“Am I going to have anything in common with them? What if they judge me? What if I can’t think of anything to say?”

These are only a few of the questions that you might ask yourself before you are planning to meet your chosen adoptive parents for the first time. The experience will feel like an (almost) blind first date. You probably have some facts and basic knowledge about the couple, but you haven’t ever had a real conversation with them.

I was so nervous before my first meeting with my adoptive parents. I remember asking my options counselor so many questions on the way to the restaurant; I wanted her advice on how to make the best of the awkward situation I knew it was going to be. She told me to relax and be myself. Relax? Yeah, right! I had no idea what we would talk about for an hour. As we pulled up to the restaurant, I was sweating and my heart was pounding.

The adoptive couple wasn’t there yet, so we got a table and sat down. My options counselor ordered chips and salsa, but I couldn’t even eat because my stomach was in knots. It felt like we sat there for hours waiting on them to come in because I couldn’t get my brain to stop coming up with “what if” scenarios, but it was only about 5 minutes after we sat down that I recognized the couple walking toward our table. They both walked over and shook my hand, telling me how nice it was to meet me. I mumbled the same thing back to them, still too nervous to remember to be myself.

My counselor and the executive director of the agency kept the conversation going with the adoptive parents until we ordered our drinks, but once our waiter walked away, my counselor turned to me and said, “Why don’t you tell them a little bit about yourself?” I knew this was coming, but I was still caught off guard by being asked to talk about myself. I took a deep breath and began talking. The couple was so intentional about really looking at me while I talked, and while it sounds like that might be intimidating, it helped me begin to relax.

Remember how I wondered what we would talk about for an hour? I had nothing to worry about, because we ended up sitting at our table and talking for almost two full hours. At one point during those two hours, I felt something click. I knew I had chosen the right family. It became so easy to talk to them, and with everything they said, I became more convinced than ever that I was choosing the right family to raise my child.

When the meeting was over, my counselor asked if the three of us wanted a picture taken together, and we all wholeheartedly agreed. Having a picture of us seemed to solidify everything in my mind, and I was really excited for the process to keep moving forward. Both the adoptive mom and dad gave me a hug before they left, and I breathed a sigh of relief as they walked out of the restaurant. The meeting had gone better than I could have ever imagined.

Despite my nerves, my first match meeting with my adoptive parents made me feel even more confident in the decision I made in choosing this couple to become my baby’s family. They were so kind and loving to me, so I knew they would be even more so toward my baby. I walked away from the meeting with a sense of peace about the adoption plan I had in place for my baby girl.