I'm hesitant to write this post...

All day long I've had a feeling, almost like an itch, like a niggling, strange sensation...of SOMETHING, like, something is about to happen...

At 5:45 my cell phone rang. I was still at work, since I am taking most of tomorrow off (Gabe's school is closed this week - it has to do with them following the University schedule, since they are technically part of the U, and the University is closed this week.)

Anway, it was 5:45, I was alone in our office - which is kind of creepy - alone on the 22nd floor of an office building...but, I digress. My cell phone rang. It was my husband. "Call A~" he said. (A~ being the social worker who is the waiting child coordinator for my agency.) "She thinks she might have a little boy for us."

"What do you know?" I asked him. "He's three, almost, "he said. "He'll be three on Friday. He came into care at 10 days old. He had back surgery before he came into care (surgery prior to 10 days of age), probably for spina bifida. But he's walking, running, jumping, climbing stairs. Potty trained. Developmentally on target. Call her."

So, I called.

I was surprised to learn the child is in...China. Not Vietnam.

"He has a scar on his back, his lower spine. They've done an MRI of his spine, last March. He seems to be doing very well." A~ tells me. And then A~ says, "He's just, I can't tell you. This child is beautiful, physically, he's just...gorgeous."

Ouch. Way to get a PAP (potential adoptive parent) hook, line and sinker.

I refuse to bite. I refuse to let my heart be led with an irrational attraction to physical beauty.

Instead, I throw a practical question at her. "What happens to my dossier fee? Would we lose the dossier fee we already paid and have to pay it again?"

It depends, she says, on if the money has already been sent to Vietnam. If it's been sent to Vietnam, well, they aren't going to give it back.

"I only mailed it on Saturday." I say.

"I will find out" she says. "I don't think it will be a problem, since it obviously hasn't been sent to Vietnam yet. But, I will call you tomorrow if it is a problem, so, you'll know, right away, before you get the file."

I cannot afford to lose $2,800, it's just not feasible.

I'm trying to control myself. I'm trying to avoid...HOPE. Hope and expectation. This will be the forth child's file that I will have examined. Not counting the little girl with the eye problem, and the little boy on the waiting child list, and the little girl with atresia of both ears and anemia, whose issues were either so great that I couldn't comprehend dealing with them, or I couldn't bear the idea of having to compete with another family for them.

But, we have been offered this child first. Before he goes on the website, so, there would be no competition. He can be ours if we want him (and if we can have him without losing $2800 - I mean, that's just NOT an option.)

Is this another chapter in the story? Or is this the climax?

I just don't know...

LM