The Party's Over! (the Pity Party, that is)

On Friday, October 3, after over 11 months of waiting, we received a referral for our baby!

She is 3 months old and, in our humble opinion, beautiful! We are so excited to share her photo, but we need to wait until a few more steps in the adoption process are completed. Until then I'll just say big brown eyes and a darling, expressive little face.

The call
I was at work when the call came from our social worker, just before 4pm. I didn't recognize the phone number but assumed it was Ethan making his usual "can you pick me up so I don't have to take the activity bus" call from a friend's cell phone. It didn't even cross my mind that it might be Children's Home Society. It was late on a Friday afternoon, so I had given up hope of a referral for the week and emptied my head of all adoption-related thoughts (and most other types of thoughts, too). When I realized it was The Call, my hands started shaking and I could hardly speak a sentence. After our social worker read through the report, she asked me if I had any questions. I just said, "No, no... I can't even think straight. I'm just stupid right now." (Stupid in a good way).

While I was on the phone with our social worker I one-finger typed an e-mail to Randy ("i'm on phon w angie we have referral!") Strangely, he didn't respond to this articulate message. I suspected that he may have just keeled over on the spot, or possibly he was on all fours hyperventilating. I dialed him with my shaky fingers as soon as I hung up with our social worker. He sounded normal when he answered and began to tell me about e-mail server problems. I interrupted. "I just e-mailed you that we got a referral!" That's when he started hyperventilating (well, mentally at least).

We both left work early and met at home to look over our baby's referral paperwork, and see a picture of her for the first time. Seeing her face was both exciting and surreal. (It still is).

The rest of that evening was filled with merriment and joy, as Randy and I danced to the music in our hearts.


And if our joy that evening had a bit of a "deer-in-the headlights" feel to it? That's to be expected, right?