By Monica Reddin
Thursday, April 27, 2005 the day that is changing our lives.
It began as every other workday, get up, and get ready, run to catch the 7:16 am train, a real feel good for the day outfit. Usually I read on the train or sleep for a bit, Thursday I could only look out of the window and wonder if today would be the day. I did called my folks from the train to give them a wake up call as they were staying at my brother's house dog sitting. My Dad answered the phone and as I was hanging up with him I said "let's hope we get the call about your 14th grandchild today." It was cute because I could hear the smile in his voice when he wished us good luck and call right away. I had a feeling that Thursday would be the day because Gladney was moving, yes physically moving locations THAT day. Now Andrea had told me that they had it all worked out and not to worry. And you know what, I didn't worry about it. With all the other crazy things that happened over the past 21 months, I knew this would be the perfect end to it all. When I got to work, I again did my usual and ordered my breakfast, I just cannot eat earlier than 9 am. I was thinking how it would be hours before I could expect a call and quickly checked my May DTC group for any news. It was pretty quiet. I got out my "The Call" file that contained questions, a map of China and the people I needed to call to tell them about our daughter. The call I received first was breakfast in the lobby. Again, I was thinking don't get excited because you probably won't hear until early afternoon. Just as I got back from the lobby with breakfast the phone rang at 9:38 am, I picked it up while taking my ice coffee out and heard "Monica, it's Andrea….". I just stopped and said "Andrea?" and I heard yes, then I said, "This is it?" She said yes and I started to cry and Andrea was crying. Andrea told me that she was at the new location and referrals had arrived at the old location so all she had was our daughter's name, date of birth and province. I was shaking, which effected my hearing, so I wrote down Katie's name as Yang Fu Xiang, Andrea spelled it out 3 times and I didn't get it right until later in the day. Our daughter is at Yun Yang SWI in Chongqing. Andrea also told me that she hadn't seen the photos yet, but she was being told all the babies in our referral group were cute and chubby. I couldn't stop saying OMG and crying. Andrea told me we could come to the new office that afternoon after 1:30 pm to give them time to make copies of everything. One of the women, Lena, from the next showroom was walking by and saw me crying and came in to see what was wrong. As soon as she realized it was The Call, she started crying and was holding my hand. As soon as I hung up, I called Paul who was home waiting for the delivery of the new dresser, the old one had a crack in the leg. When he answered, I couldn't talk! He knew it was me and I just took a deep breath and said "Hi Daddy!" He couldn't believe we got the call that early! I told him what I knew and then we were figuring out when he could get into NYC. Yes, we did get mushy, but that we will keep between the two of us. Well then I started to call people and I have a ton of people in my family. It was fabulous making those phone calls! Finally, the wait to know who Katie is was over. Breakfast was forgotten, although the ice coffee was needed because it was cold, wet and I was talking a mile a minute. The morning flew by and it was time to go meet Paul. He drove from NJ to Brooklyn and took the subway into NYC. Since I am uptown, we decided to meet outside of Macy's on 34th Street. As I stood waiting for Paul in the beautiful spring weather, I was thinking how very lucky we are and we were moments away from seeing the tiny little person who was going to turn our world around. I was also watching a crane take down a flagpole from the front of Macy's and thinking I shouldn't walk under it as "today would not be a good day to get bonked on the head by a flagpole." Paul and I were calling one another to figure out exactly where the other was and he told me he would come to me. My phone rang again, it was my sister, Deb, who was trying to find out more information about Katie. I had just spotted Paul through the lunchtime crowd and the next thing I knew he had me in his arms, singing to me, and we were dancing in the middle of 34th Street. Yes, we are just big saps! We decided to go straight to Gladney and eat later, like I could wait another minute at that point. We found the new office and it was an office in the middle of a move. We were the first of our group who were local to show up. So we went to the new conference room and Andrea showed us Yang Fu Xing. Remember, I spelled it incorrectly earlier. I was speechless and Paul was laughing. She took my breath away. This tiny little person with those compelling eyes who doesn't even know we exist just floored me. Another family showed up so we were left alone in the conference room looking at these pictures and reading the data that was in English. I just kept looking at all the details. The way she was holding her fist in the picture with the red outfit, I hold mine the same way. Her tiny little pinkie sticking out, Paul says if you look closely enough it already has his name on it. That little mouth. THOSE CHEEKS! This poor baby is going to have chapped cheeks from all the kisses she will be getting. THAT HAIR! My first thought was I didn't buy clips big enough for all that hair and I hope they still make No More Tears shampoo. Then, I couldn't stop smiling and laughing. I really thought I would be crying, but I had the same reaction on the day we got married. I cried about everything leading up to it and then on our wedding day, I was all smiles. Gongzhan came in and translated some of the referral right there for us. He told us how she was found and where. That is something for Katie to share if she wants to later on. We were told she is a deep sleeper and sucks her fingers while sleeping. She laughs out loud, has a ready smile, and is fond of listening to music. We also found out that she is quiet, active, and obstinate sometimes. Sounds like an imp to me! That just means some fun times down the road. We will be getting a fullyt ranslated copy of the referral in about a week. After a quick lunch, just the two of us, we made the rounds to Brooklyn, Staten Island and finally NJ. Grandma and Grandpa came over for dinner,well, Grandpa cooked dinner. We had champagne and I went to sleep. A peaceful sleep, the best night's sleep I have had in months. You see my dreams came true on Thursday when I found out who my daughteris, Yang Fu Xing, who will soon be Katharine Xing Reddin. Our KatieXing-Xing. My little love bug.
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