It's Still So Surreal

It's been three days since we received our referral, and I still cannot believe that we have finally been matched with our daughter. I must have looked at her picture 1000 times yesterday, just to make sure that I hadn't dreamed it all. I wrote the quick highlights post on Friday, but I wanted to give a little more detail about our amazing Referral Day!!!!!

My mom was actually throwing me a baby shower on Saturday, so we were at my parent's house. As I already mentioned, I had been tipped off that a package was on the way, so I already had the anxious, excited, nervous feeling going on. Around 9:30, Great Wall emailed, letting us know that they were expecting a package that they thought were referrals, but weren't sure. They also said that the packages usually don't arrive until 1:00 PM, Texas time. So, now, I have at least 4 and a half hours of sitting around waiting. I was pretty much climbing walls by this time. I was toggling between refreshing my email and Rumor Queen every 5 seconds. Poor Brian was trying to get some work done before the call, and of course, he has me pacing and hitting refresh in the background. He's so patient and understanding, but I know I had to be driving him CRAZY!!!! Mom needed a few things from the store, so I volunteered to go. I needed to get away from the house, and computer, for a little while. That was around 11:00. Luckily, that burned about 45 minutes, so I was a little closer. But it looked like we still had a couple hours until the call. Brian decided to go up and take a shower around noon, and I worked on setting up the video camera so that we could film the call once it finally came. Once we got that set up, I of course returned promptly to my computer. I was chatting with Tracy through Facebook IM where she was talking me through the "contractions". Then, at 12:37, we got the email from Beth that the stork has landed at Great Wall, and we were in! Brian and I were both a bit teary eyed, and my mom got chills, and of course, started crying too. So, we rushed upstairs to wait for the call, laptop and tissues in hand. At 12:55, the phone rang. It was Kaylea from Great Wall, who shared our referral news with us. She told us that we had a beautiful, daughter. She told us her name, when she was born, her province and SWI. She also told us that she was healthy, healthy, healthy, and she had the most adorable chubby little cheeks. She gave us her measurements and said she would be sending us a picture in a few minutes. After the call ended, we were just so overwhelmed with happiness, and of course, Mommy cried, and Daddy even shed some tears. It was just so amazing to finally know who she was and where she was waiting. And to know that she was still so young and we would be there for so many of her firsts! Of course, I go straight back to the computer and hit refresh every half second, luckily it was only about a minute, until we got the email with her picture. After so long, I finally got to see my beautiful daughter, and it was probably one of the most amazing moments of my life. She is the most beautiful baby I have ever seen, and I was immediately in love! As crazy as my day had been up to that point, I was immediately filled with such overwhelming peace to finally be able to look at my baby! There really aren't words to capture what I felt, but it was incredible.

We spent a couple minutes more, just looking at that photo and sharing the moment together. But, I also knew that mom, Megan, and Ethan were downstairs, waiting to learn about the newest family member. So, we went downstairs, called Kevin, and shared our news with the family. Big shocker... my mom cried!  She was absolutely ecstatic. Brian went to call his mom and Sally O, while I called Auntie Jess, who was at work. Jess got teary eyed as well, and we are hoping that she hasn't gotten poison ivy since she trying to get rid of it when we called. The remainder of the afternoon was spent making calls, sending emails, and updating blogs. There were so many people who supported us through this journey, and we wanted to share the long awaited news!

It really was nice to be at my mom's because we were able to get everyone together and have a celebration dinner. By the end of the evening, I was absolutely exhausted, and actually slept for the first time in two nights.

What can I say... it was an amazing day, and we are truly, truly blessed.