WOW! I had no idea so many things could happen in a 48 hr period? As I'm writing this, I just checked to make sure it has indeed only been 48 hrs since we got our referral. It seems like a week ago!!! Everyone has been asking me for details (and I want to write down the details so that our "little man" will know exactly how he came to be part of our family). So, here it goes....
Monday afternoon, at 1:46 pm, my phone rang. I had actually just laid down because I had a splitting headache. I rolled over to look at the phone and recognized the area code. I held my breath, hoping it was our adoption agency. I answered the phone and on the other end I heard, "Stephanie, I'm calling because I have your referral." I screamed (yes, you heard me right...I screamed)! It's sort of embarrassing to think about it now, but at the time I could do nothing else but scream and cry. We then conference called Troy and told him the news as well. I ran upstairs to the computer and we all went over the information that they had for our "little man". My eyes instantly focused on those huge, beautiful brown eyes staring at me across the screen. The actual content of our referral call is now a complete blur. I remember hearing that I needed to contact our international pediatrician right away, but other than that....nothing. All I could think of was, "Oh my word, that's my son!" You go over and over and over in your head what you think it's going to be like when you get "the call". As I'm typing this, I think I'm still in shock. Talk about a life-altering phone call!
I'll pause a moment here and give you the details about our precious boy (at least the details I can share). He's 18 months old and has the chubbiest cheeks you've ever seen. All things considered, he actually seems relatively healthy. We'll know more when we see him for the first time.
Now back to the story....after we hung up, I immediately called Troy back. We could hardly even speak to each other we were in such shock. I couldn't speak because all I could do was cry. I called our family members and then began filling out the forms I needed for our international pediatrician. I headed right up to the church so that I could fax the information and then wait to hear from the Dr. The rest of Monday evening was a complete blur. I was seriously walking around like a zombie not knowing what to do. We went to dinner with my parents (which was great because otherwise we might not have eaten...HA!). That evening we talked through everything with the kids and we each took turns praying for their new brother. I didn't think I was ever going to fall asleep that night, but I finally did. My poor brain stopped spinning at least long enough for me to sleep a little bit!
Where are we today? Well, I spoke to our caseworker this afternoon to tell her officially that we want to travel to see "little man". So, we should know in the next couple of days when we will leave. Once we have our travel dates, we can apply for our visa. Hopefully, we'll be headed that direction in the next 3-4 weeks!
How can you help? Please, please pray for us.
Please pray that everything falls into place for us to be able to get all of our travel arrangements made.
Pray that we can find affordable flights (we have to travel over there 3 times, so the airlines tickets alone can seriously ADD up).
Pray that we are able to get our visas easily and quickly.
Thank you so much for following us on this journey! You have no idea what your support means to us!
