The Road to Caleb (part two)

After almost four months of often wondering how long it would be until we had news from China, we got a different phone call that shook me greatly. On the first Wednesday in June, Ian had a phone conference with someone high in his management chain and found out that at the beginning of August he would be affected by his company's 7% workforce reduction. After the phone call Ian very calmly came out of his office and gave me the news. And my reaction was panic, not over our potential financial situation, but how it would affect our family of four. Even though only three of us were currently living in our house, we already considered ourselves a family of four. And at that moment I realized that the CCAA wasn't going to be interested in approving us to adopt a child if neither of us was employed. Ian gave me a minute to cry and then assured me that he would start looking for a new job immediately. Besides, we didn't know how long it would be before we heard from China anyway. I felt that if he was calm then I had no choice to be calm also. It was (and still is) like, "Do you know how big our God is?"

News of Caleb came in the very next Wednesday. I dreamed Tuesday night that AWAA posted on their blog that 100 new shared referrals came in. (Shared referrals are those that the CCAA makes available to all agencies with a Waiting Child program. It is helping many children find families more quickly, but it is scary for families hoping to adopt because you never know if someone at another agency is reviewing the same file...) The dream was so vivid that Wednesday morning I went to my computer to see if I had read it the day before. No news, so I headed to my mom's to do some yard work for her for an upcoming family reunion. I had gotten to the end of my street when I realized that I'd forgotten my cell phone and was going to go on, but a voice in my head said that I needed to come back in case Nicole (our Family Coordinator) called. I almost had an argument with the voice, but decided to go ahead and turn around. Then halfway to Mom's I heard the voice again saying, "Turn the ringer on high." I almost argued with the voice again, but I did end up turning the ringer on high. And when I finally got to my mom's I heard the voice yet again say, "Carry the phone around with you." At that point I shut the voice out of my mind because I knew I was going to get dirty moving mulch and weeding the flower beds. Imagine my surprise when I got back in the car to go buy more mulch and saw that I had a new voice mail. I checked to see if the missed call was Ian (because he was in the mountains for the day helping get one of the camps ready for CCC) and saw it was a 703 number. And before I listened to the message I knew that the voice in my head had been God prompting and that AWAA had called. Sure enough it was a message from Nicole saying, "Hi Kristi, This is Nicole from America World. I was just calling to touch base with you. Give me a call back at your earliest convenience." And I had a feeling that I knew what she was calling about...

So I call her back and get the news that they have a file pulled aside for us. She gave me the basic details (age and special need) and then I had to call Ian and ask him if we wanted to review the file. He of course says yes, and then I call mom, mumble some excuse about getting stung by a bee or something and needing to go home where I wait for the medical file to come through. Immediately I call our doctor and try to get a consultation appointment because Ian and I are really confused by the medical jargon we read in Caleb's referral information. The nurse is not helpful despite the fact that Dr. D has told us before that he will talk to us between patients if we have a shared referral (he is a HUGE supporter of waiting children ~ he was on a flight back to the states with his special needs son the day we flew to China to meet Kylie). Frustratingly enough we have to wait for an appointment the next day and because of the complex info on his forms, they wouldn't let us lock his file until we had talked to the doctor. So we lost 24 hours just waiting.

And then there was the whole no job issue. At the time we got the call from Nicole, we had not yet let our agency know that Ian would be unemployed in August. We decided that we needed to put all the information out on the table before we talked to our doctor. I waited on pins and needles at preschool for Ian to text me and let me know if AWAA would even let us continue to pursue Caleb with our current job situation. I let out the biggest sigh of relief when I got his short message, "All is good!"

But even then I was so afraid that we wouldn't be able to get him, that someone at another agency would find him before we could lock. Halfway through our conversation with Dr. D, I had heard all I needed to hear and looked at Ian. He gave me the thumbs up and I bailed on that conversation and called Nicole back on my cell. I began crying when she told me that he was still available and that we now had a lock on his file. Then the mad rush to get the plan written and scan photos. We were initially so frustrated that we got the stuff to AWAA at 4:30 on Thursday but they weren't going to send the EA until Friday morning. And then Thursday night we learn that Darby's family had gotten a referral that day and that they were submitting their EA on Friday as well. So our one day delay on that put us right at the same time frame with them.

God (and HIS timing) is amazing!