The referral story

If this story doesn't include a photo ... it's because the referral photos are haunted. Here is the story. It was a beautiful friday in July 2005, I drove my carefully prepared dossier packette to St. Paul so I could deliver it in person. I paged Alexa (one of the Ethiopia team staff at my agency). Alexa came downstairs and looked through the packette, she had one thing I needed to fix but basically accepted the dossier. She muttered something about not knowing if they had any referrals upstairs or not ... I left, smiling ... I was now OFFICIALLY waiting for a referral!!!! My paperwork was done!!! I went back to work, snatched up my two coworkers (one of them is Mel ... who is now waiting for her own referral) and we went to lunch to celebrate. We ordered our food (I had ordered a burger), and were waiting ... when my phone rang. I answered even though I didn't recognize the number. It was my adoption social worker. I assumed that there was another problem with the dossier. She asked me if I was able to talk ... she said she was calling with a referral. I was in SHOCK. It had been about 45 minutes since I turned in the dossier. She told me it was a baby girl, 2 months old. She told me the baby had something wrong with her foot, and since I indicated I was willing to consider limb deformities, that they wanted me to look at this referral. I couldn't eat (of course). I ran back to the office ... I signed into my e-mail waiting for the Ethiopia team to e-mail me the referal info. I refreshed, again and again and again. FINALLY the e-mail came. Our internet was interrupted and I coudn't get the photo to open. It was opening slowly ... one line at a time. I was getting closer to seeing my baby when I was interrupted by a page. I picked up the page and found out that I had a client related crisis that I had to tend to.... I left Mel in charge of the photo download. I drove to my clients. This crisis involved the police. I was NOT a PRESENT MINDED social worker. I just wanted the cops to deal with it ... the mom came back and the cops left ME in charge of the situation. ME!!!! I wanted to turn around and get in my car when the cops left. I did the best social working I could do given the situation. I waited as long as I could and then I went to the office. My photo had been printed. Something was wrong with the sizing/printer, so the photo printed on 9 pieces of paper, one part of the baby on each piece of paper ... we taped her together and got a bigger then life poster of the most beautiful baby I had ever laid eyes on .... She was so beautiful. I stared into those eyes. I couldn't believe it. I needed to take the info to the pediatrician and the orth. specialist but I pretty much knew she was my baby at this point.