Next Step? Still Waiting.

Well... I had reality check today. I could tell that my hopes were raising despite my efforts to contain a dose of reality. I e-mailed our social worker this morning and told her that we were getting our hopes up, and knew it was premature. She gave me a return phone call later in the day and told us the birthmom that we spoke with is meeting with the other family (in person) on this coming Wed. I could just tell by the tone of the social worker's voice that we were choice #2 and the other family was choice #1. My head knows that this is OK, this is to be expected, and that I am "fine." But, my heart tells me different. I am glad to have a date in my head of what is happening when so I don't spend the next 5 days daydreaming of "what if."

This was also a moment that this experience moved from being surreal to very real. Even though I was trying very hard to keep my feet on the ground and my emotions in check... I realized they were much higher than I was admitting after the phone; as always, denial can be a very powerful force. After I got off the phone, I just stared with a blank mind and heart at my computer screen. I felt immediately grounded upon the words, "she is meeting with the other family in person next week." Our social worker immediately reassured us that decisions are still being made and you never know, but just to sit tight and wait. But, really? What else is there to do other than wait?

After talking with her and as the quiet of my office filled around me, the next question that came to my mind was, how much longer do we just have to keep going and refer to everything as status quo? It is strange knowing that today is just another day like yesterday, and tomorrow will be just like today... but at the same time... in the back of our minds (or more realistically, at the front or our minds), we know a phone call can come at any moment and our lives will be forever changed. We are anxiously waiting for the day in which the next day will be never the same again. For us, we will not have 9-months waiting, preparing, and expecting our life to change... for us, it will change instantaneously in a 24-hour window. That is what we have to be ready for. We are so ready... I just continue to hope and pray that it will be sooner than later. I am nervous to how long my emotions will be able to ride this roller coaster; can my emotions really take another + or - 18 months of this? Since we really don't have any other choice, we wait and go through every day life as usual.

Tonight is not the night, but one of the things that I want to explore with this blog is the different perspectives and opinions that this journey has brought into our life. Yes, life isn't fair... but at the same time I am so excited because I know that parenthood is going to be so much sweeter for us and never be taken for granted. I really want to document both sides of the "birth" of our family... both the bitter and sweet... for me, I know that I need to acknowledge the bitter to realize and truly appreciate how sweet life can be.