Good Things Do Come To Those Who Wait

Posted by: Cindy Bunn on: June 7, 2009

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It’s been way to long since I posted, and I have so much good news to share.

You wonder for so long why things are the way they are, you hear so many people tell you, “it will happen when it’s meant to happen” and you spend so many nights laying in bed wondering what you did so wrong that God would punish you with such a grueling wait to become parents.

Then it happens and just like that it really does all make sense.

About 3 weeks ago Cullen and I were sitting at work on a Thursday morning and he called me and asked, “Did you see the little guy in the email Children’s Hope sends out?”  Half the time Cullen doesn’t even get the emails from CHI and when he does, he never calls me about it. So I logged on and saw the cutest little boy up for adoption on the Special Needs waiting list. We quickly decided we wanted him, called our social worker, she said he was still available and that we needed to start making phone calls to find a Dr to review his files.  We were so excited, Cullen immediately called our Dr’s office. Only to get a call 2 mins later from our social worker that another family with another adoption agency had locked him profile.  They had 48 hours to review his files, if they declined his referral we would have a chance.  So we knew in our hearts the other family would accept him. He was such a precious little guy.  They did end up accepting his referral. I was so happy and so sad all at the same time. Happy that he had found his family but sad that it wasn’t with us.

At that point, we had not officially been added to the Waiting Children’s list with our agency. In the past few years Cullen and I had occasionally looked at the list of children up for adoption through our agency who had special needs but had never found the one we thought was meant to be ours. 

With the special needs list, there are two ways our agency can get referrals for families. The CCAA sends our referrals to multiple agencies and the the CCAA also sends referrals exclusively to our agency.  If you’re on the special needs waiting list, you give the agency a list of the special needs you are able to parents, they put you on the list in order of receipt.  If they find a baby for you on the multiple agency list, they will immediately lock their profile so no  other agencies and review that file, and you have 48 hours to accept or decline the referral.   If it’s a referral thats sent directly to the agency, then they have that children’s profile for a certain amount of time, usually for several months. If they find a family to match the baby with, perfect, if not, then they send the referral back to China.   

Our social worker Christina told me that our wait probably wouldn’t be to terribly long since we had decided that we were open to a referral for a boy. Many of the family only want referrals for a girl.  She told us she didn’t think our wait would be very long.

She was right.

Tuesday June 2nd is a day I will never forget. It’s the day I became someone’s Mommy.

I was sitting at work about 8:30 in the morning.  My friend Lisa was sitting with me. Something we do almost daily, sit in my office and chat about the previous evening’s happenings.  The phone rang and it was our social worker Christina. She had locked the profile of a 1 year old baby boy for us the previous night.  She told me he had just turned one on May 18th and that he was born with a cleft lip and cleft palate. She told me she would be sending me over his information right away and to watch my email.  I just sat there in disbelief waiting for the email to come through. 

I remember when seeing the email pop up and thinking, OMG this is Cindy, you’re life is never going to be the same. My friend Lisa was such a sweetheart, she backed away from my office and said, “No I don’t want to see the pictures before Cullen does”  She was going to leave my office and for whatever reason I was so nervous I said, “No don’t leave me!”  So she stayed, but she backed away from the computer so she didn’t see the photos.  I remember opening his records and reading all his info and I remember wanting to savor that first moment of seeing my son for the first time.  Then, it happened, I opened the Chinese profile that had the photos in it, and I slowly scrolled down, and the first thing I saw was his precious dark eyes and I was in love. That’s all it took.  I kept scrolling and what I saw before me was the most absolutely beautiful baby boy I had ever seen in my entire life. 

In that moment, Roman Jackson Bunn was born.  I quickly called Cullen on his cell, he was just getting to work. When he answered his phone I said, “what’s up Dad?!” He said, “huh what?” I said yep, get to your computer and check your email I’m sending you his info, it’s a boy!” We hung up and he called right back as soon as he had his profile opened.  We were both in love.

So I quickly emailed Christina back and told her we were in love! We went through all the steps to get his medical records reviewed by a pediatrician and Cullen spoke with a plastic surgeon’s office and we verified that my insurance would cover his surgery and that was all it took, he was ours.

So here he is boys and girls….. Roman Jackson Bunn. Or as he’ll be known by, Jackson.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are head over heels in love with our little man. I have so much hope and promise for him. I will write more about him later, I’m sure I will drive everyone crazy talking about Jackson, but I can’t help it.

I am finally someone’s Mommy. I look at his picture and think to myself how absolutely beautiful he is and then I remind myself that that beautiful little boy is our SON. I have a son. 

So after 5 years of waiting to be someone’s Mom, I finally am. 

So now it all becomes clear to me. We clearly were meant to have a son first.  Seeing him makes it all so understandable to me.  We were never meant to have a daughter first, it was always meant to be Jackson as our first child. 

Katie is still very much a reality for us.  She will be our second child.  We will make certain of that. (We have to, what else are we going to do with all the pink we’ve bought over the past 3 years!?) As soon as China will allow us to submit another dossier for adoption, we will. 

In the meantime I am going to love every moment of my precious little man. 

I still can’t believe it, we’re finally parents!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tags: china adoption, cleft lip, cleft palate