Thursday, October 8, 2009

Our call

(i just looked over all of this and it is a REALLY long post...)

Ok, so we have been floating around here....it's been a whirlwind of emotions!

Our call story will actually start out Tuesday October 6th. As you can see from the post two below this one I was a little bummed. I had come to believe that we were unofficially #1 on the boys list. Kiersten, our case manager, emailed us our official wait list number Tuesday evening. We came in at #2 on the boys list. Oh, I was bummed...

I had been really stressed over this call. I tried not to be anxious, but I was. I checked my phone every 5 minutes, my blog every 5 minutes, and my email every 5 minutes. I was literally driving myself crazy! I had our video camera set out and our camera ready to go. If I left the house I made sure that the camera was with me. I was beginning to feel really impatient.

After the update on Tuesday I realized that I need to completely give this up to God. No wondering when it would be or wondering what other people were posting. I decided to not look or update my blog until our referral, not looking at any posts on the listserv (yahoo group for our agency), and just not worrying about it. I prayed about it that night and also during my quiet time on Wednesday morning. I felt really peaceful all morning and really joyous, like a burden had been lifted. Not that it was a burden, but I always had my mind racing. I was watching my nephew, Ashton, as I do every Wednesday for my sister, so we were pretty busy around here. Schooling my 5 year old and looking after two two year olds. Amazingly I was very calm and relaxed. So we took a walk because it was a beautiful day. We went to the playground in our neighborhood and played. The kids really had a great time together. After I got the two year olds in the stroller and Maggie and I started walking back home my cell phone rang. I didn't think anything of it. I looked and it was the area code for Portland. I was like "I wonder why she is calling?" (i had gotten the official numbers about 15 hours previous to this call.) I answered "hello". "hi christie this is kiersten with all gods children"
me - "hi kiersten"
her - "how are you?"
me - "good we are just going for a walk because it is such a beautiful day"
her - "its nice to enjoy this fall weather"
me- "yep it is"
her - "well the reason for my call is i have a baby boy i would like to talk to you about"
me - "are you serious?"
her - "yes" (giggle)
me - "no way"
her - giggle "yes" "is now a good time or do you want to get back to your house?"
me - "i will wait until we get back to our house"
her "ok give me a call back and we can conference adam in"
me- "ok, it will be about 20 minutes"
her - "ok i will talk to you then"

So now here I am wanting to run as fast as a can home. I have a double stroller with two kids in it and another walking. So I take Maggie my 5 year old and put her in the seat that my two year old Hazel is in and put Hazel on her lap. Now I am pushing the stroller plus like 90 lbs of kid. I get home as fast as I can. I think I burned alot of calories! On the way home I call Adam and say "Adam Kiersten will be calling you, do you have somewhere you can talk in about 20 minutes?" I tell him she has a baby boy she wants to talk to us about. Oh wow so exciting!!!!

So I get home sweating and shaking and wondering if what just happened was actually me imagining things. So I turn on the tv for the girls and ashton. Barbie fairytopia or something. Set up the video camera and get the camera out. Tell Maggie that I need her to take a picture of me. She resisted a bit, but then she said "only a few" So I sit down at the table and call Kiersten. She tries to call Adam on his cell and his work phone and he doesnt answer. I was like I just called him and told him she would be calling. So I called him on our home line and he said that it hadnt been 20 minutes and he was headed back to his office right then. Kiersten gets back on the phone and says she tried again and he didnt answer so we hung up. She finally get ahold of him and they conference me in. But before they got me conferenced in she accidentally dropped Adam and had to call him back.

Since the first call from Kiersten it now seems like an eternity, but it had been about 30 minutes.

She goes into telling us about our baby boy. He was born Sept 12th which makes him 3 weeks old. oh how sweet!!!!!! We were so amazed that he was so young. For some reason we imagined that he would be older. He weighs just over 6 lbs...oh he is so tiny!!! my two year old weighed 9 lbs and 15 oz at birth!

She then tells us his name. She said that this she finds really interesting.....(I know I am not supposed to post the baby's name here, but I have to) His name that his birth mother gave him is non other than.....Adam!!! Wow, God, you are amazing!!!!! This baby was definitely meant for us. What a sign!!!!! He shares the same name as daddy!!!! and daddy is so proud!!!

She told us about his birth mother and her story...She told us about all of his background info...She told us about his medical stuff, which looks really good!!! Alot of what she told us was a blurr, so fortunately everything she told us was in the email she was sending us.

She also told us to let her know as soon as we could if we wanted to go ahead and proceed and get our referral packet. I said I can tell you right now that we want to move ahead. So she overnighted the packet to us. (we got it this morning)

So then we got off the phone and Adam couldnt leave work for about 45 minutes. So I decide to start calling our family so I can keep busy waiting for him to come home to see this sweet baby boy for the first time.

So Adam gets home and we open his pictures. We got 3 of them. I wanted more so bad! He is so tiny and so adorable!!!!

We were so excited and so so very surprised by our call. I wanted a surprise and a good call story and we got one!

My heart is aching for little Adam's birth mother. We will forever be attached to this women and I will forever pray for her. It is so hard imaging her circumstances and my emotions are pouring out for her right now.

This little guy is so amazingly handsome. I so wish I could show him off to all of my bloggy friends right now!!! He has so much hair!!! and it is really straight! I am not sure if this is baby hair and it will come in differently or not. If any of you out there know feel free to let me know.

Our international pediatrician already got back to us this morning and she gave us the green light! He looks perfectly healthy and all of his medical stuff checks out well and all of his tests were negative!!! yay!!!!!

So now we are gazing at his pictures at all times. We had a bunch printed and I put some black and white ones in the frames in his room. I still need to post pics of his room!! I will try to do that soon! Right now we are working on all of this referral packet and we have our referral call this next Tuesday!!! Moving along so quickly!!!

It hasnt even been 6 months since we were first approved with AGCI! This has been an amazing journey that God has sent us on :)

And before I forget...I said I would tell you his name that we are giving him when we got our referral...Ezekial and calling him Zek and putting his African name as his middle name...but wait...with that name Adam we have been thinking differently....His name will be Adam Ezekial, but we will still call him Zek. Adam said that he had thought about this earlier in the day today and I actually had as well. So that is what his name will be!!!

Here are some pictures for you all to enjoy...

I am going to bed!
His sweet little hands


Look at all of that hair!!!





18 comments:

  1. Yay! I am so thrilled for you guys. I can't believe his precious hair :) What an awesome story and an awesome name! My husband really likes the name Ezekial too!

    I just can't believe how quickly it all happened for you guys and 3 weeks old - how amazing!

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  3. how exciting!!! what a head of hair! such a tiny one. i love hearing all the details of referral day. such an amazing day to see that face for the first time! i'm thrilled for you all!

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  4. Congratulations!! I just LOVED reading about your call. Such an amazing story! Our little guy was born almost exactly one month before yours!! We just got new pictures and we could not believe how much he changed from 3 weeks to 7 weeks. What a blessing to have pictures of them so young! Praising God together with you!!

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  5. This morning when I saw that you posted about your call I thought I would wait until after school (during quiet time to read it). BUT I COULDN'T. Not sure what I was thinking... silly me.

    All I can say is tears, my friend, lots and lots of tears! I am so happy for you. So so happy. I love his hair! Once he comes to the Indiana humidity, it'll curl right up. I LOVE his name, what a blessing! Oh and we also got a surprise referral call. Those are the best!

    Praying this last leg of the journey goes just as fast as the first!

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  6. OK...you have made me start my day full of TEARS! PRAISE THE LORD! I've been waiting on this story...and I'm so excited!!!! OK...my favorite part is you putting your oldest in the stroller and pushing ALL your kids home in a rush. Love this mental picture! I burst into sobbing tears though when I read his name. Of all my fears in adopting this spoke to my heart reminding me that God has a baby chosen just for us. PRAISE HIM! PRAISE HIM! We are rejoicing with you today!!! I'm so happy!

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  7. Oh my goodness! You have me all teary-eyed! It is truly such an incredible day to see the face of your child. I am so happy for you all! His little body and his hair is so cute! I hope I have the honor to meet him when we travel. Love his name...wow!

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  8. What a beautiful little head and body! I can imagine his face is just as beautiful. AJ was 4 weeks at referral, and he had straight hair, too. He now has beautiful spiral curls. Congratulations!

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  9. That last comment isn't from Matt, it is from Lynn Stephenson. I didn't realize my husband was logged into google when I posted it. Congratulations again!

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  10. Tears here, too. What a sweet "call" story! I think they are my favorite posts to read! And how neat about his name! So happy for you. Isn't it lovely up here on cloud 9?

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  11. What fantastic CALL story!! LOVE the part where you loaded all 3 kids in the stroller and were rushing!! the energy you have during this call is one-of-a-kind. I was jumping and running through the house like a nut, rushing, so I could leave to meet Aaron on his conference! Its funny now that it was hard to get in touch with Aaron, too, like your's- few dropped calls and such!! I LOVE his name!! Its perfect!! God intended him for your family!! :)

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  12. Congrats! How exciting. I love, love, love his hair and have heard that it will begin to curl for most kiddos. However, I did see a little one that is about 1 and his hair was still straight. Our little guy was 6 months old on the 12th and is still bald!

    Congrats again and I'm so happy you were surprised!

    Audrey

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  13. OOOOH my goodness!!! LOVE your story, and I was cracking up at you running down the street pushing three kids in the stroller. haha!!! What sweet, sweet hair, and a tiny precious, healthy baby boy. Congratulations!

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  14. What a perfect story... I am SOOO happy for you. And I just want give that little head a kiss! R was 3 weeks when we got her referral, too, and her hair looked exactly like that. It was weird for me to look at that picture you posted b/c it could seriously be R's head when she was referred to us. I would say his hair is/will be curly... They use baby oil at HH, and that tends to straighten it out a bit. The texture really looks a lot like R's to me. I remember thinking the same thing when we got R's referral.

    Most importantly CONGRATULATIONS!!! I am so so happy for you!

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  15. Congratulations! We are so happy for your family. He is precious...just love that hair.
    What a beautiful blessings.
    Amy

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  16. Yeah!! Couldn't wait to read about your call. What a great story and beautiful hands and head and hair. :) Hope you get to savor every moment of this magical time!!

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  17. SOOO very excited for you all!!!! How AMAZING! God had the perfect timing for you :) WOW! Love those cute hands and hair. By the way- yes it will probably grow in curlier (usually).

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  18. Our little guy had hair very much like your son's in his referral pics. If you check out our blog you will see his hair is very curly and full now. Our boy is 15 months old and his hair has been curly since at least 8 months..his referral pics were at about 6 months old.

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