This chapter will speak to you more
clearly if you are in the international adoption process where you must wait
for a referral from your child’s country or in a domestic adoption where
someone is searching for you and you are waiting for that call to come. If you
are instead, actively searching for a child yourself, your experience will be
very different. Let’s talk about each situation individually.
Did you think you’d ever get to this point? In
some ways it can be a bit anticlimactic to finally have all the studies and the
paperwork completed. Take our advice; enjoy the lull in the action because the
whirlwind will pick up again once your child has been identified.
There is a marvelous excitement and
apprehensiveness that comes with this period of waiting. You know that your
life will change forever but you can’t quite picture it because you don’t have
that vital last piece of information – whom will your
child be?
It can also be a bit nerve wracking
because you are so close and you just want it to happen so you can get on to
living your life as a parent to this new person in your world and, unlike a
pregnancy, you can never be quite sure when it’s going to happen.
This is a great time to do special
things that you will remember with great fondness as the B.C (before child)
time.
You already have lots of material
available for a scrapbook of your experience. Think of all those notarized
forms, fingerprint records and other interesting official memorabilia. Put your
creativity to work and begin a scrapbook of the adoption. You can even begin to
prepare pages for the events to come.
