Matched!

We are SO excited that we can finally share that we are matched! Here is how it happened!

Thursday, April 20th, was not an ordinary day, as many stories like this start. We were days away from moving out of our house. It was my last day at work and we were so busy getting ready to move. I had missed a call while I was upstairs. I listened to the voicemail from our social worker and my heart started pounding as she said in her message that she had a file she wanted to share with us. Ahhhh! This was it! Tom and I called her back and she gave us a little more information about this little 10 month old and we said yes, we wanted to see the file. The first part of the file is the English translation, giving her history, medical information and growth measurements. We read about her medical history. We scrolled a bit more past her labs and vaccination record and read about her little personality. We read about her routine, though the file was prepared in November, so we knew this would likely change. Then we got to her real file, all in Chinese. Clearly, we couldn't read it, but on the second page of that file was the sweetest picture of our little girl. Cute as a button with a happy little smile and light in her eyes. She was ours. This was Ellie. Included with her file was a recent video(!!!) of our baby girl. She plays, rolls around, and even babbles and is SO cute. Since the file was created almost 6 months ago, it was so nice to see this recent video and get a glimpse of her playful personality.

We were given a week to seek medical consults and discuss this child. While we knew we would be saying yes, we did take the opportunity to consult with our pediatrician and an International Adoption Clinic, as well as another parent. We received some very encouraging news about her medical situation, which was great! I will be sharing more about what makes her so special in the future, but God has definitely given us so much peace.

I had prayed that God would make it abundantly clear when we received a referral that we would know either way if that was the child he intended for our family. I was afraid of not knowing and having to make a hard decision. Even when we received Ellie's file, I knew I wanted her to be the one, I was just afraid. There wasn't even a specific reason. Satan just uses fear as a tool for his work and he was working hard. God reassured me in so many ways in the day or so after our referral. Now I don't believe in numerology or anything like that, but our family has this running joke about all the kids. Every child has been born with a 3 in their birthday date. Caden, April 3. Addison, August 31. Collins, March 31. Graham, January 13. Charlie, July 23. Tolliver, December 3. We even joked before Tolli was born that he had to be born on Nov. 30 or Dec. 3 or he was going to have to wait until the 13th. More than just a coincidence, Ellie's birthday has a 3 in it, so we can welcome her to the "3 Club"!

My doctor has been involved with our process since the beginning. Even before we knew we were adopting. She was there during the two miscarriages (and surgeries) that led to us wondering if it was time to seriously discuss adoption. She delivered both of my boys. She wrote several letters for our dossier. She was supportive of our adoption from the beginning and at every prenatal appointment for Charlie, also asked how the adoption process was going.  Well, since we were moving, Graham has been taking extra swimming lessons to make up for the ones he would miss after the move. Exactly 30 minutes after receiving Ellie's file from the social worker, I had to leave to take Graham to swimming lessons. I was totally in shock and sat at swimming lessons looking at her file over and over. I looked up at some point, and there was my doctor! This was not our normal day for swimming lessons, so I hadn't seen her there before with her kids. As usual, she asked about the adoption. I was just so surprised that she was there. I was so nervous and excited from reviewing the file. She took a look at it, sharing her thoughts, and also helped us with another consult.

All of our medical consults agree. She is incredibly adorable! We agree too!

Most of all, we just felt supernatural peace that this was our daughter. Prayers answered.

We waited to tell our parents until we could tell them in person. The wait was tough! We had already planned to give our moms their Mother's Day gifts early, so we wrapped a frame picture of Ellie as well and had them unwrap their gifts! Both of our moms were shocked to see a picture of our baby! Everyone is so excited to be meeting Ellie soon!

With moving, we have to update our home study...again. This will cause our process to take a little bit longer, but our social worker in Florida is just as committed as we are to getting Ellie home ASAP. Finding a place to print and scan documents while staying with my mom/Disney World/hotel in Jacksonville has been interesting, but we're getting it done. While the movers were at our house loading the truck, we even squeezed in another trip to the courthouse to get criminal clearances again since ours were expiring. As soon as we close we will go get drivers licenses and have our fingerprints done in Florida for those clearances. Lots to do, but we're trying to get it all done as quickly as possible to get Ellie home! We're thinking maybe sometime in August, but we just really aren't sure.

We now have Pre-Approval from China, which means they have given us, specifically, preliminary approval to adopt Ellie pending review of both files. Now is when I am thankful our dossier has already moved through so many steps at the beginning of our wait. We should get our letter of approval relatively quickly. Please pray that process goes smoothly and quickly, that we are able to get all of our paperwork submitted quickly, and for our Florida home study visit, which is the Tuesday after we move in! Please continue to pray for Ellie: That she has peace and comfort as she waits for us, that she is prepared well for us (as much as you can prepare a 10 month old), and that she is healthy and happy. We are so excited!

The first picture we saw of Ellie

Still shots from her video

On speaker phone during our referral call

Telling Gigi and Buddy

Mom was a bit shocked

Collins says this is her baby!

Can't wait to have a picture of our family of five in person!