We are here!

Leah, please email me!  I don't even want to tell you how many times I  looked back at that comment you left all those months ago.  I always wondered who left it, and for some reason it made me feel strangely better.  What you said what slightly prophetic--he was one of the last boys out of Vietnam.  

Today I even felt the need to email the CIS officer that worked on my paperwork last year--I'll let you scroll back to January and February to read about it (I'm too lazy these days to link).  It was an awful time I remember wishing/hoping that the CIS wouldn't be the reason that I didn't receive a referral.  Fortunately, they weren't.

Some of you know the story and some of you don't, but now that we are both home safely I feel I need to be open.  Those of you that I privately email know that I have felt a strange link to my son from the beginning, but despite that there was a lingering doubt about whether or not I would receive a referral.  While I was was looking over the paperwork I received before we exited the country I was amazed to learn that many of those feelings that I felt actually correlated to something significant with him.  But still, when you see a shutdown looming it is incredible difficult to maintain any sense of hope.  

On August 29th, on the last day that referrals were signed, my son and I were permanently matched together.  Unfortunately it took several days before I was notified and I didn't lay eyes on his photo until September 3rd.  There are a number of reasons I decided not to share this information publicly.  One of my primary early reasons was because I was very aware of how many families were not receiving referrals and would not be able to share my joy.  It was heartbreaking to know that many of my blogger buddies would not be bringing home children from Vietnam.  How could I possibly share my good news when so many were hurting?

My second reason for keeping it quiet was 'what if?'.  In a country that is closing there are so many things that can go wrong.  Up until the time I boarded the plane I kept expecting someone to call and say they had changed their minds.  I could not endure that kind of heartbreak publicly.  And just so you don't think I was being a total jerk, I didn't even tell my co-workers until after I had received I-600 Approval in late October.  The people at the church I attend didn't even know until two days before I left when my pastor made me a part of the sermon.  People have come up to me the past two Sundays with tears in their eyes (yeah, that phenomenom still amazes me) wanting to see my son.

Oh, and his name isn't Haven.  As you might have noticed he is a BIG boy.  He was especially beefy looking in his referral photos and when I tried to imagine people chanting his name at football games, well, Haven didn't make the cut.  I am working on a name and I have trying it out on him.  Unfortunately when we were in Vietnam I began calling him Spud and now others have picked up on that.  The last thing he needs is a redneck-sounding nickname...