When all is said and done, what if we end up with a baby from Montana? Not that there’s anything wrong with Montanian babies, mind you, it’d just be an interested place to end up. Here’s the deal: as you know, we’ve begun (and completed!) the home study process with an agency here in Seattle. We picked said-agency (Amara) after lots and lots, oodles and oodles of research into International, Domestic and local agencies. We picked Amara for several factors including price (let’s face it: the baby buying process is an expensive one!) and location – we liked that it was local and we could actually meet and get to know the people who would be supplying us with a freakishly beautiful, talented, will-never-have-preteen-or-teen-angst-attitude little girl. (OK, really, the requirement is just a girl baby of the healthy persuasion; those other demands are just the dream). So, now that we’ve officially been moved into the ‘Child Search’ stage and we could – hypothetically – get Baby Girl any day now, why have our thoughts turned eastward toward the great open skies of Montana? Allow me to explain, as you know I will.

We just received an email from a couple who we met through Engaged Encounter. Two years ago we were the Seattle Coordinators and attended Unit Board meetings – getting to know other leader-couples from Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. Apparently they had heard through the EE grapevine of our adoption plans. And then, just this past weekend, a close friend of theirs who works in adoption for Catholic Social Services approached them after church asking (it sounds somewhat desperately) if they knew of any perspective adoptive couples as they’re in huge need. Well, Jerry and Maureen, not knowing where/how far we are along in the adoption process, immediately thought of us. This email was delightful. You could feel their excitement absolutely penetrate through the computer screen. It’s as if they felt certain that THEY would be the middlemen in providing us with our baby. They went on and on about how great this friend is and provided us with both her work and home phone numbers. Then, they painted, the picture: when you come to Helena to pick up your daughter, you can stay with us! We’ve got a 6 bedroom house and only use two rooms now. We’re even ready for your boys and have a room with bunk beds! We can help with childcare and any needs that may arise while you await paperwork processing. Come to Helena! Find a baby here! That was the general idea. Quite frankly, we may just take them up on the child care offer if nothing else!

These were my first thoughts: That’s SO nice, such sweet people…Do they have a lot of babies in Montana? Is there like a baby girl-mill there or something?...Are they free babies? And all that fresh, open air – they’re probably very hearty, healthy stock babies. And being Montana, let’s face it, they’re most likely white babies – this would make things easier for some people (see previous Blog post to see that I, in fact, am NOT racist – we’ve taken classes and everything; it’s others we worry about). But what about everything we’ve already done with Amara? Would it be totally betraying them – and Joy, our adoption specialist – if we end up adopting through somewhere else? And what about all of the work we’ve done for them? We’re SO not re-doing that. We wrote 30 page autobiographies, had 9 hours of interviews, attended 40+ hours of classes, got the house all Foster-to-code approved. What about all of that?! Is it dishonest to have baby-finding-feelers out in two different states?

After all of those thoughts, I decided, yeah, we probably shouldn’t pursue this. But then, I thought that maybe actually consulting my spousal unit may be a good idea. After discussion, we decided that it doesn’t hurt to at least look into this Montana baby-business. Maybe there is a great need. What if, in the end, the Great Grand Plan all along was for us to do all the paperwork/prep/class/home study with Amara so that we’d be ready to go for Montana Baby Girl? What if she’s there right now, all pink and fat and cute, just hanging out, waiting for us at the Montana baby factory? So, we’ve sent an email to Ms. Helena Adoption Lady. No word back yet. Maybe a Montana baby is in our future, maybe not. We shall see…