From Paper Baby to Precious Boy

I bet you all thought receiving our I-171H today was enough excitement for the week. Well, you were wrong.

It is with joyful hearts and tears in our eyes that we are able to share with you that we have accepted a referral for a precious baby boy!!! The days of "Paper Baby" are long gone. We now have a beautiful face to put with our long dream of having a baby.

On Tuesday night I began to stress about Bryan's upcoming away rotation for Medical School. They are basically like month-long interviews, so not something we want to reschedule or cancel if we can avoid it. Based on the advice of Maria to pray for 'specifics', I had been praying for our travel times to be at the end of July or early August when Bryan has a long break in his schedule. And of course we had continued to pray for a healthy child to become a part of our family.

I sent an anxiety-ridden email to our coordinator late on Tuesday night expressing my scheduling concerns and asking for advice on when to schedule his rotation. Kate replied back, calmed my anxiety and told me to give her a call the next day. I called her around 11:40am our time. The last thing I expected to hear was that they had a baby for us! We were still under the impression that we were # 3 on the list for a baby boy and even further down on the girl list. In fact, Bryan and I had commented on Tuesday night that we didn't expect a referral until the end of July!

Kate began to tell me about the new baby boy referral she had just received, and after I finished freaking out I quickly agreed to have her send us his picture and medical information. I paged Bryan at the hospital with a "911" page! Poor guy, he probably thought I'd slipped in the tub and had a head injury! We agreed to wait and look at the referral information together when he got home.

In a true test of self control, I waited for 5 hours with that information sitting in my Inbox!! It was all worth it when Bryan got home and we were able to review the information together and see our son's angelic face for the first time. We fell in love with him instantly! It would probably be an understatement to say we are crazy about him! We'd love to brag and show off his picture, but until he is legally ours we won't be able to share his picture publicly. Just trust us when we say he is SUPER CUTE.

We feel blessed that all the information we have indicates that he is a healthy little boy who is thriving. We have been fortunate enough to have pediatricians who specialize in International Adoption review his file and give us reassurance and recommendations. Our agency plans to schedule our first trip to meet him at the end of July. We can hardly wait although we have lots to do to get ready!

God has showed His providence throughout our entire adoption process - scheduling our home study with ease, finding a great agency, helping our paperwork to go quickly and smoothly - and He certainly didn't let us down this time either! He continues to go before us and prepare a smooth path for us to adopt our child.

We are so thankful for all of you who have been faithful readers and supporters of us throughout this process. It still doesn't feel quite real to us yet, and I often look at his picture (the new background on our computer!) and can't believe that God and the people of Kyrgyzstan are going to give him to us. What an honor and blessing!