We got "THE CALL"!!!!!

Our family is growing by TWO!  After 2 years and 11 months, we finally got that call we have been waiting so long for.  Monday, the day after Mother's Day, our case worker called us with some really great news.  She had referral for two little girls, ages 4 years and 5 months.  It was around 3:30 and the kids had just gotten home from school.  I told them to please be quiet while I took this call.  I really couldn't believe what I was hearing.  I hung up the phone and clapped, jumped, screamed, and whooped.  Kait looked at me with big eyes and asked, "Mom!  Was that THE CALL?!!!  It was the call!  We received the referral information, looked through it, and of course, we said YES!  The girls are just perfect!  We can't wait to meet them, hold them, hug them, and love them.

I haven't shared much about what has been going on so I will give you a little update.  It has been a long road with many ups and downs.  This time last year, May 1st to be exact, we received a call from our agency informing us it might be best to explore other options.  Adoptions had slowed so much in Ethiopia, our agency was not going to be able to stay open much longer unless things changed.  Our agency had some cases still open but at that time the plan was to eventually close the Ethiopia program.  At that time, we were #10 on the list.  It was really devastating news.  We had waited 2 years.  We could stay on the list and keep waiting, hoping referrals would pick up, look into other agencies, or not adopt at all.  We did end up deciding to leave the program.  We did some searching and ended up signing on with another agency in their Uganda program.  We were immediately matched with two children in Uganda, a girl age 6 and her brother age 2.  Again we waited and waited.  We had learned that Uganda had passed some new laws and some travel requirements had been changed.  We still did not have an official referral.  We decided that we could not live in Uganda for 10-12 weeks or risk getting stuck in the new law that families had to have a 1 year residency in country to obtain guardianship.  It was a tough decision, but we pulled out from that program.  Rewind a couple of months....I had received an email for our case worker at our first agency stating they had picked up some and were opening up the wait list to families that had been advised to move on in May.  We did not accept the offer at that time.  We had a match in Uganda and had expected to travel in October/November.  After leaving the Uganda program, I reached out to our Ethiopia program case worker.  We were able to pick back up on the list where we left off at #10 and we were expected to have a referral within a few months.  Now we have one!!!!!

We are beyond thrilled, excited, nervous...you name it, we are probably feeling it.  What's next?  More paperwork!  I'm not exactly sure what the process is after referral acceptance.  We will be finding out soon.  I do know it has been taking on average about 6-8 months for families to get a court date and travel.  It is going to be a long six months!