Fear is in the air, or wait, is it fall?

Last night and today were kind of rough. Adoption is full-to-bursting with the unknown. Ben had an epiphany last night as I was reading over some literature with him - about how we would have to stay in the state where our baby is born until the Interstate Compact is cleared and we can come back to Georgia, potentially for as long as 2 weeks. This involves leaving our daughter at home with her grandparents, potentially for longer than she's ever been away from us. And then that discussion led to revocation of consent periods - the time in which the expectant Mom can sign the papers to place her baby with us, and then decide instead to parent. This time period varies dramatically from state to state, and favors different parts of the adoption triad. It's a really complex and emotionally fraught issue, and it's a large piece of the need for adoption reform.

At any rate, all of this journey requires an enormous leap of faith. There is a not insignificant chance that we will arrive at the hospital to meet the expectant mother we've matched with, and then hold her baby, love on him or her, take care of him or her for a little while, and then hand that baby back to be raised by his or her Mother and or Father, and go home with hearts a little more broken than they were before. But we have to trust in the idea that somewhere out there, eventually, there will be a child that is, through the joyful and tragic dance that is adoption, meant to join our family. And when that child arrives in our home, we will be grateful for all of the other chances passing us by. And all of those other children, we will need to be happy for them, that they will continue down their own paths with their first families, and hope for the best for them.

This is such a scary scary thought for a family that has experienced loss already, too many times. But we're a resilient little trio, and I have to believe that if we go into this with our hearts and heads in the right place, we can make it through.

So at any rate, Ben called our coordinator at the agency we're using to discuss risk, and statistics, and get his head around how likely each scenario is. He came away from the conversation at peace, and ready to continue down this road.

No paperwork at all done today, alas - but I did get a load of books taken to the library for the Friends of the Library sale, a load of clothes taken to Habitat's ReStore, and a few items of mine found new homes with friends. Purging is so freeing!

Tomorrow's agenda: more fingerprinting. Hope our prints are crystal clear.