Diary of a Birth Mom Part 5- Choosing a Family

One of the tough things about being an expectant mother making an adoption plan is that people constantly recommend hopeful adoptive couples right and left. This was very overwhelming for me. I began looking at the parent profiles on adoption.com with very specific criteria- childless parents in their thirties, both with master's degrees, within two hours of where I lived, etc. etc. etc. I reached out to a few couples who fit those criteria, but none of them felt right to me. And then I got another annoying Facebook message from a girl in my church about her cousin and his wife who were looking to adopt. They didn't fit the mold I wanted- they already had a son who they had adopted three years previously. Neither of them had a master's. But they were the right age, religion, and location, so I shot them a message out of obligation so as not to offend my friend. I was still convinced that no family would ever be good enough for who I now knew was my baby girl. But they were sweet, and excited, and wonderful. I was so excited every time I got an email from them. They seemed genuine like they really cared about me, not just my baby. I pored over the emails with my Mom, trying to find red flags, but there were none. I read a recommendation from their sons' birth mother that brought me great comfort. I had heard so many horror stories of birth mothers having a great relationship with the hopeful adoptive couple during the pregnancy, and then getting cut out and rejected as soon as the adoption was finalized. But I saw that both Haley and Josh*, the birth parents of the Jensens' son, had a great, open relationship with the family three years down the road. So I knew my chances were good that they would be good to me, as well as great parents for baby girl. We emailed back and forth for about a week and came up with a crazy idea. What if they drove from Utah to California (where I was staying at the time) to meet me? We had only been talking for a few days, but they had a cabin nearby, so why not? I was overwhelmed,excited, and scared. But I didn't feel the same sense of dread about them as I did with the other couples, so why not? *names have been changed