24 Hours After the Call

The last 24 hours have been an emotional, wonderful, productive time. In addition to staring at Gayle's picture about 100 times I also got a lot done. I sent her background and medical information to a pediatrician that specializes in international adoption. He reviewed everything and then had a 40 minute phone consultation with me. He said she looks very healthy and saw no reason for concern. He also said he thought she was really beautiful and I said I couldn't agree more.

Tomorrow we will get a packet of paperwork from our adoption agency. We need to fill out some forms in order to officially accept her referral. Then I mail that in with the last big check (it was a doozy) and our paperwork can be forwarded to Ethiopia to request a court date.

A little more about that big check. It felt a little surreal to go to the bank today. When we first started this process I opened a savings account at a new bank. I wanted it to be completely separate from our other banks so that we would never be the tiniest bit tempted to touch that money.

The tellers at the bank knew why we had the account and they have been our cheerleaders during this process! Today I got to show them a picture of our baby girl and one of them actually teared up. These ladies have seen my struggle to raise this money. They have seen the tiny deposits when I couldn't scrape much together to the big deposits when I had successful fundraising. They heard about our "grocery angel" that sends us gift cards in the mail so our grocery money can go towards the adoption. One of them said she prays daily for us. What an amazing connection I have had with these women!

I left there with a big check (although an empty back account) and a bigger smile.

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WE GOT THE CALL!!!!

For 432 days we have been waiting to see our little girl's face. As hard as those days were they were all worth it! Our case worker called tonight around 5:45pm. As soon as I saw the caller id my heart started racing. I picked up the phone and just blurted out, "is this THE CALL?" She laughed a little and said, "yes."

Then she told us about our baby girl. She is two months old and already weighs over 10 pounds. She has gorgeous, big eyes and chubby cheeks. She is perfect and precious and we are already head over heels in love!

The next step is to have her information reviewed by an international adoption pediatrician and officially accept our referral. Then we wait for a court date. The courts in Ethiopia are closed until mid-October. Once they reopen they can issue our court date. If we are really lucky it could be the end of November.

I can't write anymore because I have to go back and stare at her picture some more!

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