On Monday, February 25, we had the day off from school due to high winds. It came on the tail of a number of other snow days and since the roads were passable and I was sick of sitting at home, I decided to venture out to the store to pick up supplies to make some busy-book pages for our yet-to-be-known little one. The week before I had heard from the Thailand program director at WACAP that a little bird had told her we might be hearing something about a match soon. I was cautiously optimistic that this would happen soon.
I went to Hobby Lobby and bought everything I would need to make a bunch of quiet busy book pages. On my way home, I missed a phone call from Lindsey, our program director. She left a message asking me to give her a call back and immediately my heart rate rose. I was sure this was THE call. The one where she would tell us that there was a little one in Thailand that we had been matched with. I called her back, enthusiasm thick in my voice, and just barely uttered something along the lines of, “Tim isn’t home…should I call back when he is?” She said yes.
So naturally, I waited patiently until Tim got home from work. Ha. Or not. I called him and told him that this was the call we’d been waiting for and that he should drop everything, run out the door, and speed home as quickly as possible. Maybe those weren’t quite the words that came out of my mouth, but I’m sure that’s what I meant and what he heard.
Before long, Tim was home and we picked up the phone to call Lindsey back. She informed us that she did indeed have a file for us to review and proceeded to read information to us about our little one. We learned a bit about his story, his health history, and a few small details about his development. Much of that information will never be shared in this space because that is his story to tell – not ours. That being said, we learned that afternoon that there was a three and a half-year old little boy in Thailand who was ready to be matched with a family. We received photos of him in an email that followed and I have yet to stop staring at them.
The next step in the process was to consult with an adoption health specialist. We worked with the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to review his file. This culminated in an hour-long phone call during which the doctor spouted off a million different possibilities of unknown health and developmental needs that he may or may not have. I was completely overwhelmed when I hung up the phone with her, but not in a “I don’t know if I could parent a child with these potential needs” sense, but rather in the sense of “I already love this little one so much and it would break my heart for him to suffer like this.” Honestly, our minds had been made up before I even had the consult. Tim and I agreed that if a biological child of ours had a health or developmental need of any kind, we would do anything and everything in our power to help him receive the services he needed. This should (and would) be no different for our adoptive son.
In early March, we wrote our letter of intent to send off to the adoption board in Thailand and then waited some more. On May 7, we received an email saying that we had received official approval from the board. And on May 31, we received paperwork to document this approval.
Now the waiting continues. We wait in anticipation and in joy of the days yet to come. While we wait, we’re doing our best to use our time well. We’ve been brushing up on our Thai, building furniture that’s just his size, reading books about adoption, thinking critically about unique struggles adoptees encounter, and staring at his sweet little face in photos as often as possible.
We aren’t sure yet when we will travel to Thailand to meet our little boy and bring him home. It could be as early as November or December, but may not be until April or May of 2020. I would hop on a plane tomorrow to bring him home if it was possible, but we know that the process in place is meant to ensure that Thai adoptions are ethical and we respect that fully. In the meantime, we’ll continue to gaze adoringly into his little face and prepare ourselves for the coming addition that will surely change our lives forever.
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