The Call

Three years ago today I received a surprise call and saw my daughter’s face for the first time.

The day before Thanksgiving I’d received a call from my social worker with the possibility of a referral.  I was open to many medical conditions but when she read the info from the file this little girl had this…  and this…  and this.  Three things I was ok with, but all three at the same time.  Before you say, “Yeah, you wouldn’t want to adopt a child with a lot of problems…”  Yes I would.  I believe that every child deserves a home.  That’s the hard part about it.  It’s really, really hard to say no, but being by myself I had to think about what I could handle, what I would trust other people to care for, and what would be fair to this child.  I said I would be willing to look at her file, but without that, I would have to say no.  By this time I’d been waiting for three years and it was hard.  I thought about it a lot over the Thanksgiving weekend and felt sad and frustrated about all of it. 

Monday morning I went to work.  We were having a lot of meetings that day to cover some issues that went along with working for a new hospital and turnover of management and staff.  I was really in no mood to sit through meetings all day.  My friend Kari was having open heart surgery that day and that’s where my thoughts were. 

Kari and her husband Jeff were blessed with two children, Alex and Sophia.  Not long after Sophia’s birth, they found out just how blessed they were.  Kari had a previously undiagnosed congenital heart defect, a large hole in her heart.  Kari went into heart failure after Sophia was born and she needed surgery to repair her heart if she wanted to live a full life.  I’ve known Kari most of my life, we were travel nurses together, and in 2003, we worked together at Loyola.  We took care of patients after open heart surgeries.  We knew how well things usually went…  we knew how easily things could go wrong. 

At noon I saw that my social worker had left a message for me on my cell.  I assumed that it was in regards to the little girl she’d told me about on Monday.  I wanted to make a call to see how Kari’s surgery was going so I went out to my car.  I called Val, my social worker, first, and she said, “Jill, I think we’ve found your daughter.”  I thought maybe she had misunderstood me a few days prior and wasn’t really sure where this was going…  I just thought I had yet another decision to make and wasn’t getting excited.  She said, “This is a different little girl…” and I think I stopped breathing.  She went on to describe a little girl named Dang Yi Qin with “limited movement of left arm.”  I had until the end of the business day to give the Grand Rapids office my decision and she was emailing the referral to me.  She said, “OK, let’s scream together” and we did. 

I left work early and it seemed like the longest drive home.  I called my mom first and said, “How would you like to go to China in the spring?!”  She was shocked and excited.  She was decorating her salon for Christmas and my Grandpa was there.  She turned around and told him.  He spoke with an electrolarynx due to cancer years before and I could hear him buzzing away with questions.  My Grandpa hadn’t really said that much when I decided to adopt but I suspect he felt a little of what my Grandma had verbalized after I told her.  Her heart definitely changed before her death in January that year, and his had too.  Months later, he met Ella on Skype and was waiting for us at my house when we came home from China.  He brought me flowers on my first Mother’s Day and made excuses to stop by to see Ella…  not that he needed to have one.  He told my mom, “I love her like my own.” 

I’m sure I left messages with both of my brothers, but the next person I talked to was Corrie.  She was so excited and stayed on the phone with me the rest of my drive home and while I opened up my email and saw Ella for the first time.  Then I sent it to her and we sat on the phone looking at her together.  There she was, after all this time.  Corrie gave me so much support throughout the wait for Ella.  She attended my agency’s information meeting in Indy with me.  It’s intended for couples so I was allowed to bring one other person.  There were Corrie and I in the front row.  It takes all kind of people in the world…  let’s just say there were some interesting people in the meeting.  I had to look away from Corrie a few times so I wouldn’t laugh out loud.  Corrie bought books and little things for Ella along the way.  One afternoon at my mom’s house, I said, “OK, let’s get this over with…” and Andy and Corrie signed what they had already agreed to, a document for the Chinese officials stating that they would take care of my daughter if something ever happened to me.  They too, were committed to this little girl thousands of miles away that none of us had ever met.

That night I went to Jeff and Kari’s house and stayed there with their sister-in-law and nephews to help take care of Alex and Sophia.  I was there mostly to take care of Sophia who liked to be awake at night so that Teresa could sleep before driving home in the morning.  Kari’s surgery was successful and while her family and hospital staff were trying to wake her up enough to help her get off the vent, her brother Ryan told her, “Jill’s got a baby, Kari!” and her eyes flew open but then she went back to sleep.  That night was very surreal.  I didn’t sleep much all night.  I sat there a long time that night holding baby Sophia who was 2 ½ months old at the time, praying for my daughter I had yet to meet and for Kari, fighting for her recovery in a Chicago ICU.  I wouldn’t know it then of course, but Lexie is only 4 days younger than Sophia.  I remember that moment and I can imagine her at that time and although I don’t get to see Kari and her kids very often, I imagine her at different stages through Sophia.

I can’t believe three years has passed.  I’ll always treasure the memories from that day.  I told Ella about it today and that she was the best Christmas present ever.  I’m thankful that Kari is healthy and well.  I can’t wait to see Sophia and Lexie together someday.