24 hours....

These last 24 hours have been a sprint. We are so drained! Last night at 4:30 we had a telephone conference with our IA doctor out of Charlotte. He was a very smart, kind, and knowledgeable man and he put a lot of our fears to rest (much needed rest). We were delighted to hear that he is in the 70th percentile in his weight!!! As well as just a little below average height. Everything else looks very good. We are of course (like any adoption) missing some pieces to his puzzle, we will try our best to get some more answers when we talk to the orphanage doctor in person, but may never know some things about his past. At the end of our conversation we began to talk about leaps of faith. That lead to Dr. Douglass asking if he could pray for us. I thought he meant it much like many people say "I'll be praying for you" meaning in their private, personal time, but NO....He meant like right then and there! He prayed for a long time, for baby S, his health for his caregivers, for Chad and I. Chad and I were just overcome with emotion. Once again God has put exactly the right person in our lives at exactly the right time. We called our case manager and officially accepted our invitation to Russia and for S to be our son. Within minutes a new e-mail with lists and things to do were sent. When we got home, we started to research flights. I have NEVER been more excited to get on an airplane!
Today:
1-Went to see our doctor for our physicals and to get copies of his letter of approval and medical license. He had them already prepared and notarized. We breathed a sigh of relief.
2- We then were off to Spartan Photo to get our pictures for our visas done. The photographer was a really nice guy and turns out he is a bi-vocational youth pastor in Greer.
3- Breakfast at Papa's Breakfast Nook. Yummy.
4- Off to the police station to get our "local background check" the lady at the police station looked at me like I had three heads. We were in the wrong place- we needed to go to the Sheriff's Department across town.
5- We go to the Sheriff's Department. We were informed that we weren't allowed to get our own background check information. (Say huh?) They needed something on our agency's letterhead. A year ago this would have totally set me off and I would have probably argued with that lady. Adoption paperwork has taught me not to fight about the details, but to keep the end result in mind when asking "ok, then tell me exactly what I need to do to get what I need" I called our agency and they will fax over a letter tomorrow and then we can go get everything processed.
6- Went and picked up our passport pictures
7- Went to Chad's office and filled out our visa request. I just thought we picked up the phone and said "Hi. I'm ready for my visa now" but I spent at least an hour today looking up my community college's address and my previous employer's phone number. Bizarre. But once again the question is not "why" rather, "how".
8- Went to the post office and over-nighted our passports, pictures, and payment to the Visa company.
9- Went to the bank. The teller we spoke with about our "clean, new, un-marked" bills (a lot of them may I add....) Did not look at us like we thought she would. She told us she does all the "ordering" of the new money and placed an order for "brand-spankin' new bills" to be picked up on Tuesday. Like still in plastic wrap. Wow. That was awesome. We showed her our boy's picture and she wanted to know all the details. We gladly filled her in. She said she would personally call me when our money is ready.
10- Went to lunch. We were like zombies in need of caffeine. Bad.
11- Went to visit our travel agent. She is awesome and I love her. When we walked in she said "Ready for another cruise?" We told her this was MUCH more exciting than that. She sat with tears in her eyes as we talked about how adoption has impacted her family. She was very honest and said the flight we were looking at on our own was better than she could do, but she would hold two seats for us until we could get confirmation from our case worker that the flight would work.
12- The flight will work! Talked with Anya about accommodations while in Russia.
13- Called our financial case worker and requested our grant money be requested for our account. Yeah Steven Curtis Chapman! Yeah Show Hope!
14- Went to Toy-R-Us to buy some cars to take with us to give to Baby S. And some bubbles. And a C.D. with fun kid songs.
15- Went to Hamrick's to see if we could find Chad another pair of dress pants. Ended up with a really cute outfit for Baby S instead.
16- Talked to my mom who got another copy of our marriage license from central Florida and she sent it off to Tallahassee for us to be re-Apostilled (since our other one will most likely expire before we can have Court)Yeah Mom!
17- Called Brittany and bamboozled her into bringing us dinner because we are like blobs of jello.
18- Update the blog!
19- Go to bed. I am so tired, that was the most work I've ever done on a day off from work!

Things I forgot to say.....

He is turning 2 on March 20th. He is so beautiful (o.k. I said that already, but I wanted to say it again)
If all goes well tomorrow night with the IA doctor we will begin making travel arrangements to be in Russia around March 20th-26th. I wish I could see him on his birthday, but I don't think we'll be able to with the timing. But we'll celebrate on March 22nd.
He is so gorgeous (I know...I know....)

DETAILS!

I’m sorry I haven’t posted many details, as you can imagine I am overwhelmed and absolutely exhausted!
So here’s all the juicy details…..
Rewind to Tuesday. My BFF is having her first baby, I am hosting a baby shower for her in Florida on March 21st. So I decide, I need to start flying for practice since it’s been 10 years since I’ve flown, am absolutely petrified to fly, but I figure a nice warm up, 1 ½ hour flight will be a good start. So I book the tickets. Jokingly tell everyone that the next day we are going to get “the call” since I’ve booked a non-refundable ticket. (I did get the insurance so that I can use it within a year)
Fastforward to Wednesday morning. In the morning I’ve been e-mailing our case manger back and forth b/c a lot of our forms are getting dangerously close to expiration. 4:18 p.m. The phone rings with that area code! You know the one! I answer the phone. My voice cracks like a pre-teen boy, it is shrill and about an octave too high, it kinda startles me coming out of my mouth. It’s odd enough that my co-worker stops working and looks up at me. “We have good news for you, Sarah!” I jump over my desk (At which point co-worker has alerted the entire office what was going on) and run into an office where I continue to scream, cry, and jump up and down. “It’s a little boy!” She continues to give me all the details, height, weight, history. I wasn’t listening to anything. I think this is a common occurrence because later that night a nice email came through with all the details clearly typed. A huge crowd has gathered. I call Chad. My boss tells me to go on home because it’s obvious no work is going to be done for the remainder of the day, get on home. We were told pictures and the official translated medical information wouldn’t be available until tomorrow morning. I was so happy it happened on a Wednesday because we were able to share the news with our teens and church family all at one time.
Thursday at 2:34 (after checking my email every 3 minutes, beginning at 8:03) we finally get another call with that fabulous, wonderful area code. The pictures are on the way. AND THERE ARE 4 OF THEM!!! We are thrilled. I call Chad and tell him to come IMMEDIATELY! He arrives in 10 minutes. We wait and wait and wait. I am now checking my email every 3 SECONDS. At 2:56 I can’t take it anymore. I send an email IN ALL CAPS!!!! “WE HAVEN’T GOTTEN ANY PICTURES YET!!!!” 3:04 the most beautiful e-mail I have ever received arrives in my box. “Pictures of Baby S” YIPPPEEEEE!!!! We open them up and stand in awe, and tears of the most perfect little person. He looks so healthy. He has rosy beautiful cheeks, full lips, a little mischievous smile….(yes he was smiling in his picture!!!) GREY eyes and dark blonde hair. He looks TALL! And even on the chunky side! I wish I could show you his picture, but you know the rules, he’s not legally ours, so no pictures until everything is official!
Now we are taking care of nuts and bolts. We are meeting with our doctor on Monday that is reviewing his medicals. After that we’ll get hopefully get his stamp of approval and Tuesday morning we’ll be making our travel arrangements.
I was hesitant writing all of this because so many things are up in the air. But this is real. This is the way I feel right now. I have always been up front and honest about the way I was feeling, so I am not ashamed to say “I am in love!!” I know it’s probably not the wisest thing, or they way I should be guarding my heart in case of some unforeseen disappointment, but I don’t care! I want to shout it from the rooftops “I have met my son!”