Sunday, June 26, 2011
T-shirts Still Available
We still have about 40 t-shirts left, including lots of kids sizes. If you'd like one, send me an email (or leave a comment here) and I'll check for the sizes you need. We are selling them now for $10 so please don't order off the blog.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Our Referral Call
We got our referral call Thursday, June 23 right around 3 p.m. after 12 1/2 months on our waitlist. I knew we were getting close, because the family in front of us called the day before to tell us they had just received their referral and we knew our agency's orphanage had lots of babies going home recently and that there had to be more referrals coming.
I had a homeschool co-op meeting at a park about 20 minutes away yesterday and brought my laptop just in case. About 45 minutes into our meeting my phone rang and I recognized the area code. It wasn't the phone number I thought she'd call from so my "special" ring tone didn't happen. But I casually looked down at my phone, saw the number and knew what it was. I squeezed the arm of the mama next to me and told all three of my friends this is my referral call. I could barely hear Brandi, but I think the first thing I said was something like, "Are you calling me about a referral?" I was sweating, shaking, and so nervous. I tried to write down her name, age, etc., but could barely do it. I told her that I'd have to call Scott to come home and go home myself to call her back. I hung up and then I almost lost it. I remembered that all three of the other mothers sitting with me are also adoptive mothers and understood exactly what I was feeling.
A long drive home. Once we got home, we had to crank up the generator, because our power had been our for about 40 hours at that point from a bad storm on Tuesday night. So we got it going, turned on the computer, plugged a fan into the generator, because our AC was also out and the house was really hot. We set up our video camera to record our conversation. We called Brandi back and she went over all the paperwork with us first. We found out her name, age/DOB, weight, length, medical information, personal history, etc. That all took about 45-50 minutes. Then we had to wait about ten minutes for the next email which contained all her pictures. We stayed busy those ten minutes putting clean sheets on the beds and picking up the house. Of course, I checked my computer several times while we waited.
The email came through and we got to see about 9 pictures of our little girl. Next we were off to Walmart to get them printed and buy me a new phone charger. Mine got lost and my phone was dead. I had lots of numbers in it of people I needed to call. We printed pictures and then went to Target to get a charger. I plugged it into the car and starting making phone calls. We ate supper out and came home and started our paperwork and emailed our file to an international pediatrician to review. Our power came back on around 7 and we were so thankful to have it back on. While I was up still at 1:30 am working on paperwork a really bad storm rolled through and our whole family ended up in our basement bathroom waiting it out along with the computer and our adoption binders and paperwork. I ended up getting to bed around 2 am.
This morning I still hadn't heard from our doctor, so I emailed our information to another doctor and got busy with more paperwork. I met up with our social worker to have her sign her form, came home and jumped into the car with Scott to find a notary. Four banks and one UPS store later, we found a bank that would help us. We forgot one piece of paper at home and she actually met us on her way home from work with her stamp to notarize that document. Still waiting on our pediatrician review. Once that is done, we'll Fedex it all back to our agency and let them know Monday that we're ready to proceed. Then our agency will contact the courts in Ethiopia and get the ball rolling there. We probably won't travel until October. Their courts usually close for about two months beginning in August. Our best case scenario would be to have her in November.
In many ways, this wait has been a really long one, but we know now why we waited. We waited for her. We think she's beautiful, but you'll have to trust us on that one. We can't share pictures until she is home.
I had a homeschool co-op meeting at a park about 20 minutes away yesterday and brought my laptop just in case. About 45 minutes into our meeting my phone rang and I recognized the area code. It wasn't the phone number I thought she'd call from so my "special" ring tone didn't happen. But I casually looked down at my phone, saw the number and knew what it was. I squeezed the arm of the mama next to me and told all three of my friends this is my referral call. I could barely hear Brandi, but I think the first thing I said was something like, "Are you calling me about a referral?" I was sweating, shaking, and so nervous. I tried to write down her name, age, etc., but could barely do it. I told her that I'd have to call Scott to come home and go home myself to call her back. I hung up and then I almost lost it. I remembered that all three of the other mothers sitting with me are also adoptive mothers and understood exactly what I was feeling.
A long drive home. Once we got home, we had to crank up the generator, because our power had been our for about 40 hours at that point from a bad storm on Tuesday night. So we got it going, turned on the computer, plugged a fan into the generator, because our AC was also out and the house was really hot. We set up our video camera to record our conversation. We called Brandi back and she went over all the paperwork with us first. We found out her name, age/DOB, weight, length, medical information, personal history, etc. That all took about 45-50 minutes. Then we had to wait about ten minutes for the next email which contained all her pictures. We stayed busy those ten minutes putting clean sheets on the beds and picking up the house. Of course, I checked my computer several times while we waited.
The email came through and we got to see about 9 pictures of our little girl. Next we were off to Walmart to get them printed and buy me a new phone charger. Mine got lost and my phone was dead. I had lots of numbers in it of people I needed to call. We printed pictures and then went to Target to get a charger. I plugged it into the car and starting making phone calls. We ate supper out and came home and started our paperwork and emailed our file to an international pediatrician to review. Our power came back on around 7 and we were so thankful to have it back on. While I was up still at 1:30 am working on paperwork a really bad storm rolled through and our whole family ended up in our basement bathroom waiting it out along with the computer and our adoption binders and paperwork. I ended up getting to bed around 2 am.
This morning I still hadn't heard from our doctor, so I emailed our information to another doctor and got busy with more paperwork. I met up with our social worker to have her sign her form, came home and jumped into the car with Scott to find a notary. Four banks and one UPS store later, we found a bank that would help us. We forgot one piece of paper at home and she actually met us on her way home from work with her stamp to notarize that document. Still waiting on our pediatrician review. Once that is done, we'll Fedex it all back to our agency and let them know Monday that we're ready to proceed. Then our agency will contact the courts in Ethiopia and get the ball rolling there. We probably won't travel until October. Their courts usually close for about two months beginning in August. Our best case scenario would be to have her in November.
In many ways, this wait has been a really long one, but we know now why we waited. We waited for her. We think she's beautiful, but you'll have to trust us on that one. We can't share pictures until she is home.
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