IN AWE!!

Why the large #12 you ask??? BECAUSE WE ARE #12 ON THE BOY'S WAITING LIST!!! So here's how it all happened...

We went downtown this morning to the San Diego division of the USCIS (Immigration) office. We were called in almost immediately. Daisy, the same lady who helped me before sat us down in her office. She reviewed our homestudy. She looked up our fingerprints and printed them out for our file. At this time I still didn't know if we were going to get the approval today. I think I sighed really loud on accident because she said "I just have to run a couple more background checks before I can give you your approval." I started apologizing and saying "Oh, no problem. We can be very patient. This is such an exciting day for us. Ramble, ramble, ramble." There was a lot of typing and date stamping and inital writing going on over at her end. After what seemed like an hour but was probably more like 20 minutes she handed me a paper. I said "Is this the approval?!?" She said, "No that is your receipt, the approval is printing out right now." AAAHHH!! She handed it over! While she was finishing up a couple things in our file I asked "Why is it so fast in San Diego?" She said, "Well we think it's a really exciting thing and there is no reason to wait so we just try to do it really fast." Daisy, you ROCK! San Diego, you ROCK! I did say I would send her a family photo as a thank you. She has a whole bulletin board going in her office. So cute! I was really bummed we couldn't take our camera in.

Here we are showing off our I-171H aka Favorable Determination Letter (FDL) aka Adoption Gold and how much we LOVE San Diego!

Next we walked to the car. I had this bad feeling like I was missing something and I was going to call AGCI and they were going to say "Oh, we can't put you on the list until X." My worries were unwarrented because we have the power of prayer on our side!! I was nervous to call Martha (the Program Director at AGCI) because I have only ever spoken to Christy. Christy was really bummed that she doesn't work on Tuesdays because we thought we might be calling in. Martha was very nice. I introduced myself because we had never spoken. She seemed shocked that I was calling and said,

Martha: What's going on?

Me: Um, we just got our FDL!

Martha: NO WAY! (giggle of unbelief). Didn't I just read your home study last week?

Me: Yeah. I know. This is crazy!

Martha: This is the fastest adoption I have ever witnessed. You guys just contracted with us in February.

Me: I know we didn't think it would go this fast.

Martha: Are you ready?

Me: YEAH!!

Martha: Ok, let me see here, let me do some counting... You are #25 overall of people on the waiting list. And, um, #12 for boys. Now some of our families are on the boys and the girls list so that doesn't mean that there necessarily has to be 11 boy referrals ahead of you.

Me: Yeah, I understand.

Martha: If referrals keep coming in like they have, you might squeek by with a baby before the courts close.

Me: That's what we are hoping and praying for.

Martha: You should definitely have a referral by July, so if court doesn't pass in July we are looking probably at October.

Me: Ok, thanks so much!

Martha: I can't wait to get off the phone and run downstairs to tell everyone about the fastest record for an adoption EVER!

Meanwhile, Brian was snapping photos!
So, we are number 12 on the wait list. IF referrals keep coming like they have (which over the last two months means an average of 5.5 referrals a month) then we could have a referral in June! I have been praying for about a month now for a referral by my bday (June 11) and PASSED COURT by Brian's bday (July 29). I keep saying it would be a miracle but today we are one giant step closer to that miracle being a possibility!!

WOW! Praise the Lord for answered prayer!! We are so excited!!!! (And Brian is nervous. After we heard we were number 12 he started chewing off his fingernails). It's REAL!! We are gonna have a baby (Lord willing, soon)!! We know we are moving along so fast ONLY because of God. He must have a very special little boy planned for our family who needs us sooner than we could have ever thought was possible...