the "we didn't think we would have a referral yet" story

After 15 plus months on the waitlist and about 20 months since filing the first piece of paper in connection with this adoption, I didn't think I could possibly be writing a post saying that we received our referral when we weren't really waiting for it. After all, when we started this adoption, we had every reason to believe we would already be home with our little girl by now.

But that's the truth.

I mean we were waiting. And waiting is pretty much all we were doing. But we were not waiting in that anxious, never let the your phone leave your side, jump every time the phone rings... way.

We were mostly waiting for time to pass, for families who had been waiting for a referral even longer than we had to receive their calls, for October to end and November to begin so that we could really be waiting for "the call." (okay, in fairness, Ryan was slightly more optimistic and chose to believe that we might get our call around Halloween, but he certainly wasn't making any bets on it).

So on Friday, after a really hard week at work and a particularly long morning (I had moved to a new office the night before and came into the building to find I had no access to my new floor and no key to unlock the door to my new office... and then I had to run to make a 2 hour presentation before I was able to sort that out...), when a call from a number I did not recognize came in on my work phone as I was getting my things together to go out and grab lunch, I almost let it go to voicemail. The infamous "817" area code meant nothing to me and I was really needing a break before jumping into another matter. But something made me answer the phone anyway.

And then I heard a lovely voice say "Hi Meredith, it's Sara from Gladney."

I said "Hi Sara, how are you?" No excitement. No thought that this was "the call." No heart beating out of my chest at the sound of her voice, not even a tiny burst of hope entering my mind. No thought that anything special might be happening even though she's never really needed to call me before.

And then she said, "I'm great. I have your referral." (or something like that - I admit my memory starts to get a little fuzzy at this point)

Although I know that I very calmly (and somewhat strangely) replied "No, you don't," and in some weird alternate realty thought she must be joking - in the moment, that made more sense to me than this being our referral call.

And then it started getting a little crazy.

You see, when we were waiting for Simon's referral, we had a plan. We had agreed on the fact that if one of us got the call, we would immediately track down the other (which wouldn't be difficult because we pretty much compared schedules at the beginning of every day to make sure we would be able to find the other if need be) and we'd both go home to hear the details and open pictures. We were going to be together no matter what. Because we were WAITING!

(And I know this sounds a little weird, given that we only waited about 5 months for Simon's referral. (How crazy is that???) When we started his process, families were getting referrals after 3-4 months, so the extra time was so, so emotional. Lately, many families have been waiting more than 16 months for a referral, so at 15 months, we thought we still had a little while to go....)

We never talked about a referral protocol this time. But as the reality of the call was quickly settling in for me, all I knew was that I needed to get Ryan on the phone and that we probably weren't going to wait to be together for the details. Ryan was running to a class he teaches on Friday afternoons and had a going away party for a colleague after work. It would be hours before we could be together. So this was going to happen... now.

I managed to catch Ryan in transit from his office to the classroom and Sara gave us details while Ryan walked and tried to simultaneously listen and open pictures on his iPhone and I sat at my desk staring at pictures of a little girl with enormous brown eyes.

Amazing.

The call probably only lasted about 15 minutes. Maybe less. Ryan was in a complete rush (I have no idea how he managed to walk into his classroom and hold it together enough to teach) and there was so much to absorb.... we took 30 seconds to agree that we would tell our parents, but no one else until we had time to speak again and actually take everything in. And then he hung up. The silence and loneliness of that moment was eerie....

I couldn't believe that I had to be in my office for about 4 more hours... bursting at the seams to scream and tell everyone the news, but knowing I had to keep things to myself for a little while longer. Oh and maybe trying to get some work done too.

But we survived. The fact that I was in a state of shock for most of the afternoon probably helped. And the champagne we opened when we got home definitely did!

We are still taking it all in. Gearing up for the next wait: the wait for a court date. It could still be 2 months before we are assigned a court date - which could be another month or more after that.

We will travel to Ethiopia for the court date and will have the opportunity to meet our little girl. We may or may not pass court (i.e. be legally named her parents) on that visit. And either way, we will have to return home without her. After we return home, any further hearings or documents required for the courts to approve our adoption and close our case (if any) will happen while we are back home.

Once the court finally does approve our case, we will then wait again, this time for the US Embassy to review our case and provide the paperwork we need to bring her home (maybe another 1-2 months). Then, when we finally have the okay from the Embassy, we can return to Ethiopia to take placement of our little girl.

Bottom line... now we are waiting again.

a very good update

For weeks I've been meaning to update this blog... and I actually had the content of several pretty good posts in my head. But then Gladney went and called us with a referral today and, well, my mind just started spinning and all those ideas for a post just sort of stopped making sense... and so instead, here I am to let you know that today we got to see photos of a beautiful 8 month old girl with enormous brown eyes... and we hope that she can join our family soon!

pictures!

www.onetruemedia.com

rants and raves

Hello Blog (and blog readers - if there still are any left)!!

Given that it's been about one month since my last post -and a busy one too - I have no idea how to even begin writing a post to catch up.... As always seems to be the case, I've got a million thoughts and ideas floating around in my head, but not so much the [insert one: time/ patience/ words/ patience] to get it all out. So bear with me for a short-hand version of an update post, in the form of rants and raves (by the way, I feel like have I done this before, but I do not have the [insert one: time/ patience] to look back to be sure... at the very least, I'm pretty sure I've thought about it).

So here we go:

Rave: (why not start on a high note?)
In the month since I last posted, we've celebrated a number of milestones and events: my birthday, 13 months on the waitlist (now inching towards 14); the 3rd anniversary of the date the Ethiopian courts declared that we were a family....

Rant:
We never thought we'd get to 13 months (not to mention 14 and probably 15) on the waitlist for a referral.

Rave:
The adoption process seems to be slowly settling into a new normal. Things are so different than they were when we adopted Simon... and even from the day in Feb. 2010 when we started the paperwork for adoption round 2, but after a period of a lot of uncertainty and heightened emotions and fears, we finally feel like we can see the end in sight (and maybe even have an idea of when that might be - give or take a few months).

Rant:
Famine in East Africa. And the fact that it does not get the world attention it needs. Please educate yourself. And please help if you can.

Rave:
It's Summer time! Okay, technically this happened longer than one month ago, but it finally feels like Summer. And that is a very good thing!

Rant:
Paperwork revisited. It's happening. Our adoption paperwork is expiring and we have to start redoing things. Already down: doctors appointments and CIS fingerprints; yet to come: homestudy visit (and all accompanying documents), updated CIS approval.... Ugh.

Rave:
Having a three and a half year old. Challenging: yes. But so much fun. The things he says and does are endlessly entertaining - and completely fill my heart.

Rant:
Having a three and a half year old who has more energy than I ever did (e.g. during pre-bed storytime last night, he looked at me, jumped out of bed and said, "I have to dance" and then he did just that). Exhausting!!

ps Rave:
Pictures! I have many from this summer. They are coming. Soon.

on this day...

...three years ago, we received the greatest call of our lives and opened an email to see this face:



we couldn't take our eyes off of him then... and we still can't today. it's been a wild ride since that afternoon, and we suspect it will be getting even crazier. but this smile will keep us going through it all.