above and beyond

First of all, let me just say that the outpouring of support and interest in our "story" has been overwhelming. I've done nothing but marvel at your sincerity and compassion over the last 4 weeks (and 5 years) of our struggle to build a family. I don't even know where to begin thanking you all for the personal emails, the cards, the packages, the flowers and the facebook messages. If I haven't personally responded to thank you, please just know that I'm storing all of your kind words in a place that gets me through every single day with grace and courage. And when I see you again, you will get a big hug!  I promise! I read every word (sometimes twice). I read them to Ryan and he reads them to me. We love them. We need them. And we sincerely thank you!  

Now...for the update:

We were supposed to have a conference call on Friday, but our agent in California called my cell phone at 3:00 to say, "[Kelly] is still waiting for her friend [Amanda] to get off the phone so she can call us back."  Evidently, they are now sharing a phone.  Kelly is out of minutes. Our agent also mentioned that Tony has been gone for the last 3 days. As soon as they got back to Georgia, he took off. Nice job, jerk.

We're still not sure of the exact cause of Kelly's panic attack, but it sounds like she is really regretting going back to Georgia. She is back to living on Amanda's couch and using food stamps for groceries. I hate to say "I told you so" but if she could have held out for another 24 hours, she would have loved the apartment we found for her. I mean...can you imagine it?  A fully-furnished apartment with a 24-hour gym, a pool, a washer/dryer in the building and a sweet little couple (that's us) footing the entire bill - bringing her food - answering to her every need while she just chills out for the remainder of her pregnancy?  Who wouldn't want that?  We even had an offer from our sweet friend Cat to bring her in for a complementary haircut/color at Cat's salon!  People were lined up and ready to pamper our birthmom (because we have the most amazing, supportive friends/family in the whole world) and she let those fools convince her to ride back to Georgia where they could "mentally support" her.  So dumb (and short-sighted).

The medical report (which is the only thing we actually care about at this point) is being mailed to ANLC, so Ryan and I were trying to imagine what we would talk about on Friday if there still wasn't a medical report/update. Mary said something about how Kelly wants to "explain about the maintenance man and all of the reasons that she left" and I assured Mary that we're not interested in any of that.  It doesn't change our minds one way or the other. The drama swirling around Kelly has nothing to do with this adoption plan. We want an update on the health of the baby. That's all.

It sounds really cruel, but we realized we can't emotionally invest in Kelly's health or happiness anymore. We did EVERYTHING we could to make her happy and it didn't work. We got burned. So now it's time to lean on the agency and let them take care of Kelly's well-being.  (that's what we're paying them for, right?)

Our agent said, "Do I think she's going to place this baby? 100%.  Do I think she wants to place this baby with you guys? 100%. Do I think there's still going to be drama?  100%." 

I know it's going to work out the way it's supposed to and we obviously don't have any control over what happens next, but we're really ready for something good to happen. If it all falls apart and this was not meant to be, we'll just pick ourselves up and start again - we know how to do that, but wouldn't it be great if we ended up with a healthy baby on October 15th? There's a really good chance we won't find out the sex of the baby until he or she arrives. It's looking like Kelly is going to do everything in her power not to go to the doctor or get a sonogram (and there's truly nothing we can do about that) but we can still urge Mary to urge Kelly to visit the doctor.

Everything felt suspiciously quiet this weekend - like the calm before the storm. It made me uncomfortable. I'm either bracing myself for what's coming or I'm just not used to things going well. Just this weekend, I compared our story to a Lifetime Original Movie, so I'm guessing this is the boring part where you should probably get up to pee or refill your popcorn. Lord only knows what's going to happen next.