Arrival Day

The doorbell rang and I hurried down the short flight of stairs in our Raised Ranch on Oakwood Drive West in Colonie.   Brian was out in our fenced-in back yard playing with his "Bully Dozer" in the dirt pile in the far left corner of our property.  Bing was tied to a long chain next to his homemade doghouse in the same corner of the yard.  It was May 11th 1979 and I was anticipating the delivery of our new baby girl.    Bob was at his State Job downtown.   I'm not sure why he didn't stay home that day.  In retrospect, it seems like it would have been nice if he were there with me.  Possibly we weren't sure what time out little baby would arrive and Bob, being the conscientious worker that he was/is, never missed a day of work.    Come to think of it, the very first day he started to work for the State of New York here in Albany, he woke up in the middle of the night sick as a dog with a temperature of almost 104 degrees.  It was 1976 and we lived in a mobile home on Belden Hill, and the ride northeast to the Albany area at that time (pre- Route 88) was 2 & 1/2 to 3 hours.  I was working at Wilson Memorial Hospital in Johnson City and I was scheduled to go into work that morning.    I tried my damnedest to convince Bob to call his new Boss and explain that he was very sick and couldn't possibly make it, but Bob was going to start this new job whether or not it killed him.  I guess it was no coincidence that it just happened to April Fool's Day!
So Bob was at work when I heard the anticipated doorbell. When I opened the front door, there on the landing was our Social Work, Jean Kibbe, holding a cute little redheaded, six month old baby girl.   Jean had her own mother with her that day; I can only guess that she had wanted to be a part of this joyous event.  I was a little surprised but didn't mind since it was something my own mother would have wanted to do.     The Albany Social Services Adoption Unit had conducted a very abbreviated home study (it started at the end of March) since Diane had been born on Nov. 6th and was in a foster home awaiting adoption.     The Social Worker advised us to change our baby's name since the name  given to her by her birth mother was very unusual, and easily identifiable.  I often wondered if calling her by a new name, i.e., Diane, was a bit confusing to her since babies are very wise, even at six months of age.   
Briefly, Jean and  her mother sat on the couch in the living room with us and then they left and I had a new baby all to myself.     It was a surreal feeling.    No labor pains, no delivery complications, and one of the shortest "pregnancies" on record.     I called two and half year old Brian in from the backyard to meet his new baby sister and he came running in, looked her over, and went back outside to continue his digging in the dirt pile.
 I put Diane in the highchair for lunch but she didn't seem too happy about it.  
When we lived on Oakwood Dr West, I was babysitting for a neighborhood little red-haired girl named Mary, and when she arrived after school that day she was delighted to hold our  new little baby.  They actually looked a bit like sisters.  I'll have to find the photo that her mother took when she came to pick up Mary after work.
When Bob got home that evening, I said, "here's our new baby" and we all sat together at the kitchen table  for dinner.  Although it was a regular day in many ways, it was a most extraordinary, life changing day for Diane and the Buchner family.