A Valentine's Case Update

How are you allowed to feel when the answer to your prayers is made possible through the realization of someone else's nightmare?

I've been swimming in emotional turmoil since the excitement of last Tuesday's email: unanimously approved! Check AdoptUSKids: a Case Update notification just for us. What better Valentine's news could you hope for?

Before we'd even finished composing our excited reply to James's team, my worries creeped in. We'd just been approved for a kid without even knowing the sound of his voice. How would he feel? James still has no idea that we even exist. Yes, he knows families have been asking about him, and yes, his team has been checking in with him about plenty of aspects of our home and family to ensure he could be happy with us, but it's all been abstract until now. Suddenly, there are two very real human beings for James to learn about this week. Do I think we could be a great fit? Yep. But do I also know we're not everything he'd hoped for? Yep. A friendly dog won't be waiting for him in his new home, and there won't be a car in this new driver's garage. How will that news hit?

How much joy are we even allowed when James is entering our lives through a series of heartbreaks that led him to AdoptUSKids?

Vacillating between visions of family vacations, work-outs, and shared dinners, interrupted by thoughts of a child alone in the world tossed into a new life without much choice in the matter, well, it's not the best recipe for a good night's sleep. I'm completely thrilled that Nicolas and I are on track to welcome someone into our home who's hoping for adoption as much as us. And not just anyone: James shares many of our tastes, interests, and even quirks, a real catch if you ask us. I'm also terrified. We're about to dive into the deep end, James included, assuming he gives us the thumbs up this week.

There's no clean way to wrap up this story as it stands today. So much is uncertain. But it looks like there's lots of potential, and maybe also hope.