8iRWeiXjcKj9kUz5Tebo4_k_FtY Life with Two Special Needs Children: Caleb's Adoption Journey: The Match Meeting

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Caleb's Adoption Journey: The Match Meeting

About three weeks ago I wrote a post that you can find here outlining the events that led up to the beginning of our adoption journey with Caleb.  Now, as I sit here are think back on that weekend eleven years ago that we actually met Caleb's birthmother and had what our agency called a "match meeting," I'm going to memorialize here.

After getting the call from Caleb's birthmother telling us that she had chosen us to be the parents of her unborn child, there was a lot to do, since she was due eight weeks later.  Our agency liked to have what they call a "match meeting" where the adoptive parents and the birth parent(s) meet and kind of develop a plan of how the hospital is going to be handled, how visitation after placement is handled and, most importantly, how much or how little contact there is going to be and what type.

Since Caleb's birthmother lived in California and we lived in North Carolina and with her being within the last trimester, we knew that the best way to make to this happen was for us to fly out to California and go through the California office.

Since Tony was working as a contractor for the postal service he had a long weekend due to the Martin Luther King holiday, so it was a perfect time for us to go.  If I remember right, we flew out on Saturday and flew back home on Tuesday.

We had arranged with Caleb's birthmother that we would pick her up Sunday morning and spend the day with her.  We ended up going to the State Capital and then going to Sutter's Fort, as those were things she really wanted us to see. 

It was a fairly good day, albeit it was an emotionally taxing day.

On Monday, we were scheduled to meet with the counselor to do the "match meeting."  We picked up Caleb's birthmother again and took her with us to the meeting.  The meeting went well and there didn't appear to be any "points of contention."  She did request help with some clothing and we discussed that with our counselor.  After the meeting, we took her shopping for some clothes, got her something to eat and then dropped her back off, since we had a VERY early flight the next morning.

At that point, all we could do was WAIT!


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