Freaked out

So yesterday morning I sent an email to the birth mother counselor at our agency, just to find out what the next step might be. I got the following email (changes have been made to protect privacy):

I just left you a voice message. Just to recap, I just put a call into Bruce today, the BM’s father, who said that he was very impressed with your album and the information that I sent about Our Adoption Agency but he has not seen his daughter or been in touch as she is out of state and she is having cell phone problems. He intends to share everything with her when he sees her. He said that “Joanne said that you were open to adopting both boys”. I am assuming that this is something that you have talked about with your contact person -apparently this BM has another toddler who is presently living with his other grandparents.

Let us know what you are thinking about.

I FREAKED OUT!

I have in no way talked to anyone about adopting a sibling or a toddler or ANYTHING. I flipped. And "Joanne" is my cousin's wife's mother, who is someone I met briefly once at their wedding and haven't talked to since. That was five years ago. How could someone who does not know us offer for us to parent a toddler that we didn't know needed a family?

The BM counselor calmed me down. It could be due to some miscommunication. Bruce could have asked if we were interested in the toddler and Joanne could have said, "I don't know, possibly," and he took that as a yes. Plus, we have no information about the BM at all. We only know Bruce is interested in making an adoption plan with us, we have no idea how on board she is with this. We know she's thinking about it, but we don't know what she's thinking about. We don't have any medical information yet -- we don't even know if it's a sitiuation that could possibly work out. If it does look like a good situation, the BM counselor told me that she knows how to approach that situation. There are all sorts of ways to talk to the BM about only being able to parent the one child as our first.

But she did say that I should contact my cousin's wife to make sure that her mother knows she shouldn't be talking to Bruce about the prospects or possibilities of an adoption happening with us. He should only be talking to our agency.

But boy howdy did that freak me out. And I'm still concerned that if she learns we are not prepared to parent her toddler that she won't want to place with us. But I guess if that's the case then it was not meant to be.

I still have to call my cousin's wife. I'm slightly nervous, but now that I've calmed down I feel I can approach it without being accusing. These people did me a great favor by making this connection, even if it ends up not working out.

I'm trying to remember to breathe.