Every night before they go to bed, Jesmina and Musse deGuzman say prayers for their new little brother and sister.
Jesmina, who is 3, asks Jesus to “please watch over my brother and sister until Mommy and Daddy go to get them.” Then she and her 2-year-old brother kiss laminated pictures of the siblings they hope will be home with them before the summer.
A little over a week ago, after nine months of waiting, the deGuzman family of Paradise Valley got the call. Two babies are waiting for them in Ethiopia.
Keri deGuzman was so eager to get the call that she’d programmed a special ring tone into her cell phone — determined not to miss it. But on this particular morning, after she dropped her children at preschool and went out for a 2½-hour bike ride, the call came from a different phone number, one unidentifiable by ring tone.
So Keri kept riding. When she returned home, she saw that she had two messages on her cell phone and the answering machine was beeping. She immediately called her caseworker at Christian World Adoption, who shared the good news and began forwarding photographs and reports describing what little was known about these two tiny babies.
Keri knew almost immediately that these babies were the ones — the children who would complete the family she and her husband Brian, a cardiac surgeon at St. Joseph’s Hospital & Medical Center, began three years ago when they adopted Ethiopian-born Jesmina and returned about a year later to adopt Musse.
Adoptive parents always have the option to accept or decline what is known in the process as “a referral.” Caseworkers do the best they can to find a good fit for each prospective family but ultimately the decision remains with the parents.
How do you know when the match is right? As she absorbed the news and reviewed the emails she’d received from the caseworker, Keri knew. “It just clicks,” she says. “It feels right.”
In this case, she says, “I looked into my heart. They looked familiar to me. They looked like my children.”
Keri compares it to the sense of wonder she imagines a pregnant woman must feel when she first recognizes her baby’s heartbeat during an ultrasound exam. “Maybe it’s that same feeling,” she says. “You just have that comfort.”
Several hurdles loom before the deGuzmans will book flights to Ethiopia. The children, who are currently living at an orphanage in Soddo, in southern Ethiopia, will be moved to a home in the capital city of Addis Ababa, where they will undergo additional medical screenings. There is more paperwork to be completed, a court date to be set, a birth certificate to be issued. Eventually, an appointment will be made at the American embassy and visas will be issued so the deGuzmans can bring their babies home.
If all goes well, their trip will begin in late April or early May. If obstacles arise, there will be more delays — more waiting.
I wait with them, my sense of anticipation different, but palpable. The deGuzmans have invited me to accompany them on this journey and when they get the next important phone call, I have to be ready.
So each night, long after Jesmina and Musse have said their prayers, kissed their pictures and gone to bed, I lie awake pondering the wondrous adventure ahead, hoping I am up to the task of sharing it.
