Two Days

It's only two days, right? Two more days to finish out what we hope has been a productive waiting. Two more days until we know for sure and get to bring him home. But before the two days can really mean something, we need a test back. A life-changing, possibly adoption-interrupting test.

Last Thursday, we were at the one-week mark. The time when it's serious. When we're almost there. I hadn't even processed too much in the week before that because I was so busy with all the physicalities of the preparations after Christmas clean-up. You need the car seat, the bassinet sheets should be washed and ready. The bottles sterilized and the right formula ready to go in the cabinet. The time to think about his coming-home outfit and what we want the moment when we sign the papers to look like. The home stretch.

Instead, we got a phone call. A complication. A potential birth parent who had come out of the woodwork and wanted to petition for custody. My first reaction? Panic. My second reaction? An attempt at unselfishness. If this is really a parent who wants to parent and could give this little boy a good home, who am I to pray for a different outcome? Who am I to ask God to stop this petition in its tracks and give us this little boy when he could live with a birth parent? My third reaction? No. This man hasn't earned the right to be this boy's father and in fact, from what we know of him, he maybe has earned the right to be in jail. He has bee the opposite of "father" in this scenario and has been an agent of fear in this birth mother's life. The last thing she wants is for this man to be given this boy. Why should he get to be the dad just because he shares blood? No. This cannot happen.

So for 6 days we have been waiting. Again. Waiting on a paternity test that could make or break this adoption. Being reminded again that our connection to this little boy is legally tenuous. It doesn't matter that we've prepared, that we've spent hours visiting him and hugging him and feeding him and changing his diaper and thinking up names and falling in love. None of it matters to the courts. DNA is all that matters to them. And to me, that is beyond unbelievable in a world where blood has shown again and again not to be the determining factor in insuring a happy household. Only love can do that.

So, I wait today for the phone to ring. I long to hear the words "he is not the father" on the other end of the line. I know the case workers, birth mother and foster mother are all longing for the same results. We are not alone in this waiting, this desire to see this boy come home with us. And if it doesn't go our way, the way I personally think is best for this little boy, then I will still not be alone. That is what helps me through this kind of unknown.

When the phone rings, I will answer with hope. It's the only way I can.