Our First Real Step

When Carla and I first made our decision to adopt a child, we decided to wait until after our wedding in October to take any initial steps.  However, since then we have spent much more time than we thought we would thinking about the adoption, thinking about having a child, researching adoption, reading books on adoption, and discussing our future as a family.  All of this has made it hard for us to wait to take any real action.

So this week, we took our first real step.  We called one of the two adoption agencies that we are feeling might be the right fit for us, and we made an appointment for a free, thirty-minute meeting with them.  Now, I realize that this is not really that huge of a step. There has been no money paid, there has been no commitment made, and yet as we made the appointment, my heart started to beat more quickly and my palms started to sweat, all good signs that this was indeed a very big deal.

I guess, for me, this was the first concrete step that we took that really said, we are going to do this.  We are serious about this.  This is what we want.  No matter how hard this road might be, we are making the decision to take it.  So I guess that is kind of a big deal.

Now, the bad news is that this meeting isn't for another month.  So, for the next month I am sure that I will be counting down the weeks, days, and minutes until we actually get to meet with the agency.  I want to go in prepared.  I want to have a list of questions to ask in order to help decide if this agency is the right fit for us.  The problem at this moment is that there is so much I don't know that I am not even sure what questions to ask.  So between then and now, if anyone has any good questions we should be asking the agency, please send them my way.

Other than that, I am hoping that when we meet with the agency, I will have some sort of gut reaction.  I am a huge believer in trusting that gut instinct.  It's how I knew that Carla was the person that I was supposed to be with for the rest of my life, it's how I knew that our current house was the house that we were meant to own, it's how I picked my wedding dress from the tiny picture on a website, and I am hoping that it is going to be the way that I know which adoption agency is the one that we are supposed to be working with.

So, our appointment is safely stored in my phone's calendar.  Every so often, I check to make sure that it is still there, that I really did put it in there in the first place, that we really do have this appointment waiting for us, and that we really are doing this.  I am excited in this really incredible way and right now, I am just really looking forward to this next step.