82, 146, 22

Wow, has it really been a month since my last post here?

February was busy and Olympic fever settled in around our home for two solid weeks (still kicking myself for missing the gold medal match in Men's Curling...you think I jest but you are oh so wrong). Work maintained its typical insane pace with occasional spikes of deadline-induced craziness just for a touch of variety. We saw friends and family, played cards, got caught up on various shows gathering dust in the DVR, and enjoyed a quick getaway to Boston.

And didn't do anything adoption-wise.

After months of effort, we finally got everything completed -- paperwork, profile information, photos, the whole shebang -- and then we were left with nothing to do. Sure, there's stuff we need to do around the house to prepare but with everything else going on, repainting the guest room just didn't make it too high on the priority list.

In truth, it's been pretty nice to just let the adoption initiative slide into the background for a little while after the intense adoption-related efforts that went on so long. That doesn't mean we haven't been thinking about it. On an almost daily basis, one of us gets asked by a friend, colleague, or family member "so what's new on the adoption?"

So far, the answer has remained the same -- we're just waiting right now. Our profiles are up but there's nothing really for us to do until we're a) picked by an expectant mother or b) three months passes and we then re-evaluate our profile in collaboration with the placement agency.

So far, zero expectant mothers have picked us and we've got 6 weeks to go before we revisit our profile information.

That doesn't mean, of course, that we aren't visiting our online profiles on a regular basis, well one of them at least. While our placement agency has posted our profile on three different sites, we have access to the visitor information for just one of them at this point. There's really nothing special about that access...the site and our profile look exactly as they would to a visitor to the site, we can't make changes, and we can't add new photos.

But we can see how many people have visited and in a lull like this, with little news and nothing to do, watching those numbers creep up is the only sign of progress, the only sense that something is happening in the adoption.

82 in January
146 in February
22 so far in March

As the numbers rise, I'll be honest that my feelings are mixed.

"Yay, someone is taking a look at us and the more people who do, the better the chance that we'll be picked!"

"A lot of people have viewed our profile...how come no one has picked us yet? Is there something wrong with us?"

Of course, we might have already been picked but just weren't told. The way things work is that when an expectant mother picks us, the agency reviews our profile and hers and if something doesn't match, we'd never know. "Oops, sorry, miss but you're horribly allergic to dogs and cats and your baby might be as well? Might not be a good fit because this couple loves to have pets as part of the family. Please pick again."

But people are coming to at least this one profile, which is a good thing. Who they are, we have no idea. Expectant mothers? I hope so. Other couples considering adoption or working on their profiles? Almost certainly (that's what we did...you know, just to scope out the friendly competition). Friends and family trying to find our profile to see what we wrote and what pictures we posted? Maybe but hopefully not many because we don't want to skew the numbers.

They're all we've got right now to measure the progress being made.