It’s a girl… AGAIN!!

We have big news, HUGE news, exciting, thrilling and down right crazy awesome news… OKAY OKAY I'll tell you --- our baby GIRL is waiting in Seoul for us!!!!!!

As you know, we were planning on waiting 10-14 more months for a referral but, God obviously had other plans for our family!  Yippy! 

Here’s a quick look into what’s been going on behind the scenes: 

Thursday evening March 3rd: We received our weekly email from our agency updating us on any changes for the Korea program usually just filling us in on any families that traveled to S.Korea or if any families were matched with a child ("referral") and sometimes a little shout out for a child who hasn’t been matched with a family yet.  In this particular email there was a little bit of information on our Sweet Pea.  After we got the email we wrote an email back to the agency asking for more details about her.

Tuesday midday March 8: We are thrilled to finally hear back from the agency with the file of information and pictures – 8 pictures!!!  During Tuesday and Wednesday our minds were wheeling and our emotions were a little up and down but we prayed… talked… sought wisdom and direction and continued to feel the peace of the Lord through the situation and decision.

Thursday morning March 10: We decided to move forward with the next step!  We scheduled a pre-adoption consult with a pediatric adoption specialist at the University of Washington – usually the appointments aren’t available for 2-4 business days but they just “happen” to have one for Friday morning!
At this point, we felt very confident that this little girl had been hand picked for our family because many of our thoughts and feelings were in line with each other and we didn’t feel fearful over anything about HER (we were told  there was a 98% chance we were getting a boy - talk about a change of mindset, but you know we love girls!)!

Friday morning March 11: We spoke with the pediatrician and have a very encouraging conversation about Sweet Pea’s medical history and all the other information we have on her.  Following the call, we decide that yes (!!!!!!!!) we will tell the agency she belongs in our family.

Saturday and Sunday we fill our family in on the exciting news!

Monday afternoon March 14: We officially hear from Korea that they are thrilled to have a match and informed our daughter’s foster family and that they too were thrilled!

Basically, since this all happened so fast and so much sooner than we expected we have just needed a few days to let it all soak in.  It’s been a whirlwind and we have been so excited this whole time, but also a little overwhelmed with the thought of so many changes happening in our NEAR future.

Like I said, we really feel God’s hand in the timing of this and want to lean farther into that peace He offers when we feel anxious or afraid. 

Hopefully I can answer a few questions you might have:

How old is she?

She's eight months old, only 10 months younger than Norah!  It's going to be a beautiful relationship between them - that might mean some interesting teen years for mom and dad though :)

What's her name?

The social worker gave her a Korean name and we are considering a few English names and trying to decide on a simple but unique new first name. For now, we'll call her our Sweet Pea.

What are you waiting for, go get her!

We're waiting for Korean immigration mostly.  We know that the agency in Seoul has already filed for the next step in the process but nothing can proceed until our fingerprints are processed - we don't know the average time but we got fingerprinted about two weeks ago.  We are also waiting for the official referral package in the mail along with paperwork that we need to complete (yeah, more paperwork!).

So, when will she be home?

Lord willing soon but, typically between 3 and 6 months from referral time - that puts us between June and September.

Tell us her stats!

Birth date: July 14, 2010

Weight at birth: 6.5 lbs.

Weight recently: 16.5 lbs.

She's got lot of beautiful black hair, and stunning almond shaped eyes - oh and how could I forget, those chubby cheeks!!

Where's her picture?!

Since things are not final we are not allowed to post pictures, so sorry!  Now you get to have a lesson on patience :)