THIS IS THE DAY!!

This is truly the day that the Lord has made!!

Hooray...April 27th will always be remembered as the day we learned about our son, Ashenafi Desta ("The winner" "Happiness"). Oh my gosh, he is the most beautiful baby. I wish I could post his picture for all of you to see (though I think that I sent his picture to everyone I know who checks this blog), but the Ethiopian government won't allow anyone to post pictures online until our case is through the courts (in about 6 weeks, we're praying), so until then this baby will not have his internet debut.

I (sarah) got the call this morning about 10:30am at work. Funny story. Mark and I have been exploring a possible move to a new neighborhood in our area, and I called the agency to see if I would have to update our homestudy if we moved before we brought our baby home. When our caseworker at the agency answered the phone, and I told her who I was, she said in an upbeat tone of voice, "Oh, HI Sarah!" and I thought, hmmm, that's odd, I haven't spoken with this gal in 5 months and she's dealing with hundreds of adoptive families, and she's never been particularly upbeat when I spoke with her a few times before. So as I asked her questions about the moving situation, she gave me NO indication that I would be getting a referral anytime soon. I was too chicken to ask her if we were going to get one soon because I feared she would say, "oh, it will probably be a month or more..." so I kept quiet. I hung up the phone and posted a message on the forum that said,

"I just called Jan to check on whether or not we'd need to update our homestudy if we moved between referral and travel and though she seemed very happy to hear from me (I haven't called her since last December when our dossier was turned in and didn't think she'd remember me), like she recognized my name, but she didn't give me any clue that our referral would be coming soon (we're #2 on the list for an infant) but I didn't ask (chickened out). Bummer...I was really hoping for a referral today..."

Mark saw my message on the forum (he's been checking like mad lately too, to see if others have gotten referrals), and sent me an email that said "Don't worry sweetie...it will be soon...and when it happens, you'll forget all the waiting!!!" Alas, no more than 20 minutes later, my phone rings and caller ID says, "Children's Home" and I pick up and it's Jan! She says, "Is now a good time?" That is the key phrase used when they call parents with referrals. My heart started pounding and she said, "I want to tell you about a little guy." OMG, it's happening! So I said, "Yes, it's a great time, but can I conference Mark in?" So I conferenced him in, fortunately he was on his phone, and we spent a few minutes learning about Ashenafi Desta. He is 5 months old and long and lean. At 4 months, he was 26 inches and 13.5 pounds. He has BIG brown eyes, a cute nose, beautiful soft lips and cocoa brown skin, and looks as soft as can be. In his pictures he has one hand behind his head, like he's posing and another arm up in the air. He's wearing baby blue (sometimes the girls are in pink clothes in their referral pictures) and lying in a crib. Though he's posing, he looks a little suspicious of the camera.

We're planning on keeping his story private for him to learn about when he's old enough to understand and for him to tell (with our help) when he's ready. We feel this is the best thing for him right now and want to honor and protect the early life that we haven't been a part of.

He's very healthy (our friend Dr. Mary checked all his blood work and gave it a green light!) and seems to be hitting all the critical development milestones. What a trooper!

So, what's next? We wait...again. At least now we know who we're waiting for! He's getting great care in Addis Ababa right now, so we're going to try to be patient...I said "try." As soon as our case gets through the Ethiopian courts, we'll be able to book our tickets and leave. Hopefully that will be in 8 weeks, but it could be closer to 12 if the courts are backed up.

Thanks for journeying with us...we are so fortunate to have a cloud of witnesses who have cheered us on from Day 1. We are forever grateful. It's all been worth it.