Referral Anniversary - Year 1

One year ago I got a phone call that changed my life! OH how I remember the day so clearly. I knew AWAA had gotten a list and knew that I had been waiting almost a year on a SN referral. While I had thought we would get a call in April with that list, I was thinking that we might not with this list. I don't know why, but perhaps I was guarding my heart. I was in email contact with a friend and I told her I had such peace this time. I really did.

The early morning of Tuesday June 26th, my family coordinator called. I thought, "OH boy is this is?! I don't want to think it is...let me chit chat about small talk so I can prolong this amazing suspense." See, I hate to hear bad news and I just knew she was NOT calling with a referral. I had not seen anyone else post referral info so I did not know they were making calls.

She told me, "I want to go over your SN medical checklist to see if things are still the same."

I had not heard that this was normal for the referral call, so I thought "Okay, not the referral but perhaps they are going to be matching and I *might* have a chance."

She continued, "You have heart conditions marked, is that still a Yes?"

OH yes ma'am it was! I told her we were okay with that. That I knew I had confused them with the constant moving of things from Maybe to Yes, but that Dh only wanted things marked yes that we were most likely to accept the referral and the maybe answers were the ones we would consider but would have to review the file some.

She then said, "I am actually calling you about a little girl that I think will be a perfect match for your family. Do you want to hear about her?"

*silence*

I finally responded, "OH YES!!!!!!"

"Well, she's currently 10.5 months old." *I think the tears started here.* "She has a heart condition, actually the paperwork says 3." *My heart and stomach fell out from under me at this point.* "It looks like, from reading through the paperwork that one of the conditions has resolved itself. In April or May, it's hard to tell which, it looks like she weighed X and was Y tall. She really cute and looks very healthy. She's from the Yunnan Province at Kunming CWI. The paperwork says she's at the orphanage in one part and then mentions she's very attached to her foster Mom. So, I'm not sure if she's in foster care or the orphanage. Do you want to review the electronic information?"

"yes." very timid answer as the 3 heart conditions scared me a little. "Remember do not send the photos as we do not want to see the photos until we are sure we are going forward with adopting her."

I stayed on the line with her to make sure I got the email, and the attachment. All 14 pages of the attachment.

It was roughly 10am. I got online and looked up heart conditions online, I tried to decipher what the paperwork was saying the heart conditions were. I had a friend I could call whose son has a heart condition, and she had told me to contact her if I had questions about a referral of a child. I called her, and she excitedly helped me figure out what the paperwork was saying. She then sent an email to the nurse she deals with the most in her son's care asking if I could email the file to her for her advice (pediatric cardiac nurse of something or other....I just needed to KNOW what the conditions were and where to research). As I was reading her the description of Katie's personality, my friend told me "It sounds like you already love her." I did. I didn't need a photo to fall in love, I did that with the description.

So, I get the file sent off to the nurse, but I am thinking I might know what the conditions are - given possible translation issues. I was feeling LESS nervous about these conditions. I did not, however, have enough info to call Dh at work and tell him about her and explain the conditions.

I called the pediatricians office, and had to go through the phone tree to get to the nurse for our pediatrician. She was thrilled for us and went to get the doctor as quickly as she could (asking if I could stay on the line). *You betcha I could!* He got on, and I gave him the bare details...and then I told him I had it in email format. He got excited and asked if I could send it to him and he would look at it as soon as he possibly could. (It's a rather busy practice, so I knew it could be a little while). I thanked him, and sent it. I told him the 3 conditions, and he felt that it was translation issues and confirmed what I was thinking. He said one did sound closed (not surprising), one was something he would consider "normal finding," and the 3rd is our only issue. He thought, from the sounds of things without looking at the file yet, that it was a PDA. He said that MANY people have this, the question would be how severe and we really would not know that until we got her home.

Less than 5 minutes later I got the response from the nurse and she confirmed what I had thought and what the pediatrician had thought. It was enough for me to get the website URLs that explained it good enough terms for my Dh. I called him. It was around 12:15, and I really hoped he had the ability to go to his office!

He reacted much the same as I did, and he too fell a little in love with the description. He was concerned about the 3 different conditions, and what all that meant. I told him the pediatrician was looking at the file and was going to call me back, but that from talking with him he seemed to think this was minor. I also told him that AWAA needed to know fairly quickly if we wanted the paper file or not. I had to explain that getting the paper file did not mean we were sending an LOI in, but that it meant we were SERIOUSLY considering this. I then mentioned that the faster we got the LOI in, the better of a chance we would have to travel before October and the trade fairs IF we thought this was our daughter. He asked me if I had seen the photos. *boy does he know me well* I told him I had AWAA hold them, but we could request them at any point. He told me to wait as he wanted to research things a little bit, and wanted to hear back from the pediatrician. I gave him a deadline of 2pm.

*I actually had to take the kids to karate and NOT say anything to anyone. I was surprised they didn't see my sparkling happy eyes, my inability to SIT STILL!*

1:45pm our family coordinator called to ask if we wanted the paper file to be sent to us or not. That the Fed Ex pick up was quickly approaching. :) I asked what the next steps were if we moved forward, what did I need to do, what did I have to write, etc. I told her I really thought we were going to accept her, but I was waiting on Dh to give the final say so. I then made her talk to me about those photos. OH how I was dying to see her face!!! While on the phone Dh called, said he would really like to wait to hear back from the pediatrician, but he too thought we'd move forward so go ahead and request the file. I asked him, "can I request the photo as well?" He told me that while he wanted to wait until we were LOI to see the photos, that he thought we had already fallen in love with the description so what was the point in waiting NOW! ;) I love that man! LOL I hung up with him, told our coordinator to send the paper file, WITH the photos. She asked if I wanted the photos emailed to me or did I just want to wait until the next morning to get them in the paper file.

*silence*

"SEND THEM NOW!!!!!"

I get an email from her with the subject XI XIAO LAN and I see the attachment marking. I thanked her, told her I saw the email and saw it had attachments but I was not going to open it until Dh got home from work so we could see her face together. The family coordinator laughed with me, then hung up the phone.

*I sat and STARED at that email in my inbox....for HOURS.*

Pediatrician called back and said "She sounds REALLY good on paper. It is what we thought it is." I told him a friends cardiac nurse agreed. I asked if we should have it reviewed by a cardiologist, and he said we could but he didn't feel like we had to as this was a minor condition. *tears again* I thanked him, and told him I could send photos after I saw them with Dh. He wanted to see them as well, so I told him to expect them that evening! :)

Sometime in here I actually managed to feed my kids lunch, eat lunch myself, and get dressed. I emailed the friend I had been in contact with and asked for prayers and positive thoughts...and was told she did not get a call yet. My heart was so sad for her.

4:30pm Dh comes in the door. I look at him, and then we RACE up the stairs to my computer to open the email. This was the first photo we saw:


My first reaction, "LOOK AT HER HAIR!"

It was true. Dh's as well. Then, "Oh she is cute!!! and so healthy looking!" Then I said, "She looks Centauri." Dh laughed. *We're big Sci-Fi fans, and the hair reminded us of the characters on one of our favorite shows.*

We then opened the other two, and fell even more in love than we already were. I was ready to LEAVE right then and there to get her.



We made the decision that night. She's ours. Our paperwork was signed and Fed-ex'd back to AWAA Wednesday night, they got it Thursday...and we were LOI (errr...EA which was the new electronic acceptance) on Friday June 29, 2008.

Over the next couple of weeks I stared at those photos so much, then I got a surpise of 2 more photos that were more recent (and my heart turned over and I knew I would do anything for her). I stared at my photos (and printed a TON out to give to people) for weeks...then months...the full 125 days until LOA/RA, then the 25 days to TA, then the 10 days until we left for China. It was 167 from the time we first saw her face until we held her in our arms. It went so incredibly slowly.

Here is Katie, with her "referral" photo.
(taken yesterday, because I was not sure if I would get a chance today or not...it's a busy day)