Brian and I were waiting.... the waiting felt weird and awkward. For months we had been moving quickly through gathering information, getting references, meeting with our social worker and now we had nothing to "do". Our I800a paperwork was submitted and we were waiting for instruction to be fingerprinted (electronically this time), we were waiting for a call from the agency to tell us they found who they thought may be our daughter. Waiting- this was new.
Thursday, March 5th I had a meeting at Brian's store with his Director at 8am. I was running late and in a huge hurry. My phone rang at 7:45, it is not unusual for me to get calls before 8 so I almost didn't answer my phone until I saw the number. I answered the phone in anticipation- it was Marci our social worker. She asked if I was curious as to why she was calling so early. She then proceeded to tell me that they found a match for us and that all of the information they
had should be in our e-mail.
I put my hair into a ponytail, completely bypassed make-up and ran downstairs. I opened up e-mail and started going through the attachments from ASIA. The first attachment- a little girl with a big smile wearing a green shirt. The second attachment- the little girl standing in what looked like a hospital room for physical therapy with the same big smile. The third attachment- the little girl with a red shirt falling off of her shoulder giving a sassy look to the camera with her hair in pigtails and huge eyes that I knew I would struggle with ever having to say "no" to. As soon as I opened that picture I was in love. I quickly went through the rest of the attachments with tears streaming down my face (it sounds like I cry all the time). Medical information, where she was found, age, weight, height... I tried to print the photos unsuccessfully to take them to Brian. Liz (my sister) came in the room to see what on earth I was doing, quickly figured it out and joined me in crying and printing. I ran to Brian's store with information in hand thinking the whole way there about the fact that he proposed to me when I was at work at Starbucks... seems to be a place for good news! When I got there I quickly explained why I was a couple of minutes late and got in line.
Brian was taking orders- when he got to me he asked "the usual?" I said yes and told him that we had been matched. He looked at me for a quick second and asked "matched for what?". I started laughing and told him "a daughter". I paid for my drink and went and put the pictures upside down at the end of the counter for him to look at. I then sat down and talked with the Director for about 45 minutes... the whole time she joined me in the anticipation of watching Brian and waiting for him to turn over the pictures and look. Needless to say neither of us got a ton of work done.
FINALLY Brian was able to grab the photos and come sit down... he started asking questions: B-"how old is she?" (flip over photo one and stare at it) K-"18 months"; B-"what is her name?" (flip over the second photo) K- "I don't know how to say it. It is spelled Z-H-U X-I-A-O
."; B- "What are her special needs?" (flip over photo three) K-"She has a cleft lip and palate and a small hole in her heart that should heal on it's own.". I took one look at his eyes looking at her eyes and knew pending medical consult that this was our daughter. I finished my meeting and took lunch with Brian. We quickly verbalized that this felt right to both of us and made a plan as to how we were going to structure the next 48 hours.
When you are matched with a child many agencies (ours is one of them) "lock" a child for you. What this means is that for 48 hours nobody else can access this child's file. When I say 48 hours I mean 48 hours... needless to say there is a lot to do in that time.
I called my Director, told her that we had been matched and I needed a couple of days off... the response was her yelling to the rest of the team that we had been matched- needless to say I had the next two days off. It turned out to be a good thing too, the agency had warned us that it would be pretty intense- I had no idea. I then looked up the specialist we had been referred to at Doernbecher Childrens Hospital to try to get a consult on the file, and headed over to my doctors office to get a second opinion. As I was leaving my doctors office the specialist called and walked me through the process. I made an appointment for 7pm with the doctor and headed home to send the file. Brian met me at the house and we "rationally" discussed Zhu Xiao being our daughter... who were we kidding- she had us hook, line, and sinker the second we saw her. Seven could not come fast enough. Between waiting our social worker called and walked us through the letter of intent process (you have to submit a letter of intent to China when you are matched with a child that you want to adopt). At about 6pm the specialist called and told us we would need to move the call back to 9pm as the doctor was in surgery. Liz and Jake kept us company while we waited and looked through t
he file and waitied. At 9pm we began the consult... we were moving through a very comprehensive talk about medical challenges, etc when the doctor was called back into surgery... she said she would call back as soon as she was out. We went to bed around 2am.
The next morning she called at 7am. Brian and I finished the call with her by 8am. We were delighted with what the doctor had said. From what she could glean from the file it appeared that Zhu Xiao was healthy other than the special needs and was on track developmentally. It was when we got off of the phone with the doctor that we started calling her Grace. Our daughter.
We spent the rest of the morning writing our letter of intent and sending it off... we had it in by noon and heard back from our social worker. The letter looked great but there was a hang up with the file. Zhu Xiao's file had a stipulation attached to it that you had to have your dossier submitted in order to submit your LOI (letter of intent). WHAT??? She quickly got to work making calls to China to figure out how to manuvre through this. Ultimately the suggestion was submit the LOI and let's hope that it gets approved. We were told that we should hear back by the following Monday. I think Brian and I held our breaths for 3 days. We kept saying things like "if she is meant to be our daughter" and "we shouldn't get attached". Right. We got the call Monday morning- China accepted our LOI. It was official- Grace Zhu Xiao is to be our daughter.
The rest seemed to go quite quickly... our I800a approval was back March 25th, April 22nd our dossier was wired to China, and our LID (log in date- a day all adoptive parents wait for) was May 13th.
This means that China is activly working on the translation of our documents. It also means more waiting. This waiting feels different though. When we buy a little teeny tiny pair of shoes or a pink dress we can see her in it. We have a face, we have a name. As we painted and decorated her room we can see her in it. We can think of those big eyes looking at the stuffed bunny that her niece bought her for Christmas last year. We can send her gifts and pictures for her to have in China. This waiting seems to have an end in sight.
We should get our I800 any time now and the dossier should be approved in about 3 more months. What all of this means is that she should be home by the end of October- who knows, maybe we can pick her up for my birthday.
