Not to be again (is that 3 times now???)....

Birthmom decided to parent. We were her choice (and we had decided that we were ready based on a good report at the doc's today) to match with her. To say that I'm devastated doesn't even begin to cover it.
So that makes 2 m/c and 1 failed pretty much a match in 7 months. I am sick of this roller coaster. I would rather get a BFN from IVF and not have a birthmom pick us and then change her mind (Jason and I have a theory about this, but I will keep it between us). My hopes were so up and they have now crashed down.
Back into the pool we go. They have a couple of birthmom's that aren't ready to match yet, so it will probably be awhile before we are shown again. Probably won't be posting much as I'm pretty upset and don't have a lot of good to say.
I have to say that I feel cheated. I feel cheated b/c infertility has taken away so much from me. And now I feel cheated in the adoption process b/c I WILL NOT be able to enjoy another match. Someone (who has also adopted) said that we should let ourselves enjoy this time and get excited. I think she's right. And, Jason and I did that. BUT, after this I will not be able to do that. This will always be in the back of my mind. I feel like I have been cheated out of enjoying things that are just so basic to life. I can not enjoy the anticipation of my child.

I HEART specialists!

We went with V to her heart specialist appointment on Friday. Her regular OB appointment was moved to Tuesday because she was having a lot of pain and throwing up. Ends up that she has a hernia and there isn't really anything that she can do for the pain except take Tylenol. Poor thing! She must be in so much pain!

Jason and I arrived about 5 minutes late to the appointment and they had already taken her back. She came out about an hour later and said that everything looked great (they weren't even sure why she had been sent to see them - which we LOVED hearing). We had a MUCH better conversation with her (we were all laughing and talking) and ended up going out to lunch with her and a different social worker. Lunch went really well and we were supposed to go out to lunch with her and the birth father on Sunday, (no one from the agency, just us) but she had to cancel. We're tentatively going to try to do it next weekend.

We are not officially matched yet b/c we want to go with her to a regular doctor's appointment (the one who she has seen for this entire pregnancy), but I am feeling really good about this. Her next appointment is this Wednesday. She moved it to later in the day so that I could come without having to take any time off of work (which I thought was really sweet of her).

So, things seem to be going well. I am starting to freak out a little bit about actually having a kid within the next couple of weeks and having to take care of a kid in the next couple of weeks AND not being prepared in the slightest for it. All of this baby stuff is so confusing! We went and looked at stuff last weekend and yesterday after the appointment and I just don't even know where to start. We will need to buy a crib and a stroller/car seat, but luckily my brother and Jason's sister are giving us a swing, bouncy vibrating seat, high chair, pack 'n play, and other big (and probably a lot of small) things. It is just so overwhelming! I also think that we need to take a parenting class so I need to start researching into that. AHHHH!!! (but in a GREAT way) So, fingers are crossed that things go well at this next appointment AND that if we decide that we want to match that she still wants to match with us!

THE Meeting on Friday 1/18

I have been so bad about posting and then I thought that I just wouldn't post, but I think that I should post so that I can remember how this all went. It will HOPEFULLY be something good to remember!

We met with V the birthmom. We had been told that she was pretty quiet and shy so we sat down the night before and talked about things to ask her and talk about so that hopefully we would have good conversation and a good meeting. Well, things didn't go quite as planned....

The meeting was extremely awkward. Jason, who can talk to anyone, asked her a lot of questions and tried to make conversation, but we only got one or two word answers from her. There were a lot of uncomfortable silences. After he got the ball rolling as much as he could I jumped in too with some conversation. Our facilitator from the agency didn't really say anything and was NOT helpful at all (I said something to the agency about it afterwards because I was pissed. We knew that she wouldn't talk a whole lot, but the facilitator WHO KNOWS HER should have helped in that regard).

We found out afterwards that she really liked us. We had a couple of reservations about some potential medical issues so we asked if we could go to her doctor's appointments with her to ask some questions before we decided on matching. So we left it that we would go to an appointment with her on Thursday (regular OB appointment) and Friday (appointment with a heart specialist).

The meeting is set up!

Just a quick update that our meeting with the birthmom is scheduled for Friday the 18th. Jason and I are of course getting nervous and trying to figure out what to talk about and if we should bring anything. We are very excited and of course will update once we know something.

Fingers crossed!!!!

Hmmm.... Not sure what to call this one....

I finally took the time to look at our agency's online profile tool. It tells you who has looked at your profile and the result. I saw that our profile had been shown on 12/27/07 to a birthmom and as this was our first "showing" of course I had questions. I emailed the social worker and asked her if we would get any feedback from the birthmom about our profile (we want to make changes if something turns her off) and then also asked if the online tool would be updated when she chose someone.
Our social worker emailed me back to call her. The conversation went something like this:

Jennifer - "Hey Kathryn! Just wanted to talk to you about your questions. I will definitely let you know if a birthmom has feedback about your profile, but most of the time they don't. Most of the time they say that they just felt more connected with another family. And we definitely update the MIS once the birthmom has chosen a family."
Me - "Okay." Wondering why you couldn't email me that???
Jennifer - "We did show your profile and the birthmom wants to meet you."
Me - "WHAT???"
Jennifer - "Yes, and she ONLY wants to meet you and Jason. No other families."
Me (shaking terribly) - "What???? Did you say she wants to meet us?"
Jennifer - "Yes."
Me (still shaking) - "And only us?"
Jennifer - "Yes."

Then we continued our conversation and Jennifer told me all about the birthmom and birthdad and their histories. She also told me about the birthmom's prenatal care, etc. All around it sounds like an awesome situation for us. And, the due date is March 15th! Our 5th wedding anniversary.

This is my conversation with Jason:
Me - "I'm not sure what to say, but a birthmom wants to meet us, and only us."
Jason - "What?"
Me - "You heard me. Can you believe it?" I then summarized ALL of the information that Jennifer and I talked about.
Jason - "Are we really that kick ass?"

Anyways, thanks for letting me get that out. I know that reading a bunch of dialogue is kind of weird, but I am still SOOOO freaked out right now. Hopefully we'll meet with the birthmom in the next week or two.

Obviously I have more information than I'm divulging, but we'll wait and see what happens.