The REFERRAL post!!!!!!!!

Wow these last three days have been awesome, crazy, busy, blessed! So I'll start from the beginning....

On Monday, Hannah and I went to run some morning errands and came back home around 10, she was chowing on a snack and I was folding laundry when I heard my voicemail go off.  I thought to myself that it was weird...because my phone didn't ring. Well it was a voicemail from my agency, saying call back!! I called back and she went on telling me about a young boy who will come off the database early March and wanted to know if we'd consider him! Of course we said YES and we got a few small details about him.  We learned his name, birth date, and region. She said she'd send the medical and video overnight  and chat on Tuesday after we receive it. Well I HAD to see a pic, so yes I did find him on the d*tabase. OMGosh so cute!  We fell in love then!  Haha we were just hoping it was actually him!  We were pretty sure but you never know...I hear the d*tabase can be wrong at times and/or the baby may not even be on there. SO I had to work that evening. It was hard and I cried on my way home.  It finally hit that we got our referral, that I was about to see a video of our son in the morning...how do you sleep!?!

Tuesday morning I got Hannah up and ready for MDO, JUST before we were about to leave the doorbell rang..FedEx!! Our package arrived before 9! Omgosh I had to go drop off Hannah then head to Caleb's office.  We put the video in then Caleb, his parents, my mom (via Facetime!), and I watched it. He is the cutest baby boy ever!! We were head over heels in love with his almond shaped eyes, chubby little hands, beautiful smile, and kissable lips! After watching it a few times I had to go see about getting the info to the International Adoption doctor to review.  Now I am not a tech-y person at all.  I tried for about 5 minutes to do something with the dvd with no luck...luckily my BIL and SIL are computer people! Hence the phone call(s) to Heather.  She got to mi casa at noon and by 2 the IA doc had our little man's medical and video in her email! Then last night we had everyone over and watched the video over and over and over again. ; )

So today we got the news back from the IA doc that he's perfect! ; )  We formally accepted to move forward, got confirmed travel dates, and I got busy looking for flights! I got them booked after hours of searching and comparing.  NOT fun, but we did manage to get great seats on all fights!! We leave March 17th!! So soon and yet soooo far away!!  Next is booking the hotel and obtaining our visa's!  Not to mention going through the travel packet I was sent. My head is spinning, but it's the only way I'd rather it to be!

So your wondering 'where's the pic!'.... Well if you aren't familiar with the adoption world, we can not post any pics on blogs, public sites, etc until after we actually have him in our custody....so on the third trip or 'Gotcha day'...the day we break him out of the orphanage forever!

And now your saying 'three trips!?!'....yep there was a possibility of only doing two at one point, but the law was just changed on January 1 that the former 10 day waiting period is now a 30 day waiting period. Too long to stay in country.  So this is how it will play out.....

Trip#1 we leave March 17th and probably get to meet the little guy on the 19th.  Spend the week visiting him and doing paperwork in which we will sign our intent to adopt.  Then we fly home and wait on our court date...

Trip#2 is about an average of 2 months later, give or take.  We fly out for a shorter trip of about 5 days.  we go to court, where we will hopefully be stated as his forever mommy and daddy, visit little man, then come back home without him, again. : ( 

Trip#3 is about 30 days after court..not sure if it's 30 business days, or just 30 days, but after that we fly back over there, have our 'Gotcha day', and finalize the adoption with the US embassy.  This trip is about 10 days, but may be shorter since we will already be in Moscow.

Exhausted yet? Well it's an emotional ride.  There are so many unknowns that could happen.  For instance, please pray for my blogger friends, one did not get a favorable word in court.  Meaning that they had to come home and do some more things and then they will have to go back to court again.  Another lost their referral to a Russian family before they were able to travel on trip 1.  And yes this can happen at any time.  Russians have preference over the foreigners until the court date and maybe even until the 30 day waiting period is up.  Very rare, but it does happen. : (

So I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but my head is spinning!  Please pray that he is loved and well cared for by his orphanage caregivers and that our travel dates go as planned.

To be continued!!!