On Monday afternoon, I was in the middle of photographing a one-year old cake smash session when my phone began to ring. I apologized for having it on sound but explained that I was waiting for a call I couldn’t miss. I knew our profile had been shown to a birth family that morning. When I saw it was our adoption consultant my heart sank. The last time she contacted me it was to say another family had been chosen. Typically, the agency will call if you are the chosen family. I took a deep breath and answered, “Hello?”
“Hi Danielle, have you checked your email?”
“No, sorry I’m in the middle of a photo session.”
“Well, I’ve text and emailed you and didn’t hear a response so I thought I’d call. You need to check your email.”
Me not even wanting to ask, “Is it good news?”
“Um, yes, it’s very good news! THEY CHOSE YOU...”
She continued to tell me about how we needed to call the birth parents that evening so they could make a final decision, but I could hardly hear a word. Could it be? Were we CHOSEN? The consultant congratulated me and said I could call with questions once I was done with the photo session in preparation for the call that evening and hung up. I turned around and looked at the family I was photographing. “I guess we are parents. I think I’m going to cry.”
The family congratulated me and told me to take a minute and call my husband. Simon and I exchanged a few words of utter shock and almost disbelief and then hung up and continued on our workdays. It felt so surreal we didn’t know how to feel or even think. As soon as I got home, I started packing and Simon joined me as soon as he could. We called the birth family at 7:30PM.
Phone ringing. Someone answered but didn’t say anything. Simon began talking in his calm Irish way because I didn’t know what to say. “Hello? This is Simon and Danielle. Can you hear us? Um, I’m going to call back and try again. Our connection might be messed up.”
Ringing again. Again, call answered but silence. After a few moments a cheerful, man voice answered, “Hello? Simon and Danielle? How’s it going man?” We had a wonderful conversation with both birth parents. Gratitude from both sides could not be conveyed enough and they assured us they would call the attorney in the morning to sign the paperwork saying after talking with us they knew 100% that we were the parents they wanted for their baby.
We packed up the dog and drove to my family‘s farm to announce our crazy exciting news. At midnight we packed for our trip, slept for about an hour then got up and drove to Florida on Tuesday at 4:30AM. On Wednesday at 9:30AM we received our baby girl and are officially PARENTS!
Thank you to everyone for your continued support, prayers and outpouring of love. We know we were chosen to be this precious baby's parents and are overwhelmingly blessed!
Meet Siobhan Fiona Curtis
