Happy Referral Day to Louis

Three years ago today John and I went to church and then took a leisurely, child-free trip to the grocery store. Neither one of us took a cell phone. It was a Sunday and everyone we knew was watching some football game. As we were putting the groceries in the fridge, we noticed we had a voice mail. It was from our social worker. She said she was calling with a referral.

I called her back while John hovered nearby. "I knew you would be watching the game," she said. The game...? Oh, yes, the game, I said. Then I politely told her she was wrong. She couldn't have a referral for us. We just finished our home study, I said. Our dossier's not done. In fact, it's not started. You must mean someone else.

No, she meant us. She told us about a little boy. He was in Hunan Province. He was in foster care. I remember she said he was really cute. I scribbled all the details onto an envelope my brother Ricky's Christmas card came in--an envelope we will always keep.

Then I hung up and John and I stood there and stared at each other. Then we stumbled around in a bit of a daze. We weren't expecting this call to come for months. When we had recovered enough to think, we went to our computer and waited the longest 20 minutes of our lives for our dial-up connection to open the PDF with our little boy's referral.

There was one tiny black-and-white photo of him at the top of the first page.

We stared and stared at his face. Without ever having discussed names, we looked at each other and knew his name was Louis. And, as John sat cross-legged on the floor and I trembled with excitement in the chair in front of the computer, we fell in love with our son.

Because we were new to this whole experience, we thought it was the only photo we would receive. So we read through pages and pages of info before we came to more photos at the end of the file.

He looked bewildered.

 He looked curious.

He looked absolutely beautiful.

It took us 11 months to travel to China to meet Louis. In that time, he grew so much.

Today, three years after we first saw his photo--and our stories were first linked--Louis has become a confident, independent 4-year-old.

He's a big brother.

 

A son.

At rare moments a willing participant in photos.

A Superboy.

And always, always a proud, fun-loving cousin. (Can you hear his ecstatic scream from there?)

It has been quite a journey.

And we are so blessed to have our beloved son--and Michael's big brother--in our lives. Happy referral day, Louis!