December is Update Month

And An's update arrived this morning. She is doing well physically but misses her foster sister who is now home in the US. Some pictures:





Wendi

18 Months

Eighteen months ago today I was setting up for an education fair at one of our largest employers. As I finished getting everything arranged, my cell phone rang with a 541 prefix. At that time I didn't have our agency's phone number programmed in because we weren't anywhere close to receiving a referral. I almost didn't answer the call. But at the last ring before voice mail, it crossed my mind that 541 was Oregon.

The voice on the other end of the line said this is Robin and I have a referral for you. I was shocked.

We spoke for 10-15 minutes as she told me about An and then she asked if I'd like her to send her file. I said of course! At that time, it was minutes before the education fair was supposed to begin so I tried to get myself together. I quickly called Brian but knew that he was in a meeting so I left a message that he needed to call me as soon as possible (I think I remembered to say something like nobody was hurt, but he had to call me NOW).

The rest of the day is a blur.

The next day, I came home during lunch to find the FedEx package waiting on the front porch. I really did give some thought about waiting until Brian came home to open it, but that didn't last long and I tore into it. As I looked through An's pictures, I was amazed by her beauty. I do remember asking Robin at the end of the call which province An was in. I recall thinking that the extra time waiting for approvals was a fair trade-off for how quickly we received her referral.

But who could have imagined that we would be still here, 18 months later, without our daughter. I like to think that in the video below An is pretending to call us. Hopefully we won't need videos and pictures to get to know one another for much longer...



Missing An so bad it hurts,

Wendi

I-600 Approval

We have it. Good to know that it's out of the way.
Wendi