The First Meeting

Kat and I were at an Atlanta Hawks game on 7.February.2006. Kat asked me if I had read an e-mail from our friend Chris Kramer regarding a child available for adoption. I said no, I had not seen it. Then, as we were just standing around at the Team Georgia booth, we called Chris. Chris and her husband had already adopted one child from The Peoples Republic of China and were in the process of adopting their second child. Chris told us we called just in time. She immediately e-mailed the adoption agent and told her we were, in fact, very interested.

We called the adoption lady the next morning. She told us all about this boy from the Peoples Republic of China who was five, in Ann Arbor, Michigan with a family who decided a change was necessary. We received e-mail photos, medical reports, social worker reports, a ton of information.

It turns out that I spent the entire next two and one half days on the phone with three adoption agents, finding an attorney, talking to doctors, making travel arrangements and all kinds of other necessary matters.

Kat and I spent a lot of time negotiating how much time we would have to reach a decision. It was a tough negotiation but it was agreed we could have until about 10:00am the following Tuesday morning.

Kat and I went to Hartsfield Airport on Friday night 10.February.2006. We were flying standby on Delta to Detroit, Michigan. The one flight was wide open and we were to have no problems getting seats.

Then the one Northwest Airlines flight from Atlanta to Detroit had equipment trouble! Just great.

You guessed it. We got bumped off the flight.

Kat was very upset. Truth be told, I was also. We wondered if this was a sign from God. After checking, we determined there was no way to get even to close to Detroit that night, we would have to try again the next day.

We did. We arrived in Detroit, got in our Hertz rental car with the most excellent Never Lost navigation system and went to meet this boy.

We were nervous, excited, scared, thankful, and did I mention nervous and excited...

We went to the house were this boy was. We saw him for the first time. He was pretty shy and not quite sure what to make of us, I suspect. Kat had gotten him and the other boy in the house some toys - that really helped break the ice.

After about 25 minutes the three of us departed the house. It was really snowing pretty hard. Perfect weather to go off with a child. But we did. We went to Briarwood Mall. When we got out of the car, the first bonding took place. We swung this boy between us and he loved it. We did it, at his request, many times.

Our first stop was Marshall Fields, we went to Sears, J. Crew and several other stores including a play area and we had our first meal together - yes, it was Chinese food!

We then went to the local Trader Joe's - the best food store in the world. That was a real treat for us.

Two things happened on this outing. We called the adoption lady and told her we did not need to wait until Tuesday morning - God had just introduced us to our son. We also named him - Jack.

It was snowing, very hard, it was freezing, literally. We knew we had a son. What a beautiful day.