Part 27

December 6, 2014

It’s 5 a.m. and I’m wide awake.  In four hours, Matt Bloom, our Social Worker from Adoption Connections will be here along with a student observer to conduct our Home Study.  I can’t sleep.  I have ZERO idea of what to expect.  All Ben and I know is that there is nothing we can do to prepare.  All we can do is be as honest as humanly possible.  Speak the truth, answer the questions as honestly we can, and be 100% ourselves.  We keep telling each other that, “All we have to do is be ourselves.  If that’s not good enough to be parents, than its not good enough.”  Regardless, I’m still nervous and wide awake WAY before my alarm.

I get out of bed, reluctantly, and head downstairs to make coffee cake – my mom’s recipe.  I’m determined to prove that I’m as good of a cook as I claim to be in our application materials.  I put the cake in the oven and head upstairs to shower and get ready.  Ben heads downstairs to run the vacuum and pick up a few last minute things.  We’re both tense and stressed.  I’m not sure we’ve uttered a word to one-another since we got out of bed.  We’re focused on getting everything done and ready by the time Matt rings the doorbell.

Ben preps a pot of coffee and turns on the pot to brew.  It’s about 8:45 a.m. We’re ready.  Just then, the doorbell rings.  It’s Matt and the intern, Diana.  We welcome them in.  I offer them both some coffee cake and coffee.  Nobody wants any coffee cake…rude (j/k Matt since you’re probably reading this…you missed out…it’s delicious).

Matt takes a cup of coffee and the four of us sit down to begin – with what I can only anticipate to be the most intense interrogation about my personal life that I’ve ever experienced.  Matt and Diana sit on our L-shape sectional sofa and I take a seat on the chaise at the end next to Matt.  Ben takes a seat in a chair next to Diana but right across from me.  Ben and I are sitting directly across from one-another, we look at each other and smile.  We’re honestly just happy to be moving on to the next step.
Matt begins by saying, “First of all, the two of you wrote more on your Social History form than I think I’ve ever had a couple write.  Often times couples will skip questions altogether and that is where I can focus my attention on in the interview.  You two, however, were very thorough, so I’d like to just ask some follow-up questions and get to know the two of you better.”

Matt began by asking us some light introductory questions, while taking an occasional peek at our Social History form and what I assume to be, his prepared questions.  After about 30 minutes, Matt started to ask the hard questions – the questions about the challenges we’ve faced as a couple, the difficulties (aside from the fertility stuff) that we’ve faced in our marriage.  We spent a good chunk of time talking about the stuff that’s really hard to talk about.  Matt asked questions about how those things made us feel about our marriage and each other.  He asked us about forgiveness.  He asked us about stress and healing and moving on.  All the while Ben and I looking at each other, answering Matt’s questions honestly, and facing some of the hard stuff (hard stuff that every marriage faces in one form or another) – reliving it again.  In that moment, I felt like Ben and I were this incredible team.  We made it.  We made it through some really really hard shit – stuff that some marriages never go through.  And we’re still here.  We still love each other (more than before).  I’ve never felt more convinced that we were ready to be parents – and that we were going to be incredible ones.

After about 2 hours of conversation and questions, Matt concluded the interview and asked for a tour of the house.  We’re proud of our home.  We love our home.  We chose it with the intention of filling it with children, yet it was unnerving to have a stranger walk around your home and judge it – counting toilets and smoke detectors, looking for any problems.   We finish the tour.  That was the end of our time.  Matt had seen and asked all he needed to see and hear.

As Matt was putting on his coat he asked, “So do you two have any questions?”

I asked, “So what’s next?”

Matt responded, “Now you just wait.”

For such a complicated, intense and emotionally draining process – it felt pretty anti-climatic.  All that work and now we just… wait?

We closed the door as Matt and Diana left and it was like a mound of stress was lifted.  Ben and I proceeded to eat the coffee cake that I made and simply smile…and wait.

On December 19th we received an email from Rebecca containing our Home Study Report from Matt.  We were told to read, approve or correct any changes (edit for accuracy not opinion), and sign the last page.  I think I read it three times.  It was incredible after all that work, to see ourselves through someone else’s – a near stranger’s eyes.  This was the big ending I was hoping for.  It was the cherry on top of the complicated, stressful process that we’d been through.  We were getting closer and closer to being parents.  I loved the Home Study report.  I loved hearing from someone that does this for a living, say, out loud that we would make great parents.

The last paragraph that Matt wrote in conclusion of the Home Study stated,

“Ben and Jessica are well-educated, intelligent, thoughtful, responsible people who are passionate about starting a family as a part of a larger personal mission to help make the world a better place.  They appear genuine in their admittance of their faults, acknowledging them without false humility, and value excellence in all they do.  Starting a family is no exception.  They possess excellent communication skills and will no doubt do all in their power to establish and maintain strong connections with their children.  They are financially stable and their home has more than adequate space to accommodate two or more children.  The Williamses are excellence candidates for adoptive parents.”

A glowing review in my mind.  I was smiling from ear to ear.  But we weren’t out of the woods yet…it still had to be approved by the agency after Matt’s recommendation.  So we waited.  We waited for news that our paperwork had been signed and approved – that we were officially listed as a waiting family and would be shared as an option with birth mothers.  On December 30th, the day before we left for a week’s vacation in Hawaii, we heard from the agency Director, Rebecca.  She said, “I don’t have the signed document to send you yet, but it’s a forgone conclusion that you will be approved.  I’ve put your names and book on the website.  We’ll start sharing your profile with birth mothers.”

Ben and I exhaled.  Sighed a deep sigh of relief.  Our work was done.  We had moved the process as far along as we possibly could.  We were hopeful that 2015 would be the year that we became parents.  It now lied in God’s hands.

Now, we just wait.