I’m writing this now, around the end of March, sitting in my hotel room in Ethiopia, but I can’t post it yet. If things don’t go my way, I can’t post this at all, so you’ll never know anyway.

But here’s the thing.

I have a new potential adoption match, and it feels really different.

It’s strange because I have mostly been looking at boys so far, and this one is a girl. I’ve mostly been looking at older kids and she is quite a bit younger.

She is so unexpected, as she isn’t at all what I imagined, and yet, when they approached me with her profile, and I read it, something clicked.

I felt different about this kid to my previous potential matches – this one really does feel right, and it feels like this really is the kid for me.

It’s so hard waiting to find out if they will shortlist me for her, and of course if they choose someone else and I don’t get picked I’ll be hurt all over again, and I won’t post this at all.

But I wanted to write it now, to save this draft, because honestly after all the false starts and attempts I feel this one is right in my bones. People kept telling me when it’s right, you’ll know, and frankly I didn’t believe them. But now I see what they mean.

I hardly know anything about her, but I can picture this little girl being my daughter so clearly. I WANT her so much. It’s weird and impossible to explain, but I just feel it – this is the right one for me.

I am waiting around for the next couple of weeks for an initial meeting with the social workers, trying so hard not to get my hopes up too much, but it’s hopeless because my hopes ARE up. The waiting to hear about it is excruciating, as it’s on my mind constantly, and all I want to do is put up stairgates and go shopping for buggies.

If things go well, I’ll be posting this much later, once I’m sure it’s going ahead, but I wanted to write it now, so that one day my kid will know that I knew instantly that it was right, and that she was the one for me.

(Spoiler Alert – today they said YES and told me I have been matched with her!! – Hence why I am posting this today, even though I wrote it almost 3 months ago!).