It's official. We've been approved

The last few weeks have been so exciting. To start, I have to say that at about 6:45 p.m. tonight we received the call from our social worker that we had pre-approval from China to officially adopt Adrian. So, now we can share the news.

To back up a little bit--On July 5, 2009 (Sunday) I spent all day finalizing any paperwork that our agency might need if the special needs list came out that coming week. Sunday night I was soooo tired but keyed up from the excitement. Monday night I was wiped out from a late night on Sunday. About 9 p.m. I declared I was headed to bed. About that time the phone rang and it was our social worker. There was only one reason that she would be calling at this time of night. I picked up the phone and the first thing she said was , "We got your little boy". I just started crying. She said , "you don't how much of a God thing this is". "Oh, yes I do, " I said. She went on to tell me that our China facilitator was about to board a plane to leave China to fly to the U.S. for an agency Reunion. At this point it is Tuesday morning china time. The list came out that morning in China and our facilitator had two hours to work on finding his file on the list. When she emailed our social worker the file, our social worker kept quesitoning, "are you sure it is the right little boy?". The facilitator assured her that it was. We hung up the phone and cried and prayed and gave thanks to our Sovereign Heavenly Father who is able to move mountains. We were so excited, shocked, in awe, etc that God would do this for us. I had prayed that if this was the child for us that He would make it very clear and there would be NO gray areas. Well, it was pretty clear. I knew the road ahead would not be an easy one with multiple surgeries so I had also prayed that the Lord would give me that confirmation that I would know, that I know that I know this was from HIm. Thank you Lord for showing us this unbelievable miracle! Now, back to the story.

After a few minutes they sent us Adrian's file through an email. Normally with a Special needs child you have 48 hours to have the file reviewed by a medical team, etc. Before we opened the file, I asked Chris what we would do if it was not the right little boy. He said, "we pray really hard". As that picture began to open we saw the precious face of the little boy we have been praying for and God gave him to US. HOw awesome is that? About 10:45 p.m. we got another call from our agency saying that they hated to put pressure on us but our facilitator was in HOng Kong and about to board a plane. She would be traveling for at least 24 hours and if she could accept the referral for us before she boarded that would be awesome. How could we say no to God now? So, we said YES!!! Before we went to bed Monday night we had accepted his referral. Our paperwork was submitted to China for review . This is an abbreviated form of the paperwork. After review they would pre-approve us to adopt Adrian. So, we couldn't officially post it until that came in. Today is the day! woohoo. On Tuesday July 7, 2009 we had his file reviewed by a dr. at the Intl adoption Clinic and she confirmed that he is healthy!

Here are some of the precious pics that we received in the referral. These were taken Aug 2008 when he was 9 months old.