Um …WHAT...? ... WHY...? ...HOW...? ...HUH?

Hi All:
We have started this blog to keep all of our friends and family informed on our adoption process.  There have been many exciting twists and turns lately, so I am scrambling to get the information out to all of you.  Before you send me an email or post a comment about how ridiculous this blog looks without a picture in the header, I already know.  But for some reason I can't figure out how to do that along with about 10 other things I wanted to add.  However it is now 11:23 p.m. and I have been working on setting up this blog for A LONG TIME, so I am going to call it quits for now and hopefully next time you visit, it will be beautiful.  For now, I just wanted to make sure you knew the exciting news described below.

As most of you know, we made the decision to adopt in mid-November.  There were many things that lead up to this decision including: a three year period of time trying to conceive without success, a two week, life-changing visit by two amazing young girls in the African Children's Choir, a church well-drilling project in Adiedo, Kenya, ongoing correspondence with the children we sponsor through World Vision and a 4 week study of The Hole In Our Gospel by Rich Stearns.  At the end of that study, Mr. Sterns spoke to our church and made a huge impact on us.  On the way home from church that day Tony said "Let's do it" to which I responded, "Let's do what?"  Of course, he meant, let's adopt and I was in!  We started our search for the adoption agency we would use, and we signed the contracts with All God's Children International in December of 2009.

Our adoption parameters were for a sibling group of 2 children or a single placement, 3 years of age or younger. We started the mound of paperwork in mid-December, and since then it has been a total whirlwind. We had been diligently plugging away on the pile of paperwork when we were completely blown away by what happened next.

After what seemed like an eternity to get our FBI fingerprint clearances, we received our finalized Home Study last Wednesday evening (April 7, 2010). We stayed up late that night copying and organizing our Dossier so we could mail it out the next day. On Thursday morning I went in to work a little late, so I could swing by Fed-Ex and overnight our Dossier to Kiersten (our AGCI Case Manager) and send off our I-600A (immigration application) to USCIS.  I think the Fed-Ex employees thought I was insane because I was taking pictures of the documents, the packaging, them weighing the packaging, them charging me, etc.  Oh well, I will never see them again and I needed to capture all of the important events for future reference.  Right?

Anyways, at around 1:45 that afternoon I received a call on my cell phone from Kiersten. I was actually not in my office, but miraculously I still heard my cell phone ring (from inside my purse, inside my desk drawer). I was a little confused by her call since I knew she had not yet received the Dossier. She made some small talk and seemed a little different than her normal bubbly self. I asked her if everything was ok because she was acting a little odd, and that’s when she said “Do you have some time because I have a little girl that I want to talk to you about?” Um … WHAT...? ...WHY...? ...HOW...? ... HUH? I literally almost passed out! I muttered a few incoherent things and then listened for the next 45 minutes as she went over the referral for the newest addition to our family. I hate to say it, but I really don’t remember almost anything she said – I completely went into a zone that I don’t know how to explain. When I called Tony and tried to explain everything to him, it became obvious how much information I had really missed. He asked me how I felt, and honestly I felt like I was going to throw up – in a good way. We were not expecting to get a call like that for a very long time.

Well, since that call last week EVERYTHING has changed! The next few days were a blur. We did accept the referral and finished all of the associated paperwork. I have called AGCI no less than 6 times to make sure that we are the family they meant to call. They have assured us there was no mistake. Whew!

So we went from expecting 2 siblings to planning for the arrival of a beautiful 3 year old little girl from southern Ethiopia (Shebedino). WOO HOO!  I wish I could share all of the information (which isn’t much) with you and let you see all of the pictures, but we are not allowed to do that at this time. So for now, just know that we are thrilled and falling more in love with her every day.  Our prayer is that we get a quick court date and can bring her home as soon as possible.

I will do my best to keep up on my posts so that you are all kept up to date on our progress.  It has been an amazing ride so far - I can't wait to see what happens next!