I live in a large urban area that has a population of about 3 million people. Once we were licensed we began getting calls right away. The first was a sibling group of a boy and girl 5 & 8 years old. They went to their grandmother before they were ever placed with us. Our second call was a choice of three babies that needed a placement. I never hoped to dream that we would be welcoming a tiny newborn into our home! I assumed that the greatest need was older children but, because I was able to stay at home with the children we were a great resource to premature babies. These little ones couldn't go into daycare for at least 6 weeks and usually needed longer than that to build up their immune systems.
All three babies were waiting in local hospitals, two newborns and one 5 month old that was born really premature and was just being released from the hospital. We told them we would take whomever needed a home the soonest. That ended up being my daughter Jo. We weren't supposed to pick her up until the following day but we couldn't wait and went to the hospital nursery and tried to pick her out. We didn't know it was her then but, we had seen her being fed and rocked by the nurse on duty.
I don't believe in coincidences. Our girls were meant to be sisters from the very beginning. That 5 month old baby that was mentioned in our first placement call.....was Lili. 10 months later she would come into our home as our forever daughter. We realized this connection after she was adopted and we were looking through her files.
The next day we went to the hospital expecting to pick up a newborn, they hadn't informend us she was a preemie. At only 4 lbs 3 oz, she was the tiniest thing I had ever seen. We had brought a 0-3 month outfit to take her home it (shows how much we didn't know about babies at the time) and she was swimming in it. I was in awe and spent hours just staring at her perfect face. Her arm was as big as my thumb.
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