Call Number One

China's Waiting Child program is a work in progress. It has become increasingly popular as the wait for a Non Special Needs child continues to grow. Ryan and I first looked at our agency's Waiting Child program in the spring of 2007. At that time, prospective parents could look at a list (pictures and medical conditions included) of children available and if a child looked like they would be a good match for your family, you could request to review that file. So, Ryan and I looked at our agency's list and found a baby girl with a large birthmark on her chest and requested to review her file. Several other families made that same request for that same child and we were not selected (I later found out that this particular little girl had in fact been very popular and was adopted by a family through our agency - her birthmark was cancerous). Fast forward to the Fall of 2007. Our agency changed their process for Waiting Children. Instead of having the ability to request a file, families now had to fill out a Medical Conditions Checklist. Our agency workers would then take these checklists and use them to match families with Waiting Children as they became available. We filled out our checklist and submitted it sometime during the last part of October 2007. I had read on websites, etc. that families should expect a 6-12 month matching time for special needs adoptions. For whatever reason, I was unsure that we would even be chosen for the special needs program. I guess because we had not been selected to review one child's file, I was not confident that we had what our agency was looking for to adopt a child with a special need. Anytime I would voice this concern to Ryan he would always say "if it is meant to be, it will be" and I could tell he truly believed that. So, imagine my surprise when on a Thursday night, December 6, 2007, I got into my car and noticed that I had a voice mail on my cellphone from our agency. It was an agency representative (the same representative that I had spoken to previously and told her to have a good holiday season - the same one that stated she hoped to be talking to me again before the holidays were over) and she simply stated that she had a question about our Waiting Child application. She asked me to return her call at my convenience. It was too late to call her back on that day. As I drove home, I thought about what kind of question she could possibly have, I tried to remember exactly what I had written on our app so I could elaborate if that was what she was looking for, and then I finally came to the conclusion that it was a good thing that they were at least looking at our application. With that, I arrived home, immersed myself in homework with the boys, dinner games, bedtime routines and did not think about the agency call again until I awoke on Friday, December 7, 2007.