Everything Is Scheduled

We're heading down to Southern California (en route to Mexico) next week, which means our house right now is a flurry of last-minute lists and phone calls.

We're seeing K and her parents on Friday. We're having dinner with R and his family on Wednesday.

I wish we lived closer together. I miss them. I miss having them see Puppy more frequently, and vice versa. He changes so much between visits and there is no way to capture that on film or in words. It's been eight months since we saw R, five since we last saw K.

I'm remembering the first time I heard about open adoption. T and I, freshly engaged, were visiting friends who had recently adopted. Over dessert in their living room, they told us the story of waiting and matching and being at their daughter's birth. It was a semi-open adoption and they lost touch with her first mother almost immediately after placement. I thought then that they had lucked out--they got to be there at the beginning of their daughter's life and didn't even have to bother with her birth mother after that. (My cheeks burn, remembering now.)

As I sat on their couch and sipped my coffee I had no idea that years later the thought of losing touch with my son's first parents like that would make my heart skip a beat.