O.K., now that things have settled down a bit, and I have returned from a fantastic orchid show at Longwood Gardens that I attended with my sister Andrea and cousin Tracy, we can let you know how "the call" all went down. On Thursday we were in the midst of trying to schedule our homestudy update prior to its expiration this month. I'd emailed our Gladney caseworker, Mary, that morning in an effort to square this "minor" detail away. We did finally get it scheduled for Monday evening at 5:30. At any rate, I was leaving work around 4:00 when I got a call from Mark. Our conversation centered around the big decision of Subway vs. pierogies for dinner, and we opted for pierogies (in case you were wondering). I decided that I would head to a local shoe store to look at sneakers before heading home, and as I pulled up in front of the store my phone rang again at 4:08. I looked at it and it said "private number", so I assumed it was Mark calling me from one of the phones at the nursing home where he was doing rounds. Perhaps he really had his heart set on Subway? I answered and it was Mary. No, my heart wasn't in my throat, my stomach didn't drop - I just assumed we had another detail to work out about our homestudy. In fact, that is exactly what she began talking about. Once we cleared that matter up, I began to close the conversation. After all, I had sneakers to look at before the store closed at 5:00! Just as I was preparing to hang up, Mary said to me, "Now, are you sitting down?" O.K., here is where my heart was in my throat and my stomach dropped. I told her that I was and she went on to say, "Are you with Mark, can you get to a computer?" I explained where both of us were and she said, "We are so excited to give you this referral!" Pretty detailed account up to this point, isn't it? Well, here is where the details start to get a little fuzzy. It was up to me to coordinate getting Mark home from the nursing home and getting us both on the telephone in front of a computer so that we could receive our referral before Mary's leaving the office within an hour. I told Mary we would call her back as soon as possible. "Don't you want to know any of the details?", she asked me. I told Mary I'd waited this long and that I wanted no details until Mark and I were together. I called Mark and we were both headed toward home immediately - me at the rate of 71 mph and him, well, I don't even want to know. Once home, two grown adults couldn't seem to get it together. We had the hardest time setting up our "station" so that we could both be on a land line at the same time. "Wait, our phone doesn't have long distance! I have to call Mary on my cell phone and have her call us on our home phone!" "Why don't we just call her using the kitchen phone, oh wait, that's right, we don't have long distance!" "O.K., are you ready? Let's call her!" "Wait, I have to go to the bathroom!" Once we finally got it together, this is what it looked like with the addition of two telephones you cannot see:
With Mary on the phone, the referral came through to us over email. We received 5 photos and a lot more information than we expected to receive! She is a healthy 6 month old with the most beautiful brown eyes, a prominent Cupid's bow of the upper lip, and a left eyebrow that raises up inquisitively when she makes certain faces. Once I saw the pictures, I barely heard anything Mary was telling us. Our written referral information tells us she "...is a happy, content baby. She loves to be held and talked to and smiles easily when you play with her. She sticks out her tongue a lot and loves to razz and blow bubbles." Mary asked us to take our time in making our decision to accept or not, after all it was a big one. At the end of the phone call, this is what Mark looked like with the addition of picture of Baby M on the computer screen at which he is looking that you cannot see:
As you may remember, we'd planned to review everything with an international adoption physician prior to officially accepting our referral, but as I was standing in WalMart on Friday making four sets of prints from the photos we received of who we are sure is the cutest little girl in the Gladney foster care center and purchasing picture frames, I knew there was no way Mark and I could say no. So, we officially accepted the referral by Friday evening. We still plan to review with the international adoption physician at CHOP early this week just to see if there are any details we should be concerned about.
Unfortunately for all of you, we are unable to post any identifying information on our computer. We are not allowed to do this until we have had a successful court date in Ethiopia declaring us her parents, which we hope will occur within the next two to four months. We know that anything can and may still happen and that delays may occur, but we obviously hope our case is immune to these common international adoption stumbling blocks. In the meantime, let us assure you, the wait for Baby M was well worth it! To Baby M!
