No More New Numbers!

Yep, you heard us right! No more new numbers for us! Monday afternoon - October 19th (incidentally exactly 10 months to the day since we sent in our initial pre-application) - we got THE CALL. Dan had the day off and was home and Tara was at work. Tara answered the call from our case worker and had Dan conferenced in. I (Tara) was literally shaking and had 4 kids staring at me during the entire call. I took all the notes I could from the call on the only paper I could find at that moment - a paper airplane one of my sister's kids had made. As soon as the call was complete, Dan grabbed the cameras and headed to the office. Sitting in front of the computer with the anxious niece and nephews all gathered around, we got our first, very slow (dial up), look at these beautiful, precious eyes. Baby M is a beautiful 5 month old baby boy. He had only been at Hannah's Hope for 1 week at this point. He is totally healthy and we are so excited that he is our little boy! God has truly blessed us in this process! We have been praying for God to bring us the child that will be a perfect fit into our family, and let me tell you, little M is. He is the one God has designed to be our 'first born'.

So, after looking at his pictures, Dan hangs out at the office until we close (about 45 more minutes) and then we head out. We come home and start calling all the family! After all the calls were done, we took off to go out to dinner. We had been planning to go to dinner at this steak house that we love on the night we got our referral since we started this adoption. We had even saved a gift certificate for there since last Christmas just for this occasion. Dinner was wonderful, and then...off to Target and Walmart to go shopping! No, we didn't buy tons of stuff, but wanted to buy him a blanket and an outfit from us our first night. It was fun to look through all the baby stuff and have a face in mind (and a size)!

What a wonderful day it was! Cool thing was, first thing Monday morning, Dan woke up and told me he had a feeling that 'today is the day we are going to get our referral'. It is the only day so far he had said that, and lo and behold, he was right! Kind of a fun memory to add to the process.

We waited to post all this because it posts to facebook also and we wanted to surprise Tara's Bible Study, the Bible Bowl team, and our choir. What fun to surprise them all in person and not have some know already (from facebook) and others not be in the loop!

At this point it will still be a couple of months before we travel to bring our little bundle home because we have to wait for a court date and embassy appointment. Please join with us in prayer that during the rest of this process we receive quick appointments and travel dates!

Showers are already in the works, we need to get registered, and there is so much to be done. Blessings to you all and here is a beautiful smile to part with...

P.S. - For those who don't know, we are not allowed to post full pictures of our little one until we bring him home - or his full name and identifying information.