Referralversary

One year ago, I was minding my own business. It was my day off and I was in full nesting mode. The project for the day was to shred years of useless paperwork. I made myself a cup of coffee and planned to hang out in my sweats and get cozy with the paper shredder. All was going well and then.....

At 12:53pm the phone rang. I was sitting on the floor with a big bag of shredded paper and jumped up to answer it. I saw on the caller ID that it was from a 651 area code. Was this it?? Could it be??? I went to answer the phone and got all static. I freaked out and ran downstairs to get the other phone but it was too late. By this time I was pretty much hysterical. I was trying to call the number back and then my cell phone rang, and if you haven't guessed yet. It was "the call". The call we had been waiting 11 months, 2 weeks and 1 day for but whose counting :)

I was trying to frantically write down everything my specialist said but got lost after "It's a girl". Thank goodness for email or I would have missed it. I was shaking and crying and saying a lot of uh huhs and okays in between tears. We finally had a name and a story. I got off the phone with my specialist and immediately called my husband. Our specialist had emailed both of us the referral info. We agreed to open it together. And when we did this is what we saw, our baby girl Yewibdar.

Her name means "most beautiful one" in Amharic and we couldn't have agreed more. She was 5 1/2 weeks old and weighed in at 6lbs and was 19.5 inches long. She had so much hair and the tiniest little feet I have ever seen. She still does have these completely adorable tiny little feet. We quickly scanned through all the info but just kept going back to the pictures. There were two. Here is the other one.

I have slept with this exact picture by my bed for a year. It is also prominently shown in our living room. I at that time wondered if she still made that concerned face. She does. I couldn't tell if she was lost, sad, confused, annoyed, mad or something else. Now we get the face when she is overwhelmed.

I can't believe it has been a whole year. So much has changed. I am a mother, my baby girl is fastly becoming a big girl and all the while one thing has never changed. I have never for one second since I saw that sweet face ever doubted that I was in love. My broken road to parenthood was no longer broken as of January 6, 2009. I will never forget where I was, what I was doing or for that matter what I was wearing (my gray sweats and pink AHOPE shirt).

But most importantly, my life changed that day. I had a daughter. A daughter that was half way around the world and I was months away from holding her in my arms. Yet I had two pictures, a name and a story to keep me going. This was a watershed moment in my life.

So today I pause to look back and remember the feelings, the fears, the excitement, the sadness that all came with this one phone call. It wasn't just merely a phone call, it was a door opening to the rest of my life. My daughter is the most precious, beautiful and wonderful gift. A gift I am eternally grateful for and I have no words to adequately express my love for her or for her Ethiopian mother. One phone call and a year later and I wouldn't change a thing.

This time last year

We are rapidly approaching a very special and memorable day for our family so I went back and looked at what I was blogging about last year at this time.

I was a nut case. Certifiable indeed. I had a first class ticket to Crazytown ;). I had totally lost it and become completely consumed by my number on the unofficial list which at this date last year was 8 but number 4 for an infant. I had my cell phone practically glued to me and I cried at the drop of a hat. Yup, totally nuts.

I look back at that and wonder how in the world I will explain it to Kiya. I am not sure I will be able to. My perspective has changed so much since then and yet the anticipation of the phone ringing was all very real. It was this weird paradox of happy and sad. Happy as I was about to realize my dreams and see the face of my child for the first time and sad as I knew someone I hadn't met yet was making the hardest decision of their of life.

There were so many unknowns at this point last year. We were preparing kind of for a child but it still didn't seem real. Christmas time last year I finally let myself splurge a little and buy some baby clothes and a couple toys. Nothing overly special just something more for me to feel like I was about to have a baby.

I was in this surreal place and had recently come to peace with the wait. It took me a long time to come to peace. 9 months plus if I recall correctly. It was tough. Tougher than I thought it would be and at times I didn't handle it well. Simply put I was selfish and didn't always think about what was going on on the other side of the world.

This time last year Kiya was in the care center in Addis Ababa and we didn't even know it, yet. Weird to think about. Weird to now know she even had medical tests done on what we call Christmas. My baby girl was being loved on and waiting to meet her new family. We didn't know who she was but we did know we were ready for her. We were waiting for her to be ready for us. We had a little more waiting to do before she would be known to us.

At this time last year I had no idea that in 9 days my whole world was going to be turned upside down. Instead I stayed glued to my cell phone and prayed and waited and cried and waited and cried so more.

Can we say 3 weeks???

It occurred to me today that we are 3 weeks away from our 12 months of waiting date. 3 weeks??? Can we say starting to freak out a little???? (okay A LOT)

I haven't heard from my specialist in awhile but at last word she had said that the trend was for people to get the call sometime in their 11th month of waiting whether it be 11 months and 1 day or 11 months and 29 days is impossible to predict. I have seen families get the call mere days before they hit the 12 month mark and others who got the call a few weeks before they hit 12 months.

Holy Moly! I can't think of anything else right now but my phone ringing. I have officially lost it. I am certifiable for sure. I want that phone to ring so badly and then in the back of my head I keep hearing what if it doesn't. I know crazy but International Adoption is crazy and anything could happen.

While I try to remain calm, HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone! May 2009 be all that you hope and want it to be. I am sure hoping that 2009 will be one of the greatest years of my life. I could use an awesome year. 2007 was a TERRIBLE year and 2008 was average at best. I am so grateful to all my family and friends for sticking with us through these last two years as rough as they may have been at times. 2009 sure looks to be the year for us and our new family. Fingers crossed for all my buddies at the top of the list may we be so blessed to hear our phone ringing soon from the 651 area code!

EDIT: No sooner did I post this that I got an email from my specialist. She said they are up to dossier dates of 1/10/08 (we are 1/22/08) and that she is pretty hopeful that we won't hit 12 months of waiting. Pretty was her word not mine and she unfortunately gave no hints as to when it might happen but soon. Okay--now I am crying, happy tears of course. I told you I was a mess :)

And then....

So I have been getting some questions about where we are and what happens next so I thought I would try to briefly summarize what exactly we are waiting for and then what happens after that.

We are still #8 on the unofficial list (bring on 2009!!!) and we are waiting for a phone call. This will be a call from our specialist letting us know we have been matched with a baby. She will tell us over the phone some basic info and email us a referral packet that has the same info. Thank goodness for email as I will be jumping up and down and crying so I don't think I would be the best listener. We then have 1 week to decide if we would like to accept the referral.

To break that down. Our specialist is going to call me as I am more readily accessible by phone though she does have our home #, my cell #, my work #, Dave's cell # and Dave's work # just in case. Depending on what time she calls it will depend on how we handle it. If we are lucky and it is my day off and before Dave leaves for work we will both take the call but that is unlikely. So I am expecting to take the call and then call Dave and we can open the email together and see a picture of our beautiful peanut. (As to why we don't conference call, Dave doesn't have an office and is in a VERY open environment with ZERO privacy so it would a lot to handle in front of co-workers, boss, etc).

I then have a list of other people to call which includes family and some dear friends. I have a feeling a lot of my day will be spent on the phone and staring at a picture. These calls are going to take a big leap of faith for me. I have had my heart broken while on this adoption journey but I am telling myself this is different. Something always felt off before, this time it doesn't. God called us to adopt from Ethiopia and in God I must trust. I will celebrate that call with everything I have in me all the while saying prayers for peanut to be healthy and the process to go smoothly. And if you thought I was a basket case before the call, I have a feeling it is only going to get worse but in a good way if that makes sense.

After we get the call, I will email the International Adoption Clinic with our referral packet for medical review. This is just a formality and not a necessity. We don't have any doubt that when we get that call that God was involved. We were supposed to be matched with this child no matter what the test results show but are getting the info reviewed so we know what to look for if anything. From there we officially accept the referral and wait some more for a court date. Court dates are about 2-3 months after referral or so it seems and then birth certificates seem to be taking about 2-3 weeks and then travel 2-3 weeks after that. The timeline says about 12-16 weeks from referral until travel but I think it will be closer to 16 weeks.

Until we pass court I cannot post pictures or names on this blog as the baby is not legally ours yet. I can share pictures privately with family and close friends and trust me the day we pass court a picture will be front and center on this blog. As for a name, that discussion is on hold. We are waiting to see what name was given to our peanut and by whom.

As always, my prayers and thoughts are with you peanut and those looking after you. We are ready for 2009 and more than ready to see your beautiful face.