Active and Waiting (Or the twiddling thumbs stage)

As of about a week ago, Jackie and I are "active" with the adoption agency.  This means that the agency completed our home study, completed our bio, we paid another fee, and we are now being shown to any prospective birth mothers that seeks an adoptive family with criteria that matches us.  Thus, at any moment over the next week or the next year, we could get a call that someone chose us on our profile, or that someone would like to meet us, or that there's a baby at the hospital waiting.  For someone who very much likes to plan things out, the waiting and uncertainty can be challenging.

Its also challenging for the simple reason that it represents such a change of pace from the last several months.  We first met with this particular agency in the middle of March.  We signed up immediately following their informational seminar, spent the first week of April conducting our office interview with them, and completing various paperwork requirements, including background checks, life insurance applications, and medical physicals.  We then spent many nights through April working on their bio questions, writing about ourselves, our philosophies, our family history and relationships, editing and tweaking (and editing and tweaking).  In May we had the both the home study class and the actual home study visit in mere days of each other.  Last week, our bio is completed along with the home study approval, and it all makes you feel like taking a breath, and ... "now what?"

The last two and a half months we were in control.  We went fast because we were motivated, but we could control how and what happened.  Now, the process is flipped.  There is little we can control until we get a phone call, and afterwards, who knows how unique the situation and process will be (perhaps that's appropriate preparation for having a child).  So we're active, we wait for the phone call, and twiddle our thumbs so to speak.

We do attempt to keep ourselves busy.  Jackie's summer project has become the nursery.  She has started painting this week, and we have a pretty good idea of what furniture, and what style, we want to have in the room.  We've purchased those necessities in case you get a call for a "fall in our lap" adoption, meaning we have some basic clothes and receiving blankets, and the all important car seat (guess they won't let you leave the hospital without one of those anymore).

But, compared to the last couple months, it really does feel like thumb twiddling to a degree.  But as that's all we can do at this stage, we do that; continuing to work towards getting everything we need/want for once a child does arrive, and hoping its not too long.

"I'm a child in that respect: able to live, physically speaking, on a crumb of anticipation for weeks at a time, but always in danger of crushing the waited-for event with the freight of my excessive hope." - Zoe Heller