Yesterday, while I was reloading my phone after the "Great Cellular Crash of 2012", I noticed I had an email from our adoption consultant with the subject line stating "Marketing Update". I wasn't too thrilled to open it because they had told us that after our web pages were up for 3 months, we could make any changes we would like to them. I thought that was what the message was regarding.....I was wrong.
Apparently, in the month of December, 3 birthmothers contacted them and specifically requested more information on us! Another birthmother requested our info in January, as well. She said that is not counting the email information they have sent out about us that has been requested because they have no way of tracking that. She also said that this was such great news because December is usually a very slow month, so despite that, we were requested by 3 mothers!!!
She went on to state that how the process works is after they receive the info about us, they are also asked to return 6 pages of info about themselves and 5 pages of info on the birthfather, along with a copy of their identification and a medical release allowing the adoption agency to "verify pregnancy". Since there are a few things required, it takes some birthmothers awhile to return the info and others don't return it at all. Once the agency receives the information from the birthmothers, they compile and compare that with the information we have given them to determine if we are a good match. In explaining this process over the last couple months, I have compared it to match.com and how they take the info from 2 parties and determine if they will be a good fit. The same principle applies here.
Once it is determined that we would be a good fit with someone, we will be contacted by our adoption advisor to present us with the adoption opportunity. They purposefully do not tell us about every birthmother, in order to make this process easier for us. As we have learned in the past several months, this journey can lead to a lot of heartache and disappointment when someone says, "I'm thinking about having you adopt my baby but I'm not sure yet." So, odd as it may sound, I am glad they have these steps in place, for our protection. This keeps us from getting our hopes up every time someone asks about us because we know that there is so much more to selection process than merely asking for information.
I was so encouraged by this news! I had really started to become disheartened that no one was going to choose us and it would be forever until we have our baby. But now, it looks like things are working they way they should and again, we have to be patient. It's amazing how this seemingly tiny bit of information has changed my attitude so quickly! I can finally have an answer, other than, "UGH! Nothing!" when someone asks, "Have you heard anything about the adoption yet?"
