Plan B

I'm not big into birth plans. My reasoning is that there are so many combinations of variables and situations that can come into play during a birth, that each is so unique, that trying to script the event is impossible. If (when) things don't go as planned it can be a serious source of stress, even leading to feelings of failure because things "didn't go as planned."

Obviously I didn't make a strict plan for either of my births, thank goodness considering the unforeseen circumstances that came up with both. Turns out, we make huge babies, who like to turn over during labour and plug up my smallish pelvis. I had my mental lists: episiotomy - no, breastfeeding - yes, drugs - we'll see. We had our option A's, but were open to B and C.

Turns out being paper pregnant is following the same trend as my physical ones. We just found out that Option A (Taiwan) is off the table. Our agency was unable to sign a satisfactory agreement with the agency in country. It also turns out that living in BC there aren't really too many other options to explore. Our contact at the agency (JW) really surprised me by suggesting that we apply for the domestic program. This hadn't really occurred to me before, given that we are willing to adopt from out of country and are already parenting two young children. Apparently their que of waiting families is really low at the moment, maybe because of the bad rap the program has for long wait times and nonmatches. But at this stage it would only cost us $3500 more than what we have already paid, (the rest is due at placement) so we are going to go for it.

We are also going to apply for the Florida program. We had seriously considered this last year before deciding to go with Taiwan. Shepherd's Care has a bit of a wait list right now and I'm waiting to hear back how long it will take. Also don't know much about the $$ aspect of it.

Ahh, changing gears. No longer pondering how our language challenged, small town family can learn Mandarin, or wondering how old the child would be, or if we should take the kids with us (actually still pondering this). Now I'm daydreaming about parenting a newborn (why again did I give away all of our newborn stuff?) and trying to figure out how to best write a Dear Birth Mother letter and sell our family in pictures.

I have the feeling the ride is only just beginning.