Well that didn't take long, did it?

Last week I caught you up on the last 7 months and also shared with you that I had begun looking for new intended parents.

Sunday, the 15th, I went through some surrogacy ads and answered quite a few. By Tuesday I had heard back from everyone I responded to and most of them never made it past the 2nd email. One thing or another wasn't what I was looking for. Also Tuesday, I heard from an agency (Simple Surrogacy) who thought they might have a couple in mind for me. Then my awesome friend and lawyer, Simi, sent my name to two couples she had been talking to. One of them emailed me right away and we started talking via email.

After I got the profile for the couple with Simple, I was browsing around on my surrogate support board and realized the profile I had gotten matched up with a cheery IM from the board, so I started to warm up to their profile and think about them as well as the other couple I was talking to. I kind of "sat" on their profile that night and then the next morning the other IM that Simi sent my name to contacted me by email. It did not take long to realize that this was the very same IM in the profile from Simple and from the board.

I wanted to get to know them both and give both an equal chance, so each time I talked to one, I would ask the other the same questions and try to get a feel for how the journey would go if I were to choose. It was really hard! They were both amazing couples, and I felt I could have chosen either one and had a great journey either way. There were differences in each couple, but not bad ones at all. Just things I needed to think about. One was international and would have been independent, and one was here in the states but was with an agency. I've never worked with an agency, so I really had to think about it.

The couple that the agency sent me had already made plans to come to the Dallas area this week for their medical screening and they asked me and my family to join them for dinner. Whew, what an opportunity! I hadn't quite made up my mind yet, but knew that I would know for sure after the meeting, so I planned to meet them for dinner, and we continued talking. Talking over e-mail was smooth, we got along fantastically, and I absolutely adore her sense of humor.

I didn't have much chance to talk to the other couple as often because of the distance, time change, and they were busy. We did e-mail and answer each others questions alright, but the connection just wasn't the same- perhaps it was that there was a culture difference, perhaps it was the slower communication, or maybe my heart was already telling me something and I wasn't "hearing" it.

On Wednesday I took a day to separate myself from everything, taking time to visualize the journeys and think about everything we'd all talked about. After a lot of prayer, I decided that I couldn't keep talking to the international couple and then I let them know. That was a heartbreaking email to send. But I was at peace about it and thank God for showing me what I truly wanted the journey to be like and helping me decide.

By Friday night we were all so excited to meet up! We had a great time together. My boys were even very well behaved at the restaurant (I'm beaming with pride!). They were so sweet, they brought the boys a bunch of games and some cookies and snacks! We brought them 2 boxes of cake balls, because that's what I do ;) The conversation flowed really well and I enjoyed learning more about them and seeing them together.

At the end of dinner I let her know my decision and she cried!! I didn't mean to make her cry! I am so excited to get to work with her and can't wait to get started. We all gave hugs at the end of the night and took a picture, which I will post here when I make sure it's okay first. So far they're not saying they want to remain anonymous like my other couples were, but I don't want to do anything without first asking.

Anyway, thanks for reading my novel of a story. I think sometimes coincidences really are meant to be paid attention to. In this case, I'm so thankful for the three little coincidences that joined together to help me get started talking with them. I will find out more about getting started this week and update you soon!