October 2011 - June 2012: Referral season

Okay, so new school district, two new schools, many new co-workers and students. All is going well though.  I'm adjusting and liking my new situation and work.  :)

My birthday was on a Sunday (Oct 23) and we had a good weekend celebrating.  On Monday morning October 24, 2011 as I was driving in to school I had a brief thought pass through my mind.  It was fast but went like this: "Wow - we really could get our referral at any time now!" Well, wouldn't ya know it, that same day we got a call from our WHFC social worker with information about a referral!!!  (Sabrina, doesn't this sound familiar?!...)

I'm not ever good at keeping near my phone, but that day I had forgotten to look at it all day.  I was still working away at about 5pm when I remembered to check it and J had called me several times that day and so had our SW from WHFC.  I called J to see what was going on. I could tell right away from talking with him that something was up. Our SW had called and talked with him about the referral in the morning and he wanted to wait until I got home to tell me about it in person.  She had left me a message too, asking me to call her bc she had some important news for us. I couldn't wait to drive home and talk to J in person (i had a hunch about the news), so I had him tell me over the phone.  Oh what tears of joy!  The news of a 2 year old little boy who needed a family and had been selected for us to consider for adoption. What a shock! I could barely drive home b/c I couldn't stop crying. So thrilling. So soon.

Next we were sent 6 photos of a sweet little boy named "Little Z". He was adorable!  We were so excited!!! We also got many pages of detailed info about his health, social and physical behaviors, eating, sleeping, personality, playing, language development, height and weight and measurements.  We had about a week to respond to WHFC and let them know if we would accept or decline the referral they had sent us.  J made an appt with a great local pediatrician who specializes in international adoption for Friday, October 28.  I wasn't able to go to the appt but I sent questions along and asked him to record their meeting. That night we listened to the tape together and talked about what the Dr. had said.  There didn't seem like any reason keeping us from accepting the referral for cute "little Z".  :)  Woo hoo!!!

I think it was December when we chose the name Eli for him.  I'll have to ask my Book Club gals when we read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, because we chose the name shortly before we read that book in Book Club.     I know this because the name Eli is in the book and I was delighted to see it there.  It's a good book, btw, just an awful title.  S, A, J, and L - do you remember when we read the Potato Peel book? At any rate, we tried to find a name with same meaning as "little Z", no luck. We tried to find a name that we liked that sounded like "little Z", no luck there either.  So we chose Eli bc we both liked it a lot, it's easy to say and spell, and it seemed to suit him, or at least his photos. 

Then there were phone conference calls with our SWs. More paper work. Monthly photo updates - usually three new photos arrived via email each month.  And in March we got another extensive update on him - full physical, therapist reports, social workers reports, detailed info from his foster mom.  We were told we would soon be scheduled for skype video sessions with him!  :) Yeah!

With guidance from our WHFC SWs, we put together a care package in March and sent it to Taipei to Chung Yi Child Welfare Center.  They got it to him and our May photos show him opening and enjoying the treats: photo album of our house and family, cd of kids music, Good Night, Gorilla book, crayons, stickers, small stuffed dog, small squishy balls... He was also riding a bike in these photos! We were so surprised to see that. Training wheels on, of course, but going full speed ahead on his own.

On May 16th at 10pm we had our first skype session with Eli.  We were also given lots of support from WHFC for our skype session preparations. They gave us ideas of how to structure the time, what to expect, things to plan for, etc.  So helpful!  The skype session was fun.  We read books, he played with blocks, we sang the clean up song for him - he apparently loves to clean up. :) We showed him the attic play space and some animal toys, play food...  We got to see him run a little and smile.  He kept on holding things up to the computer screen to show us. When he was reading books on the table he would keep on looking up to check on us. So sweet.

Spent a good amount of time in May and June getting Eli's room ready. This meant rearranging our 2nd floor rooms a good deal.  My office, Penny (our pet hedgehog) and laundry and ironing are all in the pink room now. Eli's room is where my office used to be in the smaller light brown walled room (SW). We got a small shelf in there, a dresser, a toddler bed, bean bag cushion and farm scene rug from Target, small red table and chairs from Ikea. The shelf is made out of the drawers that used to be built into J's office wall. He built a laundry chute from the 2nd and 1st floor down to the basement and re-did his entire closet.  By re-did I mean took a sledge hammer to all the walls and tore the whole thing apart before rebuilding and reshaping it around the laundry chute, constructing new shelves, poles, using old shutters for the shelf sides, painting it all brown - it's very cool!  And so he took the old white drawers out and attached them to each other making a unique looking shelf unit for Eli's room.  It's fun to re-use! :) (Have you seen our bed head board  that J made from an old door?!)

On June 26th at 10pm we had skype session #2. Thank you to J's brother, Matt for letting us borrow his  laptop for both of these sessions.  Ours was too old to be able to handle skype.  This time we had the skype session in Eli's room.  We read some books, played with cars. He had a hat and sunglasses on and was sure to point out his new clothes (with American flags on his shirt). We showed him around his room. The best part was when he pulled out this harmonica.  Not a kids harmonica, mind you, the real deal.  He was blowing his little heart out playing it.  I thought he might pass out, but no, he kept on going.  J went up to the attic to get his guitar to play along with him. Eli noticed that J was gone and was asking where he went.  I said he'd be right back. He came back soon and played the guitar for Eli. He loved it! The two of them had this great jam session together.  My plan was not to cry, but how could anyone blame me really. It was such a precious moment!  :)

I'll stop here with this one for now and the next one will be about our shocking July!