the adoption story part 2

We drove down to Utah the very next weekend to meet Audrey and her birth parents. We knew Tarl, of course, since he was Justin's second cousin but had never met Megan. We arranged to have dinner with them at a restaurant in Provo. Justin and I got there first and went inside and sat down. I was so scared and nervous. When they walked in Audrey was asleep in her carrier and I tried not to stare. She was beautiful. We ordered our food and talked and got to know Megan and Tarl. They were great kids, just so young. Somewhere in the middle of dinner Audrey woke up. Megan pulled her out of her carrier and held her for a minute before turning to me and saying, "Do you want to hold her?" I said yes and I held my daughter in my arms for the first time ever. It was a strange feeling at the time- I know that Justin kept talking, but I just sat there, wondering if this baby would be my child. I wanted to kiss the top of her head but I didn't want to freak Megan out so I just kept leaning my cheek down against her soft baby hair.

The next day we saw them again, this time at Megan's house. They let me hold Audrey again while Megan and Tarl and Megan's sister asked us tons of questions about how we would parent Audrey. I'm sure they could see how nervous I was. We answered the questions as much as we could. At the time we weren't parents and had no idea about raising kids. They told us that they would take a few days to think about it and let us know. When we left their house and headed home I burst into tears in the car. The weekend had been a stressful, emotional one and I'd already surprisingly felt a bond with Audrey and it was hard to leave her. I told Justin that if they didn't let us adopt her that I was done with trying to have kids in any way. I couldn't go through this anymore.

We watched our email like hawks the next few days and answered our phone on the first ring. They were the longest few days of my life. Finally an email blinking in our inbox. Megan would like us to be Audrey's parents. We jumped up and down in our kitchen and I called my Mom. We were going to have a baby.

We got a lawyer, and a social worker and started the process. It's not easy to adopt. Background check. A 40 page stack of papers from our social worker that asked us questions about EVERYTHING in our lives. 3 reference letters from neighbors and our family. A physical from our doctor. A home check and interview from our social worker. A large check to the lawyer. On and on.

It had been about a month and we took another quick trip to the Oregon Coast with Justin's cousin, Robert. We had a great time. On the way home we got a phone call. They were bringing Audrey up on Saturday. It was Wednesday. We panicked. Once we were home I cleaned the house for days, we bought a crib and some clothes, diapers and formula. Then Saturday came. And Megan and Tarl and Tarl's mother came. And there was my baby. Tarl's mother kept calling me "Mom". It was surreal. I was so scared that I was going to do something wrong: hold her wrong, change her diaper wrong, say something wrong and make them change their minds.

They left the next day. We walked them out to their truck and then stood on the sidewalk and waved to them as we watched them pull out and turn the corner. And then Justin and I looked at each other. And we looked at Audrey. Here we were and there were three of us. Suddenly we were a family.