You see, we can operate under Texas law or TN law. Texas law doesn't allow a dime to be paid in private adoptions, so we have to obey TN law. But, M had the option to find another couple in a different state that might have had less restrictive laws than Texas. Luckily, she's sticking with us.

M had her monthly doctor's appointment yesterday, and we still haven't heard how it went, so I'm getting all freaky now. We are waiting to hear when her next appointment will be, the ultrasound appointment, the one we are going to Tennessee for. I can't wait to find out the date of this appointment so I will know when we are going to meet this wonderful woman and her family in person. I also need to know if she contacted the agency in TN that will administer the expenses so I can see how that went. So many things that could go wrong ...

It's a BOY!!!

I just spoke with M, and apparently she slipped on the stairs last night and her mom insisted they go to the ER to make sure all was okay. They did a bunch of tests on her, and she is fine, and the baby is fine, and it's a BOY!! She is measuring 22 weeks and the baby already weighs a pound, and looks good and healthy. She couldn't change her appointment next week, but she will make her June appointment for a Friday or a Monday and we'll go down that weekend. M said she was pretty sure she wanted to let us parent the baby after speaking with us, and she really enjoyed seeing our profile as well to put faces with the voices. To her, it was more important to talk to us rather than see our profile, and I think that's nice.

I called the lawyer in Nashville yesterday and left her a voice message, so as soon as she calls me back we can get the legal ball rolling.

WE ARE MATCHED!!

I can't believe it. T called me yesterday about a situation, we spoke with the PBM on the phone last night, she got our profile this morning and really liked us, and she has chosen us! The baby is due September 13, but she will likely deliver early. She is CC and the father is AA, and she wants a nice open relationship. We will probably go to Nashville in the next week or two for her next doctor's appointment and to meet her and her family. She has strong support from her family and T feels like this is a very good situation with very little likelihood of falling through. We'll be speaking with M (our PBM) tonight again to tell her thank you and how excited and happy we are.

Can you believe we're going to be parents in just about 4 months?