the call

If you are one of the three people who actually reads this blog you may recall how I was recently wondering what day will be "the day" for the big call, and how it was strange wondering when it would come.  Well, as it turns out it was that very day, only an hour or so after I posted that entry!

Before I go into all of the details of what happened I will share with you what you really want, the pictures.  So here she is, our amazing daughter Mae.

I just want to scoop her up and hug her! 

I can stare at this one all day!  

John loved that she is on the same rug that we have!  

Isn't she the cutest!!  We feel like the luckiest people in the entire world and we can't believe we will have the privilege of being her parents! The boys are so happy and excited. Andrew wants to go get her now!  I like his thinking!

Her full name will be Mary Laura Xiaoyu, but we will call her Mae. She will turn two in October (another fall baby!). She lives in Southeastern China in Dungguan City. It is located between Hong Kong and Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton). She was born missing her right thumb and her right arm is shorter than her left.  We feel blessed that we live in Dallas, which is also the home to Scottish Rite Hospital, one of the premier hospitals for pediatric orthopedics. She is tiny, even for Chinese standards, so I can't wait to see her next to Grant, our giant. She is, "active, restless, and easy to get along well" and she, "likes lying on other kid's back, does not like covering the quilt on herself, does not feel happy if not sleep well [sic]." I love it!  She will fit in perfectly with our crazy crew!  

So now that you have seen the good stuff, I will explain how she became our daughter.

It was a rainy day here and we actually had absolutely nothing on the agenda (thank goodness)!  I was writing and enjoying my yummy creamy coffee and the kids were playing in the house.  Then, at 12:01 a call came through.  I was in my room when the home phone rang.  The caller id said, "Lifeline" which is the name of our adoption agency.  My heart stopped.  Is this really it??  This can't be it!  There is really only one reason why my agency would call me during this time in the process, as most things can be done over e-mail.  I couldn't believe this was it!

With my heart racing I picked up the phone and it was our wonderful social worker Anna.  She then said the sweet words that every adoptive parent longs to hear, "We have a referral for you."  Total Shock!  I had already convinced myself that we would be waiting until the fall before we got a referral, so this was completely unexpected.

She briefly described the little girl for us and told me she would e-mail me her file and a couple of videos.  She said that the girl's file had been locked off the shared list and that we had until late tomorrow night to decide.  What!?!  My head was spinning now!  Oh boy, was this a lot to process!  I called Joe immediately and told him to sit down because we had a referral.  He didn't believe it either.

Excitedly, we both jumped in front of our computers and waited for the file to come through.  It felt like the longest minute of my life, but finally an e-mail from Anna popped up and we saw Miss Mae's little face for the very first time!  Oh. My. Word. She is so stinkin' cute!   We looked over the file and both of us realized that this could be it.  This could be our daughter!  We quickly e-mailed Anna and told her that we were really really interested, and that we were going to try to get some doctors to review her file for us ASAP.

We contacted the Dallas International Adoption Clinic to review the file and get back to us.  Shortly after they got all of the information they told us that they could talk to us the next afternoon.  This was great, but it freaked me out a bit, since that would only leave us with a few hours to decide after we talked with them.  I hurriedly contacted another doctor in Michigan to look over the file.  I knew that she usually looked at files overnight and then contacted parents first thing in the morning.  I know it was only a few hours difference, but I felt like we needed information as soon as possible, and it couldn't hurt to get a second opinion.

All the while we were falling in love with her, and realized that unless we heard something really scary, she was probably our daughter.  I think I watched the videos 100 times that day and looked at the pictures and her file every 5 minutes.  That night we prayed for guidance, we researched as much as we could about her condition, and we filled out more paperwork in case we proceeded with the adoption.  It was not the most restful of nights.

The next morning Joe had an early dentist appointment so he was not home.  Around 9 a..m. the doctor from Michigan called to go over the file.  We talked for about 30 minutes and for the most part she said our daughter looked healthy.  There were a few things that we should check up on, but there were no red flags.  HUGE relief!  I mean let's be honest, we were already in love.

When Joe got home from his appointment I went over everything the doctor said and we both agreed that unless the Dallas doctors give us horrible news, this is our daughter.  We e-mailed Anna, our social worker, and let her know that we were almost certainly going to submit LOI for this little girl.

A few minutes later Anna called the house.  She told us that with the new computer system (China instituted a new system in June) there have been some kinks and she wanted to talk to us before we heard anything from anyone else about the problems.  Huh?  She said that when Lifeline went in that morning to look at the files that they had locked for families there were some that had disappeared.  Apparently, more than one agency was able to lock a child's file with the new computer system.  This meant that multiple families were falling in love with the same children.  My heart stopped at this news.  I couldn't believe our file may be lost and that some other family might have her.  Anna continued to say that 2 families files had not disappeared, and that we were one of those families. With this news the tears just started rolling down my cheeks.  If I had ever wanted a "sign" that this was our daughter it was this news.  The prospect of having lost her file was devastating and made me realize that I did not want to give it up.  To be fair to Anna I am sure she said something in the beginning of the call to reassure us that we could move forward, but my brain did not processes that, causing me to have the moment when I did not know whether we had her file or not.

My heart really goes out to those families that this happened to.  I can't imagine if we had been told that another family locked her file first, and that we could no longer submit LOI.  Complete heartbreak.  I pray that those families find their children very soon, and that it was all for the best in the long run.

Later that day we did talk to the doctors at the Dallas International Adoption Clinic.  They agreed that for the most part she looks healthy and that there were no red flags.  Our talk with them was long and informative.  We were very impressed with how thorough they were.  They sent her file to doctors at Scottish Rite to review who said that she looked like a candidate for some possible procedures.  Oh my, we were so excited!

Just after we got off the phone we called Anna together to tell her we were ready to send in our LOI for Mae!  I really can't describe how happy we are. The more and more we think about her the more we have to pinch ourselves!