THE KIDS ARE OURS!!!

While I'm on the phone with the coordinator on Thursday (this is back on March 29th) she tells me, OH BTW, she has video of the kids. No, she's telling me she has video of them while SHE'S WATCHING IT!!! Ohhh she sighs, they're so cute. Ohhh look they're playing with another little girl. Ohhh, they looks so sweet. arghhahahh.... i WANT to see these videos now. I NEED to see these videos NOW... now please now, now, now!!! she promises to send me the video clips that night. "I promise, I will not leave the office until i get this out to you tonight." i spend the rest of the day glued to my computer. I do not eat. i do not venture off.. i am glued... glued glued glued. nothing comes. Friday comes and goes. nothing comes. I spend the entire weekend in a tizzy.... my brain is here no it's there.. nope try again, it's up there somewhere. i keep staring at their pictures. is this for real? is this really going to happen? I'm caught between extreme confidence, "Heck there is just NO WAY, they'd give these kids to another family, and flailing self doubt, "OMG what if they give our kids to another family!?" I'm useless... pure survival mode. breath girl, just breath.

Monday I impatiently call the agency... Okay any news?  she apologizes. Thursday was crazy busy. Friday she was out of the office... my neck is straining from the need to keep control... don't worry.... you will see these videos.... okay this turns out to be a very good conversation... see what happens when i behave myself!

First she says she will send the video pronto. I get two!!! she even waits to make sure the first transmission goes thru. Secondly she tells me the program director is out sick. But she's expected either tomorrow or by Wednesday. Then she tells me they are going to make their decision this week. Either tomorrow or the next day... whenever the director comes in... ooohhhh breath girl breath... you're in the home stretch now... it's going to be fine...

I instantly call Jeff and say we got the videos. i ask him when he's coming home. (I had promised not to see them without him) he tells me early maybe 4ish.. ohh okay i whimper and whine... i remind him how the coord oohed and ahhed when she saw the video. Jeff checks his schedule.. hmmm he doesn't have anything until 2pm. I'm on my way home now! (see i told you he was hooked!)

Jeff rushes home and we're floored. no one can say their hearts filled with more love and pride and admiration and joy and happiness then the two of us at that moment. we watch, rewind, watch again, rewind again. over and over.. they are by far the most beautiful and precious children we've ever seen. In the video our little dude is sitting beside a little girl. He wrestles a huge teddy bear from her (now be nice young man) he turns and briefly looks at the camera with the most amazing, incredible, gorgeous, happy, victorious smile you've ever seen. Ah Ha, his eyes and smile say, "i got the big soft funny looking thing! now what exactly is it?" as he pokes it's eyes in question.

The nanny is feeding the kids. Just look how she caresses our little pumpkin's face as she feeds her. oh what love. Just look at our little girl. She is so tiny! so itty bitty teeny weeny tiny! and look at that curly  brown hair! Oh look at our little boy. my what a big appetite he has. chew young man, don't swallow all that food at once! Jeff and i are in mommy and daddy heaven. these are our kids. there is no question in the world. surely no one could feel so much love as we do for them. they are ours.. please please please ms agency person.... tell me you agree?

APRIL 3RD. Tuesday morning.... on a hunch, i leave a message with the agency saying where they can reach me every moment of the day.... I'm leaving nothing to chance. I wait all day... feverishly checking my emails, my phone messages. Around 3:30 I get a call on my cell phone. it's her!!!!! it's the coord. oh wait... she's serious.. no no no.. this is not good. she starts to tell me the director did come in today and they had a meeting. click... WHAT!!!! hello? HELLO? HELLO!!????? the cell lights up again. damn it, it barely garbles out half a ring. It's DEAD!!! I frantically try to send her an email. I'm here, I'm home what did you say? but i can't for the life of me find her email address!!! the house phone rings once. it's dead too... damn these conspirators! the house phone rings again.  i take the stairs two at a time.. hard to do with spiral stairs, btw... i slide across the bed and lunge for the phone. I'M HERE I SHOUT. don't hang up... i can hear the coordinator doing her best not to laugh. i tell her.. huff huhff.. my phones.. hufff hufff.. they all died.. pfuhh phfhhh but.. I'm... here.... WHAT DID YOU SAY? she asks me to tell her how much i heard. I heard it's you and there was a meeting!!! that's all..

well she slowly tells me the details of how there was a meeting today. how they sat down to discuss these kids.. how they talked about who would be the family best suited to adopt them. (if it wasn't for the fact that i was so out of breath, i think i would have just stopped breathing by now...) she winds it up with the news we had been dying to hear:

THE KIDS ARE OURS. THEY ARE OURS... WE GOT THE REFERRAL FOR THE KIDS... THESE KIDS WILL BE OURS. WE'RE GOING TO BE A MOMMY AND A DADDY!

Let's Do It!

I got the email from the agency on Wednesday, 3/28. Jeff and i are like two little excited kids.. OMG! they're available to adopt.. what do we do?!?! this is so exciting; what do you think; i don't know; what do you think??? Jeff loves the idea of keeping a family together. this is HUGE for him. me, I'm so damn happy to have a child, make that two kids, oh wait even better a brother and a sister, omg we're keeping a family together! okay i was a blithering, blathering idiot right about now. Jeff suggests we call the agency, still with the intent of "just talking for now" but i can tell he's hooked hard. We keep staring at those pictures. Our little dude has a serious Eddie Munster hair cut. and what's this, our little girl has auburney dark brown hair AND it's wavy? MAN, THEY ARE CUTE BEYOND WORDS.

That evening I call Melissa our little angel, and tell her that the kids are available for adoption. WOO HOO!!! She tells me all kinds or interesting facts about Vietnam the provinces, the culture, the ethnic backgrounds. I feel like i just took a masters course at some university. and it's a good thing i learned all this from her. I decided to take it one step further and do a little online research of my own. I googled their province, their ethnic group, everything i could find. Next morning, i call the agency and say YES we're interested. I found out agency procedure is to wait two weeks and collect all interested apps. then after the two weeks they'll make a decision on which family is best suited for these kids. My heart sinks a bit... oh.. i have to wait? you don't like me enough to just give me the kids? i promise we're nice people....

I decide it's time for the hard sell, we want these kids, heck we know they're OUR kids!!! So in a panic, I start running through my laundry list of why we're such great candidates... we're already DTV. see no more paperwork. all good to go! well that is a very good (selling) point says the coordinator. we already have grown kids, so no surprises in child care for us... hmm that's good to know... okay I'm dying, I need something REALLY BIG HERE!!! aha! I go back to my master's class research and i start telling her all about these kid's ethnic background (did you know there are around 5000 ethnic groups in Vietnam, and there could be one big tribe but if they live in different provinces they all speak a different dialect?) Ohhh i was armed with lots of history, lots of info... okay maybe some things i was making up, but it sounded smart and well researched. Okay... now we're talking... i can see her smiling... she likes us...  i know we're a sure thing now... yeah, she's writing a big YES right next to our names.

That night I tell Jeff all about our phone conversation.  We say, okay this is for real now... our lives are going to be really different... two kids, under the age of five. no more dinners out.. no more expensive gifts.. We look at each other expectantly... you can feel the electricity.... the excitement is so hard and palpable i feel like we're bathing in it.... you good with this? yeah, you? I'm good. let's do it!

Finally We Find Our Kids!

I decide to call my agency on a weekly basis. Surely if they know how serious i am about finding our child, then they'll do something. They'll find one of those tens of thousands of toddlers that i just know in my heart are crowding the orphanages and match us with one, tiny, precious, little, peapod of an angel.

Time creeps by slowly. when a very sweet and dear angel Melissa tells me there is a sibling pair available for adoption. It is a boy and his younger sister. would I be interested? My first thought was Yeah Right Jeff would NEVER go for two kids. hard enough getting him to agree to just one.   so i do nothing. later on that afternoon, i take a break, and think oh what the heck... just one little peak-- what could that hurt? so i go over to this agency's waiting child page and there staring back at me are the two most beautiful faces a mommy has ever seen.... oooohhh I'm swooning with love!

Still convinced this is a No Way Jose with Jeff, i don't call to tell him about it... why have an argument over something I know I can't win?  but of course.. i can't just NOT say anything.  So i wait for him to come home then muster the courage to say... "Now we started this adoption process hoping to adopt a child that would most need a home. That's why we said older child, right?  Well, there is a sibling pair, a boy 5 years old and his sister 2.5 years old... and they are available for adoption. what do you think?"    Hmmm, a boy, and he's 5? maybe. it's a possibility, Jeff tells me.  so then he starts to ask me about them and i have to admit i know nothing at all. including if they were even still avaiablel for adoption.... maybe this was old info and they're already home with their new family? I decide to strike while the iron is hot and say... You know there are pictures of them on the website. We rush to the computer and see those darling beautiful faces. We agree I'm to call the agency and just "talk to them" and find out what's what.

Next morning i begin the onslaught.. calls, emails, more calls, more emails... is anyone home there!!???? two painful and agonizing days pass.... I whine to Jeff they must have been adopted. Why else would these folks not return my (11 million) phone calls? So off to work i go... of course the one day i don't have Internet access, mind you! Being away from my computer for the day is like giving up shopping for a year! Luckily it was a short enough day and once home there is THE EMAIL waiting for me... YES THE KIDS ARE STILL AVAILABLE FOR ADOPTION! and would we be interested in adopting them!????