We have a daughter!

4 months (2/15/08)





















7 Months (5/6/08)

8 months (6/3/08)

Wednesday evening I was talking to my mother on my blackberry. Our home phone rang, I didn't recognize the name, so I continued talking to my mother. Then my cellphone rang- same phone number. I decided I should hang up with my mother and see who was trying to contact me. By this time, cellphone stopped ringing, but there was a voice mail message. I began to retrieve message and while I did so, home phone rang again. Apparently this person really wanted to talk to me. The answering machine (yes we have an old fashioned answering machine) picked up and I heard a women telling me she was from Family and Children Services and she had very good news for us. We have a referral. I picked up the phone and asked if she said what I think she said. She laughed and said yes. I was stunned. We have an 8 month old beautiful little girl waiting for us in Hanoi! Sue sent the email she had received from Holt (As we live in a state without a Holt branch, we work with a participating homestudy agency. If Holt had been unable to reach someone at our HS agency, they would have contacted us directly to tell us about our referral.) John was at class and would not be home until after 9pm. It was 6:30 when I received the phone call. Sue remained on the phone with me for nearly 40 minutes as we together looked at the 8 photos and went thru each page of information provided on Linh Thuy. I was so surprised by this phone call. As I said in my last post, I thought it would be 6-8 weeks for any news. Maybe this was why Minnie avoided telling me where were on the list. She probably already knew we were matched and she just could not share that news yet. Oh what a wonderful phone call! I tried at first to not look at the photos- I thought I should wait for John but I could not wait 2 1/2 hours. So I looked and looked. When John finally came home, I was looking at her photos on the computer. He asked what I was doing. I said come here and look at these photos. He said "Oh, she is so cute." I scrolled through and he finally asked whose she was. I said "She is Baby Austin." He didn't get it right away. So I repeated it again and again. Then I showed him our email. He was just as stunned as I had been. The entire evening seemed so unreal. We have spent so much time researching international adoption programs, agencies, adoption in general, Vietnam, baby names, parenting, creating blogs, planning, budgeting, following other families journeys, preparing paperwork, tracking down traveling notaries, and speaking to doctors. To finally hear the words "You have a daughter" was truly amazing. Today is Sunday, and it still seems a bit unreal.

I have learned from another family whose child is waiting in Hanoi that we will likely travel in 6-7 months from approval of our dossier. So we have quite a bit of time to decorate her room and prepare.