WE GOT THE CALL!
Well, this all started in the middles of July. We met with Darlene (our adoption worker, AW for short) to discuss our child desired form and to reconsider some of the things that we were and were not open to accepting. At that meeting she told us that our home study had been pulled for a two-year-old native girl named Brandy. Of course Paul and I were excited but holding our breath, apparently we were one of fifteen studies pulled and in the second batch of studies pulled, apparently another fifteen or so pulled previously! Truthfully I was not very hopeful. Why would we be chosen when he has turned away so many already? We waited and waited and did not hear a thing until the beginning of September when Darlene phoned to tell us that we were one of the final five! Holy Crap! She told us the research Williams Syndrome which is the disorder that Brandy has (along with FASD), that David (her AW) wanted the prospective families to understand fully what the issues are before they agreed to proceed. Well, Paul and I sent the boys to the cabin for a weekend and spent a great amount of time researching, learning, talking and praying about our decision and on September 12th we told Darlene that we wanted to proceed. Again, we waited and worried, with no news I was beginning to feel discouraged. On October 6th I finally sent Darlene an email asking her the status of the situation and on October 7th we found out that we were one of three! We waited another 12 days before hearing anything else when Darlene emailed to say that we were in the final two! I really didn't know what to do so I sent an urgent plea for my friends on Facebook to pray, chant, keep their fingers and toes crossed, whatever they could do to help us. 27 people either commented or liked my status that day and I could feel the outpouring of love and hope from our friends and family. It is hard feeling so powerless, knowing that other people hold your future in their hands but the love of my friends and family helped keep me faithful. At this point we still know nothing about Brandy other than her age, her ethnicity and her disorder, but we were still so very hopeful and excited.
On October 28th (my sweet Bailey's birthday) we got the call! We were chosen to be Brandy's forever family! Words cannot express the feeling in my heart. I actually did a little dance in the kitchen and sang "we got Brandy" (which was a really bad version of We Got Annie, from the musical Annie). First I called Paul who happened to be in Edson with his family, I so badly wanted to hug him and him being so far away was torture, we did it after all, we succeeded, they chose us! Then I called Amber and finally let the tears of relief out, followed by a call to my dad, Christine and Andrea...all of the people that I needed to talk to and not have them just read it on Facebook. In fact because Paul was with Marina in Edson, she found out and had it on Facebook before I did! I want to be able to describe what I was feeling, I wish that I could put it into words. I know that I was feeling profound gratitude to God and the universe for making it happen. I also know that I was feeling excited and apprehensive at the same time, it was too good to be true. It was a beautiful mix of emotions, not unlike when I found out I was pregnant with Marcus. I think I said Holy Shit about a hundred times. Later that night, with Paul still out of town the boys and I went to babysit Hailey and Isabelle. I watched as the boys, each in their own way interacted with the girls, my heart was swollen with pride. Noah bathed Isabelle all by himself! I wanted so badly to tell them but could not, that after all is whole family discussion, we needed to wait for Paul. The next morning we gathered around the kitchen table and we told the boys. Marcus and Noah both asked for locks on their doors! Noah wanted to know more about her special needs and Marcus just said "its about time". Obviously they had already known that Brandy would be ours. In fact Noah said that he didn't know what I was so nervous about in the first place, of course they would choose us.
So, today is the fifteenth of November and we are still waiting. We don't know much more about he other than her birthday is March 24th, 2009. She is the youngest of eight, she has been in the same foster home since birth and she is in Calgary. There have been many phone calls back and forth between us and Darlene and she is always reminding us to be patient. The powers that be had a meeting last week and approved all of our and Brandy's paperwork, now Calgary people and Edmonton people have to agree that we are in fact the best match for each other. Once that is done we will have our information sharing meeting where we will get to know every detail about Brandy. Then we will meet her for the first time. We are hoping to be able to have her home for Christmas. I have been going stir crazy wanting to set up her room and buy her clothes but even that we have to wait until we know what size she will be in. We don't know anything...is she in a bed or a crib? does she still use a highchair? what does she play with?
So that is where we sit. Knowing that we are going to have our little girl but not knowing when. If you count from the time that we started this process until now you could say that we have been pregnant for fifteen months!
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