Tuesday, May 01, 2007

CRIKEY!!!

TWINS!!!


On Friday, April 6th, our agency called us to tell us that we have been referred TWINS!! Our nephew Jake (nickname: Jake) was in town and he and Kim had just left the Museum of Natural History. Kim and I were on the phone together (I was at work selling banking software, but I don't want to talk about it too much because it is really glamorous and exciting and I don't want to make you jealous) and in the middle of our conversation Kim's call waiting lit up.

The number had a 425 area code (Seattle, home of Niles Crane) and Kim screamed "Is the 425 area code from Seattle, home of Niles Crane?" I said yes (Wow! This is already quite dull).

Anyway, the woman at our agency, Elizabeth Rose, conferenced us both in and said the following: "Well, I have some good news, and in fact it's even BETTER news. The Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs has referred TWINS to you." The rest is pretty much a blur, although we did stay coherent long enough for her to tell us that their names are Ling Cha Qiong (Pink Baby) and Ling Cha Yao (Plaid Baby) and they are in town of Shangrao in the Southeastern China province of Jiangxi. We couldn't be more thrilled.

My first thought was "Woo Hoo!!!" My second thought was "How will I pay for college?" Kim's first thought was "I should sit down right in the middle of the sidewalk in front of the Museum of Natural History."

After we both caught our breath and realized how cool (and frightening) this would be, we organized a conference call with all of our family.

We had to text/email/call everyone to make sure they got the call-in details, and then we held the call at 6:30 PM.

We figured everyone knew the subject of the conference call, but no one knew that we were getting TWINS. We tried to come up with something clever --
Kim: "Hey Mike, what are you doing in 17 years?"
Mike: "Paying for college for our TWINS!"
or

Kim: "Hey Mike, what do we have in common with the parents of Mary Kate and Ashley Olson?"
Mike: "We are billionaires?"
Kim: "No, we are going to be parents of TWINS."
Mike:
"Cool. Can we also be billionaires? (laughs heartily)"


But then we figured we would go for the direct approach - an introduction --
Kim: "We are happy to introduce you all to our daughter Ling, Cha Yao".
After a proper pause -
Mike: "And our OTHER daughter Ling, Cha Qiong."


There were a lot of questions from our family about the girls about travel details and other topics, most of which we couldn't answer. The conference call was one of the highlights of our life, and we were so pleased that everyone got to share the moment and tell us how happy they were for us. No one promised to pay for their college, though, so it wasn't entirely a success.

That night Gene and Stacee came over with their son "Julian", as did Laura and DeYan (who bought us a book called 'The Art of Raising Twins' - quite appropriate).

The rest of the evening was a blur and we started realizing that we were going to be parents of TWINS! Crikey!!! I mean - Woo Hoo!!!!