Monday, January 26, 2015

P.P.U.P.O.

Note: I'm journaling in hindsight, because if we make a successful match, we won't share the story until everything is official. I still want to document along the way, but I will just post it when appropriate.

January 25, 2015
    If you've ever been actively trying to conceive, you've probably googled and found posts that seem to be in a whole different language. My DH has no clue what these blogs that I read after IVF or FET mean. He just knows we must BD if my OPK says so, then I'm PUPO until we take an HPT and get a BFP! If you've tried for a LO (little one) long enough, you know what I just said. If you've been lucky enough to go through IUI or IVF, you almost certainly have googled and you yourself have been "PUPO" or pregnant until proven otherwise. PUPO is this grey area between the time they do the procedure to make you pregnant to the time your body has enough pregnancy hormone coursing through it to actually show up on a test. You really could be pregnant, but can't prove it.
    Now that we are living the adoptive hopefuls life, the only abbreviations I've seen are BM and BP, and, working in health care, those do NOT mean birth mother and birthparents to me. One term used is "paper pregnant," and I understand this to be the time span  from when you are matched with a birth mom to her actually having the baby.

    Three days ago, Thursday, birthparents picked our profile from a pile of books along with another couple and wanted to meet us both. Our attorney accidently showed our book, not realizing we hadn't completed everything yet and aren't even a true clients of hers. We met this amazing couple yesterday at a little diner 2 hours from our home. We were nervous in a way neither one of us had ever felt before! I think Clint and I learned a little about each other that day, too, being in a totally new environment faced with feelings we couldn't even explain. These birthparents had great questions and genuine concern about the parents who would raise their child. I gave her a journal and we all four snapped a quick photo for my scrapbook before leaving.  We agreed that we probably made some rookie mistakes, but felt it went great overall [insert fist bump, with explosion]. They even told us they thought we'd make great parents for their baby, but that both couples they met were so wonderful birth dad needed a few extra days to decide. I SO respect these two. They are really taking time for this decision and truly love their baby. The attorney called us later that day and said that one felt connected to us and the other more to them. It's a 50/50 according to our attorney who is always up front and brutally honest. We are thankful just to have had the opportunity to meet some parents already and know anything that may sway them at this point is likely out of our control, like number of children, where we live, age, etc. If it doesn't work out, I guess this will be a learning experience, and we'll meet the next ones like true veterans. Oh my heart.
 
Our journey in a nutshell (2 months in on an average 2 year process):
December: start filling out forms
January weekend 1: class 1/2 done
January weekend 2:Turn in majority of forms
January weekend 3: class 2/2 done
January weekend 4: Meet first set of birthparents (outcome pending)

I've been PUPO twice now. Today, I'm almost PPUPO, paper pregnant until proven otherwise. This motherhood thing is beautiful. And complicated. Oh, and it's a girl!


January 26, 2015
    This morning, our attorney called to tell us the birth parents we met Saturday chose the other couple they met that day. I'm sure glad we convinced ourselves there was NO way this could really happen this early. We didn't get overly excited knowing we weren't the only couple in consideration. I guess I would compare it to.. doing everything perfectly to conceive, only to get a negative home pregnancy test.  We are disappointed, however it's not as if we were THE match, planned for 2 months, and then birth mom backed out. That would probably be equivalent to mourning a lost pregnancy. I don't know. We guarded our hearts and are glad we did.
    Our attorney explained to us that the birthparents had a hard time making a decision, because they loved us both. Dad could tell "by the look in Clint's eyes" that he had so much love for a child and liked his quiet demeanor. He thought Clint would parent in a way similar to how he would have liked to. Side note- Clint thought he messed up by being quiet out of nervousness. Mom felt a "bond" with me, but the other adoptive mom was adopted herself. She recently rekindled her relationship with own birth mother, and it was going well. This really struck mom, as her worst fear in all of this was that her child would grow to hate her. Nope, can't compete with that. We would be sure the child never grew up hating her; These 2 were awesome, but we can see her side, too.

So now we'll go back to playing the waiting game. We feel good that the reason we weren't picked was out of our control. Also, we pray it's a good sign that after only having our book in our attorney's hands for 5 days we were picked, when some books get shown to 30-40 moms without anything. That was enough to encourage us, so I feel more patient, but more excited, too, that we might be so close to being done with this long journey.

 January 24, 2015
Here's half of the picture we snapped. I cut out the couple to protect their identity, but will be saving the original for memory book purposes. Match or not, this was still part of our future child's birth story. I should mention, she was gorgeous!

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