THE day!

Tuesday, February 26, 2013.

I was trying to get the boys out the door and to school.  Sam and I had a field trip to go on that day.  We were running a little late, but as I check my phone to see what time it was, I realized I had a missed call and voicemail.

From our social worker at Lifeline.

It was before 7am.  Social workers from adoption agencies generally don’t just call to shoot the breeze with families on a regular basis before 7 in the morning.

Her voicemail just said to call her, so I herded everyone out the door, ran and told Kenny I had a voicemail from Sarah, but that I had to go and headed out the door to the car.

You know that feeling you get when something good is about to happen?  Yeah, that’s what was going on.

I called Sarah back and she told me she had a file for us to look at for a little girl who was born on October 9, 2011.  She is 16 months old.  And that she is congenitally deaf.  (If you haven’t read this POST, now would be the time to do so.)

I was so excited (on the inside!) I actually had her repeat what she said because I wanted to make sure I heard her correctly.  Kenny and I have this deal worked out where I don’t agree to see any files with out discussing the details with him first because I just get myself too worked up and want to bring every child in China home.  And in this tiny house, I’m not sure we’d be approved to bring home that many more.  So I called him, gave him the scoop and we agreed to let Sarah send us her file.

If you are at all paying attention, you realize by now that I’m telling you we have been matched!

I’ll give you a second to let that sink in………………….

WAAAHOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

I knew almost the second that Sarah told me that she was deaf that this was our Ellie Kate.  I hadn’t even seen her picture yet, but a Mommy’s heart just knows things like that!  And apparently so did her Daddy because when I called him back he said “Yes!” before I barely said a word to him.

SIDE NOTE:  I don’t know how to explain it other than it just being God, but when we started this process I told Kenny something along the lines of hoping that her special need was hearing loss.  I know, that sounds like an absurd thing to “hope” for!  I even tinkered with the idea of telling our social worker to look specifically for a child who was deaf, but decided to leave that in God’s hands.  How cool is it when God aligns your heart and desires with what He already has in store for you??  I get chills just thinking about it!!

Praise the Lord for traffic that morning!  I came to a rolling stop about 10 minutes after Sarah sent the email and was finally able to look at her picture.  Sitting there in the middle of morning rush hour traffic.

Due to the ill timing of a kindergarten field trip, I wasn’t really where I could talk to Sarah, so I sent her a text telling her “YES!” and spent the next FOUR hours watching a play about a frog (and maybe a toad or a snail…I wasn’t actually paying attention!) and sneaking looks at my phone to look at her picture.  Sneaking, because I was sitting with Sam’s teacher and she had made multiple comments about how she had asked the parent’s to put their phones away during the play, but no one was listening. 

Yeah, I was that parent.  The one disobeying the teacher.  But at that point I didn’t care.

As soon as I was able, I touched base with Sarah and she sent me the documents I needed to file our PA (pre-approval).  We submitted that paperwork first thing on Wednesday morning.  It usually takes about 2-3 weeks to get back and one of the things that it allows us to do is share her picture publicly (hence the blog post). 

I got a phone call just this morning that our PA had come back…a mere 3 days after being filed!!!!  As if we needed more confirmation that this child was ours, God gave it to us in a short 3 days!

So, without prolonging this any further…

Meet Ellie Kate!! 

I know!  She’s about the cutest thing I’ve seen since December 1, 2008 when I opened the email of two handsome Ethiopians staring back at me!

Happy Referral Day!!

More later on telling the boys and what happens next…