The Call

I was sitting at my desk at work when my phone rings. I have it on silent so as to not disturb those around me with the ringing but that then requires me to look at it every 5 seconds to see if it has or is ringing. I looked down and saw an unfamiliar number on the phone. I have been getting calls from solicitors on my cell phone lately so I thought it was probably another call. I answered, just in case, and was caught off guard when I heard Christy's (our case worker) voice on the other end. She got right down to business and said that she has some exciting news for us. I grabbed a pad of paper and went into an office and shut the door so I could concentrate. I tried to conference in John but OF COURSE his phone was not on and we don't have a land line. I knew he was home as it was Emma's nap time but couldn't get ahold of him. I went ahead and let Christy tell me on the phone about the little boy that would become part of our family. Due to privacy issues, I can't disclose all of the details now but he is a healthy one month old little boy and his given name means Wisdom....pretty big word for such a little man. I was able to absorb about 1/2 of what Christy was telling me the whole time thinking....why isn't John picking up his phone?? I got off the phone, grabbed my stuff and rushed home to open the email as a family. I got ahold of John on my way out of the office so he was ready when I got home.



John, Emma and I sat on the couch, pulled up my email and saw the first pictures of our little boy. We told Emma this was her baby brother and she kept saying "more bahbi buder". We got four pictures of him which I have looked at too many times to count. This all happened around 3pm. We sent some emails, updated our blog, sent pictures to be printed at Costco then headed out to the store to buy him his first outfit.....pictures to come.



I had already planned to get my haircut with a friend of mine and thought about canceling but was bouncing off the walls and John encouraged me to go and gush on my way. The haircut didn't end up happening but we did pick the pictures up at Costco and I was able to go on and on with Alisa about our precious little boy.



That evening there was an event at a local Christian High School with various people from around the state advocating for orphan care and global awareness. I decided to keep my plans for going and was sooooo glad that I did. I met a man from Ethiopia there that was able to tell me how to pronounce our son's name and also what it meant. What a blessing!!!



I came home and collapsed. Exhausted after such a full day. It was wonderful. He is more than we could have ever hoped for. We already feel so blessed to have him become part of our family....

Our Little Boy

We got the call yesterday that we have been anxiously awaiting! We have met our baby boy. He is only a month old. He is beautiful. He is perfect. We are in love. I will post more soon. Now time to go stare at his picture again.........

We are not allowed to post pictures or his given name on the blog for privacy reasons until he is officially ours. A hand will have to do for now. But isn't it a cute hand?

Official August Numbers

We got our monthly update with our referral numbers today and we are officially......

This means that there was only one infant boy referral last month which we knew. I have been going between checking my email every two minutes to staring at my phone just knowing it is going to ring any minute. You know how a pot won't boil if you are staring at it? I don't think a phone will ring if you are looking at it either. If you call me and I sound disappointed when I answer, it is not you.....it is this. The anticipation of meeting our son. The little man that will call us mom and dad and call Emma sister. I am not really sure how to describe this feeling of waiting. It is a lot harder than I anticipated being so close and knowing that at any minute, all will be dropped and a celebration will begin in our family. And we haven't even been waiting very long. I can't imagine what a really long wait must feel like.......

His Mother

I lay in bed awake at night thinking about our son. Our sweet baby boy that is almost certainly been born and is probably tucked into bed with several other children in an orphanage. It is my hope that he has already arrived at Hannah's Hope, the orphanage that is run by our agency. I imagine him exploring his new environment and being loved on by the special mothers that make Hannah's Hope a safe place to be for orphaned children. As I think of him, my mind automatically goes to his birth mother, her possible circumstances and what she must be feeling having just given up a most precious gift of her child. Either by choice or by necessity, this must be one of the hardest moments in her life. Her body probably still shows some signs of the pregnancy. Daily reminders of the pain she has endured. Chances are that AIDS or some other disease has weakened her to the point of being unable to care for her sweet baby. She looks to those around her for help to find that everyone else is also in this same plight. What kind of world do we live in where a mother is not able to care for her baby? Where one country has so little in terms of basic needs while another country bursts with wealth? Where one country is being destroyed by a disease that another country has the drugs to subdue? These are the thoughts that I struggle with on a daily basis. What can be done so that less mothers have to make this enormous sacrifice? What can I do to help not only the children but the mothers as well?

I yoyo between the feelings of excitement and sorrow as I look ahead to the amazing gift of life that our family is about to receive but also reflect on the sacrifices and injustice that have occurred to make this gift a reality.

Unofficially Number One

I swore that I was not going to post any unofficial numbers as it would drive me crazy. I also swore to myself that I would not spend hours "blog stalking" to find out if we had moved up the list. I broke my promise. Thanks to my massive amount of time blog stalking, I discovered today that we are unofficially number one on the boy list. This is exciting news that we couldn't keep to ourselves. Hope to have even more exciting news in the near future.

What Happens from Here??

We found out we were number 2 on the boy list the day before we left for a week long beach vacation with my family which is why we haven't really posted much in the last couple weeks. Needless to say, we were overjoyed to find this out and it is still keeping us pretty excited when we look at each other each day and say "Number 2, can you believe it??"

So what happens now??

1.) We wait to get a call from our case worker, Christy, letting us know that she has a baby boy to introduce us to. This could happen tomorrow, this could happen a week from now, this could happen two months from now.

2.) When we get the call, we will be provided with all of the information they have about our little boy. Pictures, videos, medical information, family background. We will be sent an email and overnighted a hard copy of all of this information.

3.) We will then send the medical information to an international physician who reviews it and conferences with us to answer questions and explain the information given.

4.) Once we send our acceptance paperwork to our adoption agency, our dossier (international paperwork) will be turned into the Ethiopian court system with a request for a court date.

Steps 1-4 happen very quickly, normally within a week.

5.) We wait for the Ethiopian court system to grant us a court date. These are given out as quickly as a month from submission or as long as three months. The courts will close in Ethiopia for the rainy season during August and September so this could slow things down for us getting a court date.

6.) On our court date, a representative from our adoption agency goes to court for us. If we pass court, our little boy is officially ours. If we don't pass court, we wait for another court date (normally given out within a month of the first one)

7.) Once we pass court, we travel two weeks later!!

Our Estimated Timeline (this of course could change drastically):

Referral of baby boy: August
Court Date: November
Travel: November or early December

July Referral List Number

We got our official numbers today and flew up the list this month. We are officially number......



on the boy list and number 20 on the girl list.

This means we could get a referral any day!!! (or it could take a couple months) We are so close.....

Thanks to the support of family and friends, we have been given $7,968 toward our adoption with $8,032 left to go.