The Call

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Copyright 1995 Debora Weber-Wulff. Quotations only by written permission.
Posted to soc.adoption
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I was having a bad day, the computer center folks had just killed an
important job and other maddening things had happened.  I decided to
call the adoption agency, they request that you call every 4 weeks to
let them know that you are still interested and then they tell you
"just be patient, it may take a while". I'm usually so mad after
talking with them that I need a chocolate break after the call, so I
figured it was a good time to call.

"Oh my," she says, "How does it feel?" "Excuse me?" "Were you out shopping?"
Did I dial the right number? What the...? "I just called you 15 minutes
ago and left a message on your answering machine". A jolt runs down my
spine. THE CALL! I grab a piece of paper and waver: "Does that mean that
you've picked us to be parents for a child?"

Yes, she says, since last Wednesday and she just got around to calling
today (mad, fume, what takes so long, just be patient, don't say
ANYTHING, shut your MOUTH, don't want to make her change her mind). 
He's from Yugoslavia, he's three years old and came with his mommy 
as a refugee to Germany. She was killed in an accident last year and he
was put in an orphanage and is a ward of the court. Would we like to meet 
him? Would we ever!

Of course my husband was in a meeting, I left a message with his
secretary, cancelled all my appointments for the day and sat waiting
by the phone, not daring to go away for even a minute until I reached
him. We met at the agency in the afternoon and they read us the
details of the case (you're not allowed to look into the papers
because it's all sealed, they just read you the important bits).  We'd
have gone to meet him immediately, but the orphanage is an hour's
drive away and by then the children would be getting ready for dinner
and bed. So we spent a very sleepless night... Luckily we have an
adoption support group (and I strongly urge everyone considering
adoption to join one, they are invaluable for times like these). We
didn't dare tell friends or family yet - what if we don't like him or
he doesn't like us? - but we called the group and talked over what we
would do when meeting him and what we were feeling.

Our stomachs were full of butterflies as we reached the orphanage. What
was going to happen? The sisters asked our first names, we were to be
introduced to the group as friends that just dropped by to play. Ha ha, 
the older kids saw through THAT in a minute. We would see our child the
minute we walked in, he'd be the cutest one. And they were right, talk about
love at first sight! He was reading at a table with a friend, we asked if
we could join them. He didn't know if he liked that, was very, very shy.
I read a book with his friend, my husband offered to read a book with him.
I was being terribly silly with the friend, making animal noises for every
animal in the book we were reading, he'd look up and give me a withering
stare every time... I didn't know what to do to try and get a positive
connection with him.  

After a while I kicked off my shoes and sat on the floor next to the Duplo
box (praise be the inventors of Duplo!) and began to build a silly car. He
came right over, and we built lots of stuff, ran them around, wrecked them,
remade other stuff - and the ice was broken. We played for two hours until
the social worker made us leave because it was getting close to quitting
time. 

We came back every day for two weeks, gradually moving further away from the
orphanage - playing on the orphanage grounds, going to the bakery around
the corner, eventually visiting us at home for lunch. The second day already
he called my husband "Papa" and the other kids asked me if I was going to
be his Mama, they all knew exactly what was happening and had been telling
him what to do.

And after two weeks we got to take him home!

The major problems were Germany: all the shops close at 6pm, it is
murderous to a) work b) visit your child once a day and c) get a children's
room organized under these conditions. Take beds for instance: they have
a delivery time of 6 weeks! We scared up an old family children's bed that 
will do for the first few months. I talked a store into selling me the
showroom version of a children's chair, we didn't want to be eating on the
floor. 

He's been with us for 10 days now and we are having a great time. He has
little spells of being very sad, and we try to hold him and rock him when
he has them. We've made pictures together for his friends and the sisters
at the orphanage, and last Friday we organized a call. All the kids from
his group were at the phone and they all talked with him. His face lit up
with every child that said hello! That was so good, because he had been
asking if his friends were dead. The sister has said that we can come
visit sometime, maybe next week or so. He slept better that he had the whole
week after the call, so I'm glad we did it.

Now we have all the burocratic stuff - Germany is a terrible country for
that and there's such a mess with his name and our names as they are all
different (me being emancipated and having a double name...). But we have
a good feeling about it all and are quite happy and in love with this
happy little child who likes to clown around and sing songs and playact
("Me airplane, me airplane, Brooooom!", we live in the landing path of an
airport, he can see the planes from his seat at the dining room table.).

Long story, flames to /dev/null please, and although I appreciate little 
notes I won't be reading my email much in the next few weeks, we have
semester break and I want to be home getting to know my new son, so please
no congratulations or so. I just wanted to encourage prospective aparents
to HANG IN THERE, it is worth it!