We got "the call". It was approximately 5:15 PM and I was walking out of my downtown office. I remember looking at the caller ID and wondering what FTIA could want. In the time it took me to press the green button on my phone to take the
call, I had run through what the next couple of days looked like, and wondered whether or not I could get one more document ready before we left for Europe two days later -- surely this call was about more paperwork, not a referral, we had submitted our dossier a mere 32 days before!
"We have a baby" - those were Inessa's first words after our "hi, how are you's?" were exchanged. I remember sitting right here during the most beautiful September afternoon and wondering how I was going to make the drive home. More importantly, how I was going to get up and walk to the car, my entire body weight had dropped to my legs.
I had to rush home to the pictures that I had been reluctant about. Bill and I had talked about not wanting to see pictures before meeting our referral. We didn't want to get attached to a baby before we knew he was going to be ours; after all, we didn't have any medical history on him. I told Inessa this and in her cute Russian accent she quickly responded "but you have to see him, he has the cutest cheeks!". After pelting her with 1000 questions, I hung up and called my friend Katie to tell her I wouldn't be going to tennis that night. The next call was of course to Bill and the grandparents.
During the next 48 hours I/we managed to:
- pack all of our adoption paperwork to take to Europe so we could make travel arrangements from there - good thing for the time difference, telephone in the apartment in Florence, and cheap calling cards!
- travel out of town to see a client two hours away - thanks Karla for driving so I could make 10,000 phone calls.
- arrange for Dr. Staat to review the limited information we had on Nicholas.
- get Visa applications ready to go so we could send for our Visas the day after we got back from Europe, 5 days before our departure for Russia.
- get our house somewhat picked up as we would only be home for 5 days after getting back from vacation.
- pack for two weeks in Europe.
On September 21 we took off for our 15 day European adventure.
On October 6 we returned home.
On October 13 we left for Novokuznestk, Russia
On October 15 we landed in Novokuznetsk, Russia and met the love of our lives....
The rest is history.
One Year Ago
