The Call

From a mother's perspective, the daddy's still to come. (this is long)

I had just found out on Wednesday night that we were number one on both the boy and the girl list. Now you have to remember that our original waitlist numbers were 38 on the boy list and 55 on the girl list. We were just sure that we would be referred a boy. I mean, numbers don’t lie, right? Well, God had different plans.
Every year Bryan goes to Austin for the state high school basketball tournament. As we watched people finally getting referrals after a long dry spell of no referrals Bryan said, “watch, we’re going to get our call while I’m in Austin”. At that point it still felt like a referral call was never going to happen so, bad timing as that might be, I didn’t ever entertain the thought that it could happen that way. I wished Bryan a safe trip as he left for work Wednesday morning and went on about my day. After work I went home and decided to look at the listserve. One family had received a referral. Great for them, now we’re number … on the list. I went about getting dinner for myself and calling some cousins that I’ve been meaning to call. While talking to S I pulled up the listserve again and looked at the unofficial list that came out the previous Friday. Wait, it says we’re lower on the list than I think we should be. Hmm…must investigate. So I break out my trusty list of every name that is on the list before us and start marking off and counting…wait…it’s right, we are #3 on the girl and the boy list. How exciting. Then I notice a couple new posts to the listserve of referral calls. I go back to marking people off of the list and discover that we are number one on both the boy and the girl list. There was much dancing around the living room (Bryan wasn’t around to point and laugh) and I did actually step outside and scream “we’re number one” into the night. It’s a good thing none of neighbors decided to call the cops on me since it was 10:00 at night.
The next morning (Thursday, March 10) I went to work and announced at our morning meeting that we were number one and that at 10:00 when our agency opened (they’re on pacific coast time) to expect me to be a complete basketcase. However, God grants peace when you need it. It was the most focused day at work I’ve had in a very long time and I was just baffled by how calm I was. The work day was coming to a close and I was helping a customer with an issue they had on their debit card when I heard my phone ring. It was the ringtone I had set for every adoption coordinator at AGCI, “Mighty to Save”. All of a sudden there was a panic that came over me as I told the man I was helping (as he was mid-sentence talking to me) “I’m sorry, but I have to take this, I really have to take this call.” The poor guy didn’t get it and kept trying to talk to me. As I continued to say “I have to take this call” and I reached for my phone, one of my co-workers stepped in and explained to the man why I really couldn’t help him anymore. I answered my phone and T said hello. I sat back down in my chair because I didn’t think I could stand. Meanwhile my co-worker was standing in front of me staring at me saying “is this it”. T continued to say that they were checking on the families to see how we are all handling the uncertainty with the recent Ethiopian Ministry of Women Affairs announcement to decrease adoptions. “Really”, I thought, “you’re really going to call the #1 family to just CHECK ON US?” I slumped back in my chair and waived off my co-worker as I said under my breath that they were just checking on us. Then T continued to say that though there was uncertainty, good things were still happening in the process and there was a child (she did just use the word child) that fit our parameters that she would like to talk to us about. I nervously asked if I needed to get Bryan on the phone and she said “sure, let’s conference him in” to which I (while shrieking) said “he’s in Austin, I have to find him, I’ll call you back”.
45 minutes later I have found Bryan and navigated him by phone through Austin back to his hotel so he could be near a computer. I told Bryan that I’m going to call T back and we’ll conference him in, then I dialed T. All I got was her voicemail. “WHAT!” I thought. So I tried just hanging up and calling back, three times. I decided it might not be appropriate to blow up your adoption case manager’s phone so I just sat and stared at my phone for 15 minutes. Well, it wasn’t patient sitting. There was much complaining about not being able to find out who my child was while I sat and stared. Finally I decide that the bank is closed and Bryan has been navigated to his hotel so there is no reason for me to still be at work. I called the agency main line and asked how long our case manager was going to be. They told me she was on a long call and I probably have time to drive home. I called Bryan back to tell him that it would be a while before T was going to call us back so I was going to go home. As soon as I finished that sentence I heard another call beeping in, I looked down and it was T. I’m sure I yelled in Bryan’s ear as I told him it was time, she was calling. I clicked over, we conferenced Bryan in, and then she said “there is a little GIRL I would like to talk to you about”. Now, I am a note taker. I cannot listen to something without writing and I haven’t mentioned that at this point both of my managers and my co-worker were all crowded in the room taking pictures and recording me on the call. When I wrote down girl in HUGE letters they all started screaming, followed by me motioning for them to be quiet while I tried to keep from smiling and shaking. Then T said the second best thing I’ve ever heard, “she’s nine weeks old”. I have prayed for years to be involved in my child’s life as early as possible and she is only nine weeks old. God has already answered so many prayers in my life, and even though this adoption journey has been hard and long, even the timing of our referral call was not what I had hoped it would be, God’s timing is always perfect and now we have a nine week old daughter. I’m finally a mother. I finally have a face and a name to my daughter that I have prayed to have for so many years. And then I thanked God for Aerin Faith, the daughter I prayed for since I was 14 years old.