The Phone Call...

December 12th, 2004 is one day that will live forever in our memories.

The phone rings.  I answer it.  I call for my hubby to pick up the other extension.  It's our adoption social worker.  She has news.
"There is a 14 month old boy who needs a forever home.  Are you interested?"  Response, "Yes!  We'll take him!"  Husband says, " Kelly can we find out more about him first?"  Response, "NO!  He's ours I just know it!"  Social worker chimes in, "Kelly wouldn't you like to know more?" Response, "OK, but nothing matters, he's ours."

Our social worker goes on to tell us about the boy who I KNOW is my son.  He has some risks and issues, but nothing that scares us.
I ask one question.  "When can we go get him?  Can we bring him home before Christmas?"  The social worker tells us that that won't be possible.  The child's workers want to come to meet us and see our home and then make their final decision.  OK we agree to that.

January 5th, 2005 the workers arrive on our doorstep at 9:00AM.  They come in and have coffee and conversation.  I show the child's worker his bedroom.  She is very happy.  She and I have a private conversation in my kitchen while I make coffee (more).  She informs me that she has made her decision and that she will have everything arranged for us to start our preplacement visits on January 18th. 

Two more weeks before we can meet our son.  We can't even distract ourselves by designing his bedroom because we did that within 4 days of that first call!  I said I KNEW he was our son!

The two weeks crawls by and we finally get to go and meet our son.  His foster mother is a lovely lady who welcomes us into her home.
We spend the next few days going back and forth from home to the foster home and on day 5 we pack his belongings and say good bye to his foster family and we're on our way home.  A family of three for the first time. 

When we walked through the front door of our home the tears flowed.  My 15 month old son is looking at me like I'm crazy but he gives me a smile and he's off exploring his new forever home.  My mum was there to meet her new grandson and it was love at first sight for both of them.  Together, the four of us wander through the house and show son #1 his very first bedroom.  Yes that's right.  He'd never had a room of his own. 

He took his first nap in his own room 2 hours after we got home and he slept peacefully from that moment on.  He knew he was home too.

Fast forward to 2008, and we're repeating the process except this time we're not getting a call about a toddler, we're getting a call about a brand new baby boy who is our first son's biological brother!  Another whirlwind but not a month, 6 days!  Can you imagine having to get everything for a newborn in under a week?  Can you imagine having to paint out a nursery and set everything up and gather all the supplies and buy clothing and everything else a newborn needs all while travelling out of your home community daily to be with your new baby in the hospital?  It's not exactly easy, but it is exciting.

Fast forward again and it's present day 2010 and we've gone through the process again and now we await the call that tells us who our next children are going to be.

Next installment:  Who we're looking for and why.