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We had a good trip and got in late last night. I wasn't feeling good at all when we got in but today seems better. Getting a chance to meet our birth mother was a really great experience and I hope we get to again in the near future.

I was excited to get down there regardless of the fact that the drive is very long but I was not prepared for how stressed I would be heading back. You hope that you have made a good impression and that the birth mother doesn't have seconds thoughts after meeting you and it can really naw at you if you let it.

Thankfully some follow up emails from her have alleviated our concern and hopefully sets up another chance to go down there in the next couple of months. I think we may fly next time. :)

Meeting our birth mother and an extended stay

Yesterday we finally got to meet our birth mother face to face. We had a good time at lunch with her and our case workers. There was alot to talk about and probably more than I could hope to recite here. So we could have a chance for some neutral ground so to speak we spent a few hours at the Fort Worth zoo with our birth mother and had a chance to get away from the Center and some of the formalities. I think it was a good opportunity to have a chance for both sides to open up some.

Today we are meeting her again to window shop at a local mall to give her another chance to get out of the Center for the afternoon. We are gonna pick her up after work and hopefully have a good afternoon to talk and hang out.

The one scary part to all of this. Our hotel reservation was only through today and so far they have been booked up so getting another night hasn't panned out yet. We are about to go check in again to see if there were any cancellations so we can stay put in our hotel again tonight.

/cross fingers

Almost time to meet

We are heading out tomorrow morning to travel to Texas to meet our birth mother. I imagine that the excitement to meet her on Thursday will make the already long drive tomorrow feel twice as long. Looks like the weather is gonna be mostly good for the trip though some rain is bound to show up at some time, hopefully it doesn't. I really like the Fort Worth area so hopefully I can get some pictures while we are there.

Edit 7:38PM

After a looong time on the road we have made it to Fort Worth.

Up to Speed

As stated above, we started the blog to help archive the events of our adoption as well as sharing with others our story. Choosing to adopt was a tough choice. I don't think its something you want to enter into lightly because of the human dynamics involved. It can be stressful. To adopt a child of your own means that a mom is letting someone else raise her child.

We looked at several options including overseas agencies like Hope International but something domestic just seemed to me to be the way to go.

We did some research on domestic programs and sent off for information from the Gladney Center for Adoption. We signed up and were accepted into the their ABC program which provides adoption services for African-American and bi-racial children.

6 months have passed since we completed our application and profile. We had several birth mothers look at our profile. The wait can go from no factor to unbearable, however we knew going into this that the average time from signup to a match was anywhere from 6 to 12 months.

We have now been matched with a birth mother who for now I will refer to as "Jewels." We have spoke to her several times on the phone and we have been invited to the center to have lunch with her and our caseworkers.

While I wish I would have thought to start this blog earlier you are now caught up on how our journey is going so far. We are optimistic that this will work out well. Our birth mother seems to be a really wonderful young lady with a good attitude and sense of humor. I will keep you up to date on how things go.