Meet Xi Yun Gui

We got a match! He is 10 months old (these photos are from a few months ago - he definitely looks younger than 10 months), bright-eyed and healthy-looking, and as long as all the paperwork falls into place, he is OURS OURS OURS.

[I took down the pictures. Privacy issues, dontcha know. I don't expect any harm to come to him just because his pictures were on the internet, but it's the principle of the thing. I don't post pictures of myself or my husband, either, and I discourage him from posting any as well.]

We're looking at his medical records, and although I won't hash out the details here, they look pretty good, all things considered. We're getting an MD's consultation and R's sister-in-law, a nurse, also offered to look at them. Can't hurt, I figure. Not only is she a nurse, but she has four kids of her own (all boys), and she's generally a very helpful person.

We weren't expecting a boy, nor were we expecting a child this young. It was quite a shock to get the phone call. I was in the middle of creating an enormous pile of invoices - it's the first week of the month, which is crunchtime for me - and suddenly my world started spinning and I couldn't concentrate. I lied to my boss and assured him I had the invoices under control, but I knew I wouldn't be able to think straight until we made our decision. Should we accept or reject the little guy? At the time, we had only the barest of information, and no pictures.

We made plans to go to Hyannis after R got out of work and discuss it over a nice dinner out.

When we got home, it was even harder to concentrate. We were going to be parents. Hopefully. If we could meet the deadline.

The next morning, Friday, I set about making phone calls, doing research, and finishing those pesky invoices. I couldn't step away from the phone from 9:00 AM till almost 5 PM, between my boss and the techie, my agent and my other agent, and the MD who was being recruited to give us a consultation. It's too bad I don't work well under pressure. If I did, Friday probably would have been a breeze. And on top of that, R had a show scheduled in NYC! We scrambled to get our end of the paperwork done, then I drove him to South Station and he headed off to the Comic Con, grumbling that we only ever seem to get matched when he's off doing a dealer table. I came home, banged out the letter of intent, and emailed it and the passport photos to the agency.

And woke up the next morning to find that I hadn't emailed the passport photos after all. Oooops.

Just then, my boss called me hoping to get the stack of invoices from me. I was supposed to drop them off at his house on Friday night, but I'd been running late so he'd told me not to bother.

At 10:30 AM I had the photos sent to the agency and the invoices in my boss's hands. Phew! That's when I had the time to wonder what happens next. While waiting to hear whether we had our papers in in time to accept Yun Gui, I called every relative I could think of. Because I'm not prudent enough to wait for confirmation before spreading the potential good news to everyone.

But I guess it's for real, as long as the CCAA doesn't find any reason to object to the match. I can't imagine they would. Yun Gui is ours, then, and we'll probably go to China to get him this summer.

This whole thing just totally fell into place, and we couldn't be more happy. Truly. There might even be dents in the walls from me bouncing off of them.