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 ...