So, where were we?
Last I wrote, we had met with Sam and Diane in a restaurant in Florida and decided we were all willing to do this. The big news is that we now know the gender of the child. Personally, neither Susan or I felt a strong need to know this information. Had Diane not wanted to find out herself, we wouldn't have asked it of her. We thought about just keeping the information to ourselves but came to the realization that it was only a matter of time before we slipped with a gender-specific pronoun. So, a boy it is.
Having nothing but nieces this does throw some of my limited parenting experience out of the window. But I was allegedly a boy at some point, and I survived that, so I must know something about them. The name, as I've said before, will not be revealed until he is, but our internal deliberations had a much longer list of girl names than one for boys. Let's face it, boy names stink. Of course, my strategy of "we'll know the right name when we hear it" isn't the most efficient tactic and leads to the random blurting out of random names to see if they'll stick.
As for the adoption itself, everything is progressing nicely. We (by which I mean Susan, as I'm a horrible phone conversationalist) speak with Diane about ever other week, just to keep touch. That really is a rare treat in the adoption world. Typically, you never interact with the birth mother; it's much more of a business transaction. Everything is happening as it should.
Our only speedbump to date has been our clearances. When you adopt, you have to jump through many administrative and bureaucratic hoops to be qualified to adopt. But those qualifications are only valid for one year. Ours expire June 9. Our son is due to be born June 1. Once he is born, we cannot leave the state with him until our paperwork (the interstate compact agreement) has been processed. That typically takes between seven and ten days. Doing the math, the worst case scenario leads us to having a child that we cannot legally take home because our clearances expired before the paperwork is processed.
Yes, this is a highly unlikely scenario, and I am typically the last person to play the "worst case scenario" card. But that's because I'm willing to play the odds and accept the consequences if I'm wrong. I'm not willing to be wrong this time. As such, we've rejumped through the bureaucratic hoops to get recleared. The only problem now is that it takes two to four months to process the clearances. And that's a worst case scenario I'd rather not ponder.
Keep us posted.
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