The Meeting of Rock

Things to do when you show up an hour early for your first meeting with the birth parents: sit in the restaurant parking lot, ponder what to do; drive across the street to the grocery store/tortilla factory to get your caffeine fix; drive back across the street, sit in the restaurant parking lot, ponder what to do; move to another parking space in the same restaurant parking lot so you won’t be sitting in the sun, ponder what to do; wait until you’re supposed to arrive, go inside; wait because everyone else is running late.

At least, that’s what we did.

Eventually, the meeting did happen. Both Sam and Diane were there, along with the attorney. As advised, we let them drive the conversation. This meeting was about them being comfortable with us, feeling that we are the right parents and people who can give their child what they want. Their primary concern is not losing their connection to this child, which is perfectly understandable by us and fits perfectly with our interests as well. A time will come that our child will have questions that we simply cannot answer. It’s nice to know that there will be someone a phone call away who can.

Our only question – why did they pick us – was answered. The official word is that our book came off as “a loving couple who is laid back.” Sam was particularly pleased that we rock the Guitar Hero enough to include a picture of it in our book. And, to think, Susan thought I was silly, if not downright ridiculous, for wanting the game in the first place.

After about two hours of talking and nobody eating more than half of what they ordered, we exchanged numbers and went our separate ways. I have no new details about the baby. And there’s definitely several hundred things about yesterday that I haven’t mentioned, if only because my mind is still processing.

But that’s what future blog posts are for.

Antici.............. pation

I must say, Dulles, at least parts of it, has become a nice airport. It’s been my travel hub for 24 years, and it has always had this “here’s what we thought the future would look like 40 years ago and boy were we wrong” vibe to it. But it’s finally getting somewhere, what with its new security screening area, subway system, and, to top it off, Chipotle.

As for my destination, come to find out, Fort Lauderdale has two airports. There’s the one I flew into, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood, and the one that my hotel is right next to, Fort Lauderdale Executive. I have to assume that I’m not the only one to ever be caught by this confusion, and they were nice enough to place the two within 12 minutes of each other, but they need to rethink their branding around here. Or I need to get paid more.

Last night was not the best for sleeping. Nerves, combined with a foreign bed and curtains that only cover one-fourth of the window, made that an inevitable truth. The two-hour drive ahead of us should only heighten things. Here’s hoping that Florida has no traffic, because it has already demonstrated to have drivers who consider the interstate speed limit to be a variable range, somewhere between 45 and 80.

We’ve tried to anticipate every question, but that’s obviously impossible. If Diane asks if we’re Team Jacob or Team Edward, we’re in trouble because I’m not even sure those are the right teams. At this point, we just have to be honest and hope no one changes their mind about this whole thing. (Yes. That is a possibility. In fact, it’s the point of this meeting.)

On a side note, does anyone ever read the USA Today other than when at a hotel?

We Travel By Plane, Hopefully

Less than 25 hours to our meeting with Diane (and maybe Sam). Nerves have set in as the need to pack brings on the first real decision – what will I wear tomorrow? Per our adoption attorney, I should look “put together.” To me, this has traditionally meant “wear a belt.” But then she dropped this bombshell, “If you wear jeans, wear nice jeans.” I did not know there were degrees to jeans. So I’m going with the fallback position of every styleless male, khakis. And a belt.

Next on the list of possibly devastating decisions is the flight itself. The weather is fine here and at our destination, but we don’t know where our flight is originating from. If our plane is starting the day in Chicago or Boston or New York or Pittsburgh or pretty much anywhere else that just got pounded with snow and ice, it might not be sitting at Dulles waiting for us. Given the timing of our flight, its cancellation would leave us with 21 hours to make an 18-hour drive. The only good thing about that scenario is that it leaves no time for any stops at Cracker Barrel.

Hopefully, six hours from now, I’ll be in south Florida, enjoying a 50 degree uptick in temperature while hunting down some good Cuban cuisine and thinking up pithy things to say in an update. But I’m fully prepared to be, as my mom would say, “flying low” down I-95, desperately trying to prove GoogleMaps time estimate woefully high.