An update is sorely needed!

On the urging of a friend of mine (hi WG!) I need to post an update of our journey! Big news. BIG!

May 3, 2010 The first day of the rest of our lives

About 11am I get a phone call with *the* area code. The Seattle-where our-agency-is area code. My heart started beating faster as I answered the phone. Our case worker said "Hi this is R from WACAP, how are you today?" Um, well trying not to pass out thank you, how are you? She then asks if husband is home because she has some information about a sweet baby boy that she wants to share with us. (I'm tearing up writing this, it was so surreal.) He wasn't home but I told her was could conference call, so we would call her back. I called husband and when he answered his phone I said "R has a baby! He said "what?" I said "R from WACAP has a baby.. for us!" I told him we had to both call her back and that she would give us the details. So we did, and she did. I was trying so hard to take everything in and process what she was saying. There was so much to say! A sweet baby boy was waiting in an orphanage in Awassa (south of Addis Ababa) and lots of other details.

Finally when we were done hearing all about this little soul, R said "I don't want you to feel any pressure to take this referral until you feel completely comfortable that your family is the best choice for him but... if you think you know today then we can get your case started and you will make it under the old law that would only require one trip to Ethiopia". The previous Friday I had resolved myself to the fact that since we hadn't received a referral that week that we would be one of the first families to go through the two-trip process, so this was a total shock. Remember this? (Why am I surprised *again*?)

The rest of the day is a flurry of telephone calls begging our pediatricians as well as other trusted physicians to review the medical files (right now!), and back and forth to WACAP. These phone calls led us to believe that this indeed will be our child. At 6:30 (we are EST, WACAP is still open for hours) we called our case worker to ask a few final questions and then to tell her that we were honored and overjoyed to accept the referral for this precious baby.

...... to be continued ......