I really can't explain how I felt in that moment. I swear my heart just stopped. Something in me just knew this was the file (we have already reviewed 2 files this year only to find they were not our child-but they did find their families so all is good). I just KNEW!, but with our past experiences this year I just held myself in check. I couldn't let myself get to excited, b/c then what happens if Mark doesn't feel the same way or something is going on with the medical that we don't think we can handle. Regardless, Konnor and I piled into the car and drove to Mark's work to show him pictures of what could possibly be his next Son.
Of course we both thought the little was cute as cute can be so we started sending his file off to our medical professionals. The agency had mentioned that this little guy had a cleft lip/palate and was a little anemic, but what Mama found upon obsessive Nurse Mama reading of the file was that he was also a preemie weighing somewhere between 2.5-3 lbs at birth and he was more than a little bit anemic. Our first medical reviewer got back to us that night. We talked a lot about the prematurity and what to expect and where he was based on our given information, but overall things looked pretty good.
Tuesday was a big deal b/c this precious little one who I was obsessively thinking about turned one year old on Tuesday November 4 (Happy Birthday Little Man!!). Of course the Mama in me wanted to send our letter of intent to adopt on his birthday b/c seriously what better birthday present, but we were still waiting on our International Adoption Dr. to get back to us and it really is best to make sure you have all the informations (says my practical husband : ). So we waited.
On Wednesday we got 14 more pictures !!!!!!! and 3 more videos!!!!!!! Ahhhh!!! The way they do things now is different from when we got Konnors referral and there is a lot more information available. For Konnor we only had 6 pictures the entire times. This little guy we already have 20 pictures and 5 videos. Anywhoo, he looked so much bigger in the new updated pictures. We also found out that he was moved to Foster Care which is huge b/c he will learn how it is to live in a family setting and get much more one to one attention. We still hadn't heard back from our IA Dr. but based on the new information we felt comfortable moving forward and as I sat down Wed. night to write an email to our agency explaining that we wanted to proceed with the adoption when we got sucker punched. We got an email back from our IA Dr. stating that she had a couple concerns with the file and was going to consult a specialist colleague of hers and get back to us. I will be honest. I sobbed and sobbed. Mark tried his best to comfort me, but if what she was suspecting was accurate we would not be able to proceed with the adoption. It would be way out of our wheel house of needs we would be able to manage. I just KNEW this was our baby. I knew without a doubt that this sweet face was our Son. It was a rough night. I reached out and found some adoptive Mama's who have children with this need and our agencies advocate was able to contact our agencies in China coordinator to ask a couple key questions about this little guy. I have to tell you that being apart of the adoption community is like nothing else. The support from other adoptive parents, some of whom we have never even met except online, is absolutely phenomenal. I was also able to get in touch with a specialist to review the file separately from our IA Dr.'s colleague. (yep, I am a little crazy over information gathering anal)
So Thursday dawned and we were blessed to get a some information back from the in China coordinator and from the specialist I had reached out to. It was all good. That evening the IA Dr. personally called me to review his file. How awesome is that!! She explained in great detail the conclusions they had come to and why they had come to those conclusions. Once again it was good. Like any child, whether biological or adoptive, there is always the unknown. There is unknown with our own health. That being said, with the information we have we feel truly like we are capable of dealing with whatever may happen, but even more importantly we know this is our Son and we would go to the stars for him. So on November 7, 2014 we sent our Letter of Intent to Adopt to our agency and received Pre-Approval to adopt. We are now waiting on our paperwork to be translated and final approval so we can proceed with the next steps of the adopt. We are hoping to travel in March to bring this little guy home. So without further ado, here is the newest member of the Hendricks family (don't ask me his name b/c just like with Konnor it is probably going to take us months to agree on something).
