The Big Meeting
Continued from previous post

We entered the restaurant and there, in living color, stood a very pregnant young woman and her counselor. The young woman didn’t say much, but had a nervous laugh. We all did, I’m sure. A few minutes later, her boyfriend showed up, and we all settled down to dinner.

I won’t reveal too many details of that dinner other than to say that it was as nerve-wracking as any job interview, and with a lot more at stake. For everyone. And yet a sense of peace seemed to enfold all of us – a sense of rightness.

My husband and I left feeling excited and hopeful. The birthparents left feeling sad, because their adoption plan was now becoming very much a reality. They also felt hopeful, as if God was showing them that we were the ones who’d parent their baby (I’m not making this up…they told me that’s how they felt).

There was one teensy potential glitch in the plans. My husband and I had a big “last hurrah before kids” vacation to England planned. We intended to leave for England in mid-August, right about when the baby was due. We volunteered to cancel our vacation so we could be nearby when the baby was born, but the birthparents urged us, “Go. Go on your vacation.”

So we changed the dates and decided to leave August 4 and return by mid-August, well in advance of her due date.

Four days into our trip, we found a pay phone at midnight, England time (this was before the days of cell phones) and called our adoption agency to check in.

“Where have you been?!” our caseworker exploded. “We’ve been calling all your contacts, trying to find you.”

“We’re in England…Wales, actually,” we replied. “It’s only been four days since we talked with you.”

“Well, I have news for you,” announced our caseworker. “You have a baby boy waiting for you.”

Dead silence (we were getting good at the dead silence thing by now).

“When was he born?”

“August 4.”

The very day we had left for England.

In the next post…The homecoming