Sometimes I have a horrible, quiet moment or two when the whole world outside seems to be going along just fine, but I have a chilly stillness in my heart and I think, “It’s not going happen.  This is never going to happen.”  It’s sort of the adoption version of morning sickness.  You try to ignore it; you don’t complain about it.  Nobody needs to hear every single detail of the nausea and aches.  They’re normal, and everybody gets them.  It will pass.

One morning I had horrible adoption morning sickness and I was just about ready to call IAC and tell them, “This is all a big scam, isn’t it?  You’re just going to leave me waiting here for years and years until it’s too late.  It’s never going to happen, is it?”  And then I checked my email.

Somebody had requested my letter.  She was interested in me.  Someone in a position to know what she was talking about, was willing to believe that I would be a good mother.

For several days I practically jumped through the roof every time the phone rang.  I couldn’t sleep.  I cried a lot.  I was giddy a lot.  All my friends with small babies suddenly got very serious about their lists of must-haves and potential hand-me-downs.  We even started talking about breastmilk banks and pumping.  My parents started thinking about baby seats for their car.  Paul and I talked to the agency about making sure he has all the legal clearances he needs – even though I’m the one adopting, he’ll obviously be a part of my child’s life too.  I made “Plan B” arrangements for all the suddenly-trivial plans I had for the summer.

And then I just went on with what I was doing.  I worked on the garden.  I had taco night with the girls.  I started impossible knitting projects.  I sent birthday presents.  I played with the cat.  I procrastinated about studying for the GRE.  I know that somewhere, a woman has been making the hardest decision of her life.  I really believe that in a situation like this there’s no way to make the “wrong decision.”  You don’t really decide until you know in your heart that the decision is the right one, so whatever decision gets made, must be the right one.  I trust her.

And even if I never hear her voice or meet the child she is carrying, I will always owe her this big, weird, wonderful debt:  when I was almost ready to give up, she let me know that my adoption has a heartbeat.