Here's to looking at open doors and pre-approval

" When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us."
-Helen Keller

That Helen Keller, she is a good one for quotes! I feel that I tend fall into the trap of staring at the closed doors. I love that quote and focusing on exploring the new open doors! I can see those doors to China flinging wide-open right now! Whooooooosh!

On Friday, May 25th, I got a call from Josh that our coordinator had called to say that we are now officially "pre-approved" (PA) to adopt Kai! Yay! At the time of the call, I was standing in a little family owned deli somewhere around Sonoma California, (my friend and I were on our way to a hike, but had gotten lost...and hungry.) Anyway, when I got the call I started squealing and jumping around. The guy behind the deli counter and his elderly mother didn't seem to know what to make of this. Heidi looked at me happily. And when I got off the phone with Josh I said, "Heidi, we're pre-approved!" She just looked at me and said apologetically, "Kate, when I hear pre-approved I think of credit cards. What does that mean for the adoption?"


What is means is that we are now official in China's eyes. They'' review our dossier and our letter of intent (LOI) and then hopefully we'll keep moving along quickly. It also means that it is now ok for me to post his pictures on this blog. So here they are.

I also have to note that Josh also found a mini-van for me while I was visiting Heidi in California. People say that they, "would not be caught dead driving a mini-van". Oh yes, this seems a bit harsh, but I have heard those exact words spoken. Me? Can you say DREAM CAR!!! I am not kidding. Josh loves cars. Talks about them, wants to buy and sell them, test drive them, you name it. So when he asks me about my dream car it has always been the same. A mini van.

Why? Well, I just always thought it would be fun to pack lots of kids and friends into a car to go somewhere. Plus, as we've been waiting for more children, I told Josh that I sort of had a "Field of Dreams" moment. (You know when the voice says, "If you build it, they will come.") I sort of started to feel, "If I drive it(mini van) surely kids will come." I mean who wants a poor lady to be driving a mini van all around town with just one kid right?

The beginning of the mission-"Code Red"

(Our snowman family in which we added a little brother or sister to make it complete)

"Vacation is what you take when you can't take what you've been taking anymore."
-Unknown

Technically, today, May 1st, was supposed to mark the end of our "adoption vacation." We've been on "vacation" since the end of February. The vacation idea actually came from my mom. She suggested it after yet another day of tears and frustration I shared regarding the adoption and all of the issues surrounding China and the slow-down. She said that maybe I just needed to totally leave it be for awhile. Don't look up any new site on the Internet, stop reading blogs, stop trying to predict what would happen, and just take a break from it all for awhile. I took her advice. It was probably the best thing I have ever done. All of the unknowns regarding the adoption were really weighing on me.
Let me back up to the beginning of our adoption process. Last year on April 19th, my husband and I sent our application to adopt from China to our agency. Our story of adopting our next child officially started that day... or at least that's when the paper trail officially began. While I worked on the dossier and we waited, we started noticing children in our community who were adopted. How had we missed this before? It seemed that everywhere we went, we saw a family created through adoption. Often my husband might spot a child that I didn't see or vice versa. So, as a result we created a code phase for an Asian child with Caucasian parents, "code red". We have been busy looking for and spotting "code reds" for a year now. Each time I saw a family it reinforced the idea that we would in fact have another child, I just didn't know when.
And now, we are on our way to becoming a "code red" family. Last week, specifically on Tuesday, April 24th at 12:30p.m. I returned home from picking my daughter up at preschool to a message on my machine. A coordinator from our agency stating they had a little boy that we might be interested in. Give her a call.
Ok, so everyone says it happens when you least expect it, but this was seriously true for us. (Although I will say that I often wanted to smack people for saying those very words, as sometimes it really isn't much of a comfort at all.) I WAS on "vacation" though. I knew a new Waiting Child list had come out, but we had our plate full. We were getting ready for a little girl from Haiti to stay with us for awhile while she had surgery on her legs. I had just registered for summer classes for my Master's in Social Work. It was a beautiful week and I had happily started my planting and trying to figure out just what I would buy this year for our flower beds and our garden. Sunflower seeds for Elizabeth, heirloom tomatoes would be nice, and what perennials should I get to finish of f the shade garden? The adoption really was far from my mind.
I got Elizabeth busy with lunch and called our coordinator back. They had a little boy, he was just over two. Were we interested? After our last call from our coordinator, I was ready for this. Last time she called with two boys of interest. Neither ended up being a match for us. But I had to actually say no, it would not work for us. I felt that those little sweethearts were sitting in the room with her, waiting on pins and needles to see if they had a family or not. After that day, and some tears, (imagine that) I knew that I would not make the decision to say yes or no by myself again. I would ask to call my husband first and then we could discuss it and make the decision together.
So I called Josh's cell phone right away. As soon as his voicemail picked up I remembered that he was flying to Wisconsin that day and was probably still in the plane. I left a message with him explaining the situation and to call me back pronto! Ok, I figured, I can wait, this is actually good, it will give me some time to process all of this. I tried calling my sister. My sister is my very best friend and an amazing woman. She knows me very well and I knew she would be excited about this possible development. So, I dialed her up...aaaaand, no answer there either! No answer at home, none on the cell phone. COME ON! I thought, where are you people?
I waited about 10 minutes, it felt longer, but I finally decided that I would call our coordinator back and just ask to see the file. I might as well look at it. So I called, she went over some details about the little kiddo and said she would send it to me. "So will you send it overnight or how will I get it?" I asked. "Oh, I'll just email it to you." This stunned me. Why? I'm not sure, why wouldn't you use email? But the idea of my possible future son traveling across phone lines or whatever they are, to pop up on my computer screen just floored me. She said she would send it in a few minutes.
About 5 minutes after she said that, Josh called back. Meanwhile, Elizabeth was set up in our backyard eating Campbell's Soup Curly Noodles as her lunch picnic. She looked so darn cute sitting on the bright pink quilt my Grandma made, just enjoying the sun and the pleasure of eating outside. It seemed unreal that another child could be coming into our life at that moment.

Josh and I talked as I walked around the house, anywhere except the office where the computer was. Honestly, we had waited so long for this day, and now, I was big time scared to look at this kiddo's picture. What if he was weird looking? What if I didn't think he was cute? So many people say the minute they saw the picture of their child they fell in love and just knew this child was theirs. What if I felt none of that, but he seemed ok otherwise? Did that mean I didn't have the right "mommy intuition"?
I did NOT want to open it up alone. Luckily, Josh was able to get to a computer at the airport and I forwarded the email to him. We decided to open it together. This was such a moment of truth for me, and I really felt like I needed to puke. Josh's picture came up first and I will never forget his first words, "Oh Kate, I think you're going to like him." And then he popped up on my screen. I have to say, I do not how to describe the feeling I felt. I just felt scared, sort of frozen. He was adorable, beautiful big brown eyes, whispy black hair, a tiny little nose and the fullest lips I have ever seen! But the first thing I honestly thought was,"Why isn't he smiling? What if we take him and he never smiles, what if he hates me?" I swear, these are the thoughts I had. We received 3 pictures of him, all in the same little outfit. One of his face, one of him sitting outside in front of a playground, and one standing in front of a Christmas tree with his lips sort of puckered almost. I imagined that the photographer in China said the equivalent of the american "Say Cheese" to him, and this was the end result, not a smile, but at least some lip movement.
We skimmed his medical files and decided to talk more about it when he got home. It all looked good. Josh was very excited! He had hoped for a boy and here was a beautiful boy that looked like he could be the one for our family. We'll talk more when you get home I said, and we hung up. Now, I felt excited too, but I was majorly thrown off. I didn't expect to get a call for another few weeks or so. I didn't think there was much of a chance we would even get a call, and now here we were, a little girl from Haiti coming to live with us that week, my class starting in two weeks, and now possibly a son! My head was spinning. Those of you that know me, you'll know how big this next sentence is...I did not eat lunch. Yes, I totally skipped it! And the next two days I did not end up eating lunch either. I was just too wound up. (People that are reading this that do not know me, nice to meet you, I am a person who LOVES good food and enjoys a good meal three times a day with one or two snacks. Skipping meals does not happen in my world. Until now that is.)
I called my mom, and she agreed to watch Elizabeth while Josh and I went out to dinner to talk. He got home and we went out to dinner. I could see in his face that this was it. He was set on this little kiddo. We went out to dinner and took his 3 pictures with us. We talked about his age, studied his file, what he likes to play, his development, how he came to the orphanage, etc. By the end of the dinner we decided that if his medicals checked out ok by our local International Adoption Clinic, then we would move forward to adopt him.
We found out on Sunday afternoon at 3pm that everything checked out. On Monday I called our agency and we sent in our Letter of Intent to adopt him. The time between the dinner and Sunday afternoon seemed like a long time. I went up and down as far as emotions go. I felt so excited to maybe have a son, but reserved in case something came up on his file. I also had some fears about him bonding with us. Again, would he like us or have a good personality? What if he hates us and is a really angry kid?
I shared these fears with a few of my friends and my sister. I have to say, that I am seriously so fortunate to have the privilege of knowing such insightful and loving people. Each person I shared with was just wonderful and really helped me think about everything I was feeling, both excited and scared. I really believe that God has a plan for our family. I have a huge amount of faith in that. He has brought so many amazing people into my life, including my husband and our daughter. I trust him to bring the perfect child for our family into our life as well. As my mom said, "You have no idea what your biological child's personality is like either, that's just how it goes with having kids."
So here we are, excited, scared, thrilled, and thankful. He is a beautiful boy and I cannot wait to see him smile and learn more about him! I finished the paperwork to get us started and now we wait for PreApproval from China. When I receive PA, then we can post his little pictures on the blog. Until then, I'll send out my prayers for our little kiddo and hope to meet him very soon!