Finding the Parents

Did I end my last post with "patiently waiting"?? Well, I have to admit that patience has never been my greatest attribute. Although I take a slow, cautious and thoughtful approach to most things in life, once I've made up my mind about something, I have the patience of a child in the days leading up to their birthday. And making the decision to take the leap into being the stork is no different.

As I noted last week, it had been about one week since I sent all of my paperwork over to the agency. They now had a full-profile to share with potential parents, and all of the forms that they needed to pull my OB-related medical records. I knew that I needed to wait for them to put all of the records together, look over them to ensure that there are no medical issues of concern, then start considering potential parents that they know of that are looking for a stork. Did I mention that waiting patiently isn't really my thing? The impatience got the better of me on Monday, and I sent my agency director an email to check on how things were going. She responded quickly and told me that although she doesn't yet have all of my medical records, that she had attached the profile of a set of parents that she has in mind that she would like me to consider.

There was a flood of excitement in knowing that I was holding information on, what could be, the parents of my first stork delivery. I dove into speed-reading through the pages. As I took it all in, I circled back to several key pieces of information; the infertility struggle, the preferred transfer method, and most importantly, the desired relationship between parents, stork, and the future babe. Studying and re-reading these sections is where the impatient side of me took a backseat to the slow, cautious, thoughtful side. As I approach this adventure, I know, without a doubt, that my main goal is to make someone's long-held dream of being a parent come true. All of the other aspects of the adventure are secondary to fostering the joy and excitement that will come from finally realizing the amazing rush of pure happiness that they have been waiting so long for. In order to lay the foundation for that type of experience, I think that it's very important to embark on this adventure with parents that want to be involved in the process, are hoping for a close relationship with the stork, and are open to maintaining communication and updates after delivery.

So I sat on the profile for a couple of days, re-reading it several times and asking my husband to read through it before we talked about our impressions of it. After letting it all sink in, I sent the director an email saying that I thought there was potential, although I had a couple of hesitations; most notably that the desired relationship sounded less involved than I was hoping for. On the other hand, I recognize that it can be very difficult to read something like that in a short paragraph. Again she responded quickly and let me know that she has had the opportunity to meet and interact with these potential parents on multiple occasions, and that she believes that they are hoping for a similar level of involvement and relationship development as I am. She suggested that we meet via Skype in a couple of weeks, allowing me an opportunity to get a better glimpse of the potential parents personalities and level of involvement, then determine if I think it's a good fit, or if I still have reservations. That sounds like a solid plan to me, so I'll once again (patiently?) standby for the next step in the stork adventure.