The Lowdown.......Warning, Warning...........Does Not Compute!

Now that I have regained some of my composure, I will explain how this came about. Since we are doing an Independent Taiwan Adoption, there is really no agency. We contacted a women's home in Taiwan that is run by two Christian women from the US. They were called to help young women in need of prenatal services, counselling and postnatal help. Their mission was to help these women with options other than abortion. Before long they realized that their were being directed by a Higher Power to help these babies find a loving family that could care for them. This is how they became involved in adoption.

An on-line friend advised me to look into independent adoptions when it seemed as though all doors to finding our son were being closed in our faces. In a round about way, I found His Hands Taiwan, Inc. They were very small and just beginning to do adoptions. I filled out their on-line application and waited. After not hearing back from them, I got discouraged but my friend told me to hang in there. When I received the newsletter from His Hands saying that they had babies in need of families I e-mailed them and asked about our application. They never received it! My MSN account was not recognizing their e-mails and deleting them!!! So, long story short......I re-applied, sent in any and all documents that I had from our Vietnam dossier and then prayed - a lot.

Last week, His Hands posted a picture of a beautiful baby boy that they had just brought home from the hospital. I could not take my eyes off of him. I was drawn to him, I could actually feel him in my arms. I could picture him wearing the clothes that I had bought. But why was I feeling this? Chances were that he would be referred to someone that had been on the 'list' longer than us. I had to steel myself against getting too attached. But yet, I could not go more than a few hours without seeing his tiny face. The next day, His Hands posted a newer picture of him. This time I FELL! I was head-over-heels in love with him. I knew that I would be devastated when he was referred to someone else but it was too late. The next day I couldn't take it any more so I posted on His Hands Facebook page, inquiring if he had found his forever family yet - truly expecting to hear that he had. I kept looking for their answer, nothing came.

Yesterday, I was reading my sociology book and, surprise, found myself falling asleep. So I went and laid down. The next thing I knew, Jon was getting Natalie ready to take her to the Red Slide (aka Mickey D's Playland). I got up and had to make a stop in the, um, restroom. While there, Natalie came in, turned around, whispered to Daddy about what she was supposed to say, came back in and, handing me some papers, said "Would you like to meet my new baby brother?!" OK, now this is NOT how I pictured this moment!!!!! I sat there staring at a face that I had grown to love, a face that had become so familiar to me. I looked up at Jon and, when I could talk, asked what he was doing with these pictures. He said that he almost deleted them before he opened the e-mail because he thought it was spam. OH MY GOD! Then he realized what he was looking at. Our REFERRAL!

It took me several minutes to....breathe, talk, function, compute. All I could picture was the robot from Lost in Space spinning around, waving his arms saying "Does not compute, does not compute".