Getting "the call" - February 6, 2012

"Are you sitting down?" Jay said on the other end of the receiver.

"No, I'm at Target, and you're supposed to be at class, what's going on?"

"We got a referral."

"Seriously, that is not even a funny joke. That's just plain mean, we just finished our paperwork 1 WEEK ago. I don't find it funny now, and I really won't find this funny in the future. So what's up? Why are you calling?"

"No, seriously, we got a referral. I'm not kidding. Are you ready? I've gotta get back to class.  All I can do is give you their ages and if they are boys/girls and then if you want to learn more, you can call. I'll leave it up to you"

"Wait, is it good? Oh my gosh, I'm in freaking Target here. This is not happening."

"It could be good, I don't know yet. It's not what we expected. That's all."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, there is a boy, he's 4 years old.  Then there's a girl, she's 3 years old. (pause) Then there's another girl, she's 2."

(Silence)

"Kels, hello? You there?"

----

After the world's longest drive home from Target ever, I give our adoption specialist a call.  My mind is whirling. Three? Really?

She then explained very kindly to me that she realized that this referral is a little different than maybe we had expected. If we felt we weren't interested in learning more we could say "no" at any point in the conversation. Then she asked if I wanted to learn more.

Yes.  (Had I lost my mind?)

The cliff's note version of our conversation is these kiddos are healthy, biological siblings looking for someone to be their mom and dad. Did I want to see their file?

Yes. (Okay, now I've really gone mad.)

I opened the email and I unzipped the file on my desktop, and there. they. were. As soon as I saw them, I recognized their faces.

6 months earlier, these exact 3 faces caused the wheels to set in motion for our adoption. I saw them on a website advocating for "waiting children" - in other words, children with special needs that have a harder time getting adopted.  What was their special need? That they were siblings, and they needed to be kept together. 

I called about 5 friends that day, and told them all about them. I even sent them the link to their website so they could see their faces.  I looked back on an email and I to one of them and wrote,

I know this might sound crazy, but I want to be their mama. I think I'm ready to adopt.

I picked up the phone that day back in July and for the first time called some agencies, asked some questions.  A month later, we officially decided to adopt, and because of those three children, our children, both Jay and I felt very strongly like we wanted to adopt siblings.

In case you're unfamiliar with the international adoption world, which I had been until we started this journey, I wasn't able to just say call when we decided to adopt and say, "I want those kids".  It's a lengthy process involving many hoops and jumps and hurdles.

So although I thought "those three" would play a special part in our journey because they led us to adopt, I never in a million years imagined they would be our referral.

After looking at their pictures over and over again in utter disbelief, I got a text from Jay.
J: What do you think? 
K: We can't text about this, we have to talk in person.
J: Everything okay?
K: Yes, this is just unbelievable.

Do you know that there are over 750,000 orphans in Russia? That the chances of these children being our referral are close to one in a million? I don't think God could have been any more obvious with us here. 

Later that night, Jay got the 20 minutes-without-taking-a-breath version of the night's events which ended in me revealing just exactly who our referral was. 
"It's them," I said.
"It's them," he said, "Those are our kids."