There's a boy.

Honestly, I've avoided writing this post for a while.  Not out of dread or because it's about anything bad.

But because my heart is so full these days and I'm just not sure I can adequately capture in words everything that is going on, or tell you how I feel.

There's a boy.

Back in December, when we finally got our home study and were able to register on the AdoptUSKids site, we had four boys that I felt strongly about that we first wanted to inquire on.  So on December 21, 2015, we sent the inquiries.  Over time, 3 of them were eliminated as possibilities.  One had already been placed, one couldn't leave the state where he resided, and another was no longer eligible for adoption.

And the last one we were never able to get the caseworker to respond to us.

Right in the beginning SOMEONE, I don't know who it was exactly, requested our home study, which we sent right away.  But then all of our follow up emails were just shuffled from one person to the next.  All of the phone calls Justin placed just went to a voicemail.  He left a new message, every week, saying we were interested in this boy and could we talk more about him.  But we never got any responses.

Suddenly, over spring break, so a little over a month ago, I get an email from this boys caseworker.  She apologized profusely, and explained that all our messages had gone to her desk phone, and she's out in the field about 95% of the time.  She'd just gotten ALL of them.  She also attached a file, telling us a lot about this boy.

My initial response was, I guess, shock.  There were some serious things in there, some things I wasn't sure about.  But the more we talked about them, the more we felt that everything could be solved by him being removed from this terrible situation, that he very, very badly just needed a second chance, because he'd never even been given a first.

After a few days, we asked the caseworker if we could speak on the phone and ask some questions.

We spoke.  Learned a lot more about him.  Some new things were brought to light, and again, Justin and I had the chance to talk it over and decide what to do.  But every time we talked and considered everything with this boy, we felt okay about it all.  We always felt like we could help, that we could be that second chance he needed.

About once a week, we would have some form of communication with her, learning more about him, having time to consider.

In the end, we both just felt very good about this boy.  And up to this point, we have 100% said yes to him becoming a member of our family.

There are still steps to be taken.  They are working on his full disclosure case to send us, which is EVERY document they've ever had on him.  We'll know everything.  Once we've had time to review that, we'll have a meeting with his entire team to ask any last questions and go over a lot of details.

And then we get one last chance to make the final call.  Yes.  Or no.

We're about two weeks away from making that call as long as everything on the caseworkers end goes smoothly and they can get the documents to us on time.  And then the next step would be to fly out and meet him in person.

We're so excited.

And it sounds like this boy is too.

The caseworker has talked to him about our family's specifics.  Where we live.  The ages of our kids. What Justin and I do for a living.  What our general expectations would be of him.  If he would be okay joining a white family, and the biggest thing: if he was okay with moving out of the state where he lives.

And so far, he's said yes to everything with us.  He's understandably nervous and a little hesitant.  But his caseworker couldn't believe how well it went over with him.  He's grown a lot in the last few months, she's said.  He told her that he feels so far that this is the best thing for him, and that he knows he needs to get away from the area where he grew up.

There's a million little things that feel like they've lined up with this situation.  Where this boy was at when we first inquired on him was not a good place.  He was struggling and he was in no way ready for us.  But in the last two months, he's made huge changes and gotten to a different place emotionally.

Back when we were being considered for another boy and got fairly far in the process, I felt nervous. I felt VERY hesitant and I knew he wasn't the boy from my dream, but thought he could be an "in addition to..."

I feel absolutely different about THIS boy.

I feel calm.  Peaceful.  Confident.  I think about him all the time.  I dream about him being part of our family frequently.

Maybe this won't work out.  Maybe he will change his mind about us.  Maybe something we never saw will come up and we'll be back to square one.

But I don't think all these things that have happened/are happening are coincidences.  It feels like prayers are being answered.

I feel at peace.  I have faith.  And it feels really, really good.

I'll keep you posted.