"The Call"

On Tuesday evening I received an email from our Gladney caseworker, Robin. She let me know that she wanted to talk with Mark and I the following day at 9am CT (10 am our time) and asked me to provide her with the best number to use. Now, the title of her email was "Checking in" and Robin is relatively new to Gladney. So, I didn't get too excited about the email because a) that's not how the last referral happened and b) I just assumed she was touching base with families on her caseload to introduce herself, etc. So, I gave her my cell number and planned to talk with her the next morning. The call from Robin came as planned. Both Mark and I were working, so I told Robin I would find him and call her back from my office where we could use a good quality speaker phone. Then I asked her, "Do you need both of us there, or do you just need to touch base with one of us?". She said it was up to me, which supported my thought that this was just a "touch base" type of a call. I paged Mark and we headed to my office. We called Robin back, expecting just a quick phone conversation until she said..."Now, I need you near your computer terminal." I looked at Mark and mouthed, "This is it!" We were both taken a little off guard. Wow! It was actually happening! We put Robin on speaker and I said, "It sounds like you have some pictures you'd like to send to us!" Indeed she did. She sent through the referral for our Baby L. Such a beautiful baby girl who is only 2 1/2 months old. All 7 photos reflect those enormous beautiful brown pools that are her eyes! They are just lovely, as is the rest of her! She is described by in-country staff as "...a precious, smiley baby girl. She is alert and quite social for such a young baby, and will watch you with round eyes as you talk to her. Even if awoken in the middle of a nap, she remains good natured. She is truly a sweet baby." And she is!

This is our second Ethiopian adoption. Our first referral was a surprise (feel free to read the account earlier in this blog), and we'd already made arrangements with an international adoption physician to review Maya's records prior to accepting the referral, which we did. In hindsight, there really was no reason to think that we wouldn't accept Maya's referral after seeing the first photo that was sent to us, regardless of any concerns the physician may have had about her health status. After all, we're adopting orphans with access to little to no healthcare during their early years of life. What do we expect? We know there is a high likelihood that there will be some "issues" in a health report. In the case of Maya's referral, unless these issues had been glaring, they would not have stopped us from accepting her referral. Even then, we simply would have requested some additional information. With that experience under our belts, this time around we felt differently about the need for an international adoption physician. We didn't use one. Our "process" consisted of my looking at Mark and saying, "We're going to accept this, right?" and his saying, "Oh yeah." Done deal. Come what may!

Once off of the phone, we started to let our family members know. Of course they were all thrilled! That evening, we showed Maya the photos of her new baby sister. She loves babies. She consoles babies unknown to her that are upset in public places. She loves it when Elmo "talk a baby" on Sesame Street. She loved seeing Baby L's pictures. She ooohed and ahhhed without any prompting on our part. The first thing she said was "big eyes!". She patted Baby L's picture on the computer screen and was upset when we eventually stopped looking at the photos so she could go to bed. She asked to look at them this morning before school and after dinner, which we were happy to do with her. After she went to bed, I went out and had prints made of Baby L and put together a photo album for her to have of her new baby sister.

Now is the more difficult wait. We must wait for our court date. It is estimated we will wait 2 to 3 months for this date, and then court will be scheduled approximately 6 to 8 weeks from that time. If all goes well, we will travel to Ethiopia for the first trip in 4 to 5 months. This is when we will attend the court hearing that will finalize the adoption. We cannot post any photos of Baby L until after passing court. The second trip will take place 3 to 6 weeks after that. This is when we take Baby L to her embassy appointment and are able to bring her home with us. We realize, like we did the last time around, that anything can happen, but we continue to remain positive that all will work out as it should. After all, that was our attitude throughout Maya's adoption and it was so true. Had it not been for the delays, the temporary halt in the program while we were in process and all other factors, both positive and negative, that affected our first adoption, we never would have had the specific experiences we had, met the people we had or perhaps even have the daughter we now have. It was all meant to be, as was our referral of Baby L.

REFERRAL!!!

Today, Mark and I received our referral for a beautiful baby girl! She is 2 1/2 months old and healthy...and did I mention beautiful?! More later...