Big News

This seems to be an appropriate time to make our first post on our adoption blog - we got our referral today! That's right, after months of paperwork and waiting and stress, we now know who our new daughter is. This morning, our contact at our adoption agency called with the news that we had been referred a seven-week-old baby girl. We don't have much information about her right now, and we are not allowed to post pictures or too much personal information about her until the adoption becomes finalized in Ethiopia, but we will be posting more about her as we know it. She is as beatiful and perfect as we expected.

It was a wild day. Noelle was on her way back from a physical therapy appointment when she got the call. As soon as she got home, she told me everything she knew (which wasn't much), and then we spent the next half hour refreshing our email accounts waiting for the documentation from our agency. We finally received a picture, some basic background information, and the results of blood tests, etc. that were done in Addis Ababa a couple of weeks ago. Of course, we spent the rest of the morning on the phone with family and friends, telling them about the new addition to the family.

Our baby is now at the House of Hope, a transitional home in Addis Ababa that is run by our agency, so we know she is being loved and cared for. It sounds like we will be traveling within the next three months to pick her up. In the meantime, we have lots of work to do to get her room ready and prepare for her arrival. We'll be using this space to post updates, pictures, and more information as we get it and are allowed to share.