A great place to eat with a fantastic phone call

As you know from our last post it was looking like we were going to be waiting awhile for the referral for our child. So, we decided to create a distractor for ourselves. Everyone needs a project right? We started taking bids from contractors to see how much a patio would cost. After waiting way too long for all the contractors to give their expensive bids we finally decided to do it ourselves. We've been to way too many home and garden centers when O says, "Which save big money at Menards store are we going to now?" The distractor was working during the planning stages and design of the patio, but it started to get overwhelming during the actual doing stages.

This Tuesday I was checking email and saw that my good friend, who is also an adoptive mommy, emailed me with some great information on our child's name. We've been trying to find out the meaning of her name since we first knew of it back in January. Several friends who have adopted from Ethiopia had asked around and we even asked some Ethiopian Americans we had met at one of the cultural events in town. Google was of no help either. But, my friend has a cousin who is a missionary in Kenya and does some work near the region of Ethiopia that our kiddo is from. The cousin's co-worker (try to stay with me here) :) reminded her that one of their surgical interns was from ET so they asked him. It turns out that the name given to our daughter was a name from the surgical intern's tribe! He knew the meaning and it got sent back to me right away! It's a great meaning too! Sorry for the tease, but until our court date (first trip) we'll need to keep the name off of blogs like this. My heart was so happy for our daughter that she was given such a great name with a great meaning. God has blessed me for sure with this friend. She has been such an incredible support and resource. Some of us refer to her as the "Jennifer App"! Thanks again friend!

I thought that was a great start to my day. I had no idea what was coming. I worked my 4 hours that day at the hospital like I do every week and had a little time when I got home to get the kids taken care of when I remembered that W was going to a friend's after school. I knew the timing that night would be a little tight with other things we needed to accomplish so I called Todd about meeting our for dinner somewhere. If you know me you know this hardly happens outside of Sundays. We remembered that our good friends and former neighbors had opened a restaurant nearby and it had been open one week. That was where we decided to have dinner. We were having a great time being in their restaurant and seeing the years of their planning come to reality. Then I heard my phone ring and didn't recognize the number, but answered it anyway. Looking back, my body knew what was happening before my mind could catch up. As soon as I heard a very familiar voice on the other end I stood up. The woman said, "Becky, do you know who this is?" I paused because of the synapses firing a little late. By the time she said, "It's Kathy" from our agency, I already knew and looked at Todd with bug eyes and went straight into the restroom. I'm not sure I said anything the rest of that phone call, but I do know that after she told me that our referral was on it's way by email that night, I couldn't think of a better place to have this memory.

http://fortgrille.com/

We received the referral at midnight Wed., got our acceptance notarized and all the other necessary things completed, spoke with the IA specialist, and over-nighted it across the country by Wed at 5:30 PM. We got word that it was Fed Exed to ET Thursday afternoon.

Our new little one is 8 months old now, has a cute round face, and beautiful brown eyes and hair. After our court date we can share her name and any other information we would like to on this blog and facebook, but we are going to hold off on pictures so that you can see her in person when she comes home!

I have since started purchasing items to take on the trip, started a packing pile, and working on our little one's room. The patio is coming together slowly but surely and now I have a new distractor. Most of my thoughts now focus on raising and loving this new member of our family. My fear is that I will not be able to raise 4 kids adequately. I've seen it done so I know it's not impossible, but I question if I can do it. Then I remember that we asked God from the beginning to stop this adoption if it was not His will for all of our lives. Doors have never shut and in fact despite outside obstacles the doors have swung wide open. So, the fact is, we cannot raise 4 children on our own. He will help us and I'm so thankful for that.