One week ago today we received the call we've been waiting for since we started this process back in February: we got our referral! This past week has been a busy one and I have been so excited to sit down and blog and write out the whole story but there just hasn't been time. So here it finally is! We want to remember every crazy detail of this crazy process, so this may be a little long. But it's all important to us and we don't want to forget any of it!
I haven't blogged about this next part of the story yet either so I am going to include it here. As I was telling my friend Amy about this, she said, "I just can't wait to see what part all of this plays in you finally getting the referral for the baby girl who will be yours." At the time it was hard but as we have looked back on it, we have been able to tell God we are thankful for walking through it and for how he showed himself to us during that time.
On Monday, Nov 5 I got a call from our social worker, Logan. I was so surprised to hear that she was calling because she had locked a file for us and had a referral for us! I called Randy, he came home, and we opened the file of a precious 9 month old baby girl. We both were pretty emotional and thought that we might be finding out who our baby was that day! Her special need was a skin condition that we didn't know anything about so we immediately called Dr. B's office and he said he would meet with us during his lunch hour! When we met with him he told us about this particular skin condition and about the possibilities of what it could mean. We pretty much knew then that she was not our baby. It looked like she had the more mild form of the disease, but the more severe form was just more than we were ready for and we were able to determine that had this particular special need been listed on the child desired form, we would have said no to it. It was a hard, emotional day. We prayed individually and together and by the end of the day had decided we were going to call the following day and turn down the file. (I think I forgot to say that we had 48 hours to make our decision.). Tuesday morning I woke up feeling confident and peaceful about our decision. I told Randy that night that even though I was peaceful, I was still hurting. I wasn't sure how those two things could go together, but I knew we had done the right thing. I had read blogs of people who turned down their first referrals and knew that what we were feeling was normal, but it just didn't make it any easier! I prayed that week even more that we would see our baby girls' face soon and that when we did, that we would know she was ours. I just didn't realize that day would come so soon!!
Fast forward to this past week. The shared list was being released in China on Monday night, 8 or 9 pm our time. I knew many adoptive parents were anxiously waiting for that list to see if they would be matched, but I was just trying not to get my hopes up. The list has been small the past few months, and we have only been logged in since October 8th. This was only our second shared list to even be eligible for. I knew there were lots more people who have been logged in longer than us. We were fully expecting to be matched through our agency's partnership orphanages, so we really weren't expecting a call.
Randy and I were sitting in bed watching New Girl from the week before when my phone rang at 10:00! I didn't know the number, but it said it was from Mississippi. Our agency is in Birmingham, Alabama. I answered and it was Logan! We immediately knew we had gotten a match that night! Logan told us that yes, we had been matched and that she had a file for us to view. She told us some specifics, and then asked if we wanted to see her file. Holy moly! We asked Logan if we could talk about it and call her back. This time, we were a lot slower to say yes to getting the email. There were a couple of parts of her diagnosis that we were unsure of and wanted to talk through. But, one thing that was very cool was her birthday. We have been praying very specifically that we would be matched with a baby that is at least one year younger than Cooper. When she told us her birthday, it was exactly one year to the day after Cooper's. They are exactly one year apart. Coincidence?? No way!
About thirty minutes later, almost 11pm our time, we called Logan and told her we would see the file. She told us again that we would have 48 hours to make a decision, so we needed to have paperwork turned in by Wednesday evening. We hung up and then just waited for the email to come through.
Can I just stop here and say how crazy unnatural this whole process is?! When you have a child biologically, the doctor holds them up and says "here is your baby!" But this is so crazy different! Here we were waiting for an email to come through that was potentially information and pictures of our baby! So weird.
So the email did finally come through and we saw her face. And we pretty much immediately knew she was ours. We were for her. She was precious. I am not allowed to give any details about her or her special need until we receive our Pre-approval, hopefully in about a week. I just can't wait to show off her picture and write all about her. Randy and I both just cried and cried, realizing that we were looking at pictures of our third daughter. We read every detail of her file, and stared and stared at her pictures. Then we tried to go to sleep. I think I finally fell asleep after 2am.
Tuesday morning we called Dr. B again and he said he would meet with us during lunch again. We emailed him her file so he could be reviewing it. When we met with him, he said, "Guys, she is just beautiful. I don't see anything that would make me say you shouldn't move forward!" Oh that was all I needed to hear. We talked about her specific conditions and learned a little more, but I can't even tell you how different I felt walking out of his office this time as opposed to the first time at the beginning of the month. And he said he was much happier this time to be able to give us this news instead of the other. He is so wonderful and we have been so thankful for him all along the way.
So then we called Logan that afternoon to say that she was ours! We started working on the Letter of Intent packet that night, writing a care plan for how we will care for her. We had it submitted by Wednesday morning and Logan emailed us that afternoon to tell us we had officially submitted our Letter of Intent! So much happiness.
One thing Logan told me when I talked to her, after I told her we were accepting her file, was that the Lifeline representative in China had spoken with our baby's orphanage and told them a family was reviewing her file. She said that they told her that this baby is "highly recommended!" We thought that was so funny and Logan said she doesn't hear things like that very often! Ha!
So the question we've been asked most often this week has been, "So what's next? When do you go get her?" The process from here is that we wait for Pre-Approval, which could take about 2 weeks. Then we wait for China's official Letter of Approval, which takes anywhere from 2-3 months. After that, there are still a few steps before we can travel. Our agency estimates that it will be 5-6 months from now, but we are really hoping to travel sometime in April. We'll see!
We are so thankful for how God has shown himself to us throughout this whole process and a big way He has done that has been through our family and friends loving and supporting us. We can't wait to introduce you to our Calli Faith!
No comments:
Post a Comment