Ok well it's now been close to 2 months since we received our referral!!! I wanted to wait to post the story of our referral day until we had a court date, but now with all the changes in Ethiopia that could be a while. So- here it goes- March 4th I had emailed Radu and just wanted to check in and see if there was any news for us; I had figured it was a long shot seeing as how it had only been 3 or 4 months since our dossier was registered. Radu responded on Sunday March 6th and said "no bother at all....WE DO HAVE THIS REFERRAL FOR YOU!!!"
Of course Michael was out doing his normal run and wouldn't answer his phone...I had to wait 30 minutes unitl he came home to look?? No way! So I called him again and he answered like this "what???!!" me-"come home we have a referral!" I was pretty much in tears and then he said " Ok, sniff sniff" He was already crying lol.
When he got home we turned on our camera and recorded the first time we ever saw her face! She was 3, almost 4, months at the time we received her pictures. She had the sweetest little face and beautiful brown eyes. She was and still is absolutly gorgeous!! We instantly fell in love with her!!
The next step was to tell the family. We don't have any patience, so we called them all over immediatly. Of course, Paula- Michael's mom- was out of town :( And my dad was beyond asleep :( My mother and michael's dad were awake and alert so they came right over! The fell in love with her too and we found out all together that A.J (the name we will give our baby girl)has the same birthday as Michael's grandfather that passed away recently. The J in her name stands for Juliana and his grandfathers name was Julian....so scary how it all came together!! She was also born on the same day that Michael and I became engaged (of course we have been married for almost 2 years, so not the same year but the same day we became engaged two years ago)....
We finally got Paula on the phone and told her the news!! She was super excited!! What was also scary was that a few years earlier some friends had found out the would be parents to a newborn baby boy here locally and Paula had to find out while she was out of town at the same event as she was at this time! It just seemed like everything had happened when it was supposed to. My father found out when he woke up the next morning and was very excited as well.
Now, the hard part begins and its a wait for a court date...we wait until we get to hold her for the first time...right now she is offically 5 months old- to the day- and I am sad that I'm missing these moments. I will miss her first smile and her first tooth...I hate missing things but I am glad to know that we will have her in our lives at some point and from then on out we will have several firsts of our own.
Everytime I look at her face I wonder what she's doing and how she's doing. I love this little girl more than anything and I would do anything for her. It's a great feeling knowing that we will soon be the parents of this little beauty!!
Please pray that we will get a quick and speedy court date!!! -Mommy to be!!
