We Made the Wait List!!!

Wahoo! We made the wait list today and are officially number 71 on the boy's list for the month of October! Our parameters are baby boy 0-12 months old. We are truly overjoyed and so excited to be at this phase of the journey! We know the wait is long and hard- but we're trusting that God will prepare us in so many ways during this time! I'm confident that #71 is the exact number that God intended for us to start with knowing that it would, in the end, match us with the perfect kiddo that He has picked for our family! I also trust that #71 is going to provide the exact amount of time God desires to continue working in Joshua and I's hearts in preparing us for this addition to our family. We continue to be amazed at the way God is growing us and working in us and I can only imagine that He is up to a lot more work over this next phase of waiting! Oh how I love this number! This number represents our boy! Yay for 71!!!
For those of you who are not familiar with the whole wait list thing, pretty much it works like this... once families are done with their dossier/home study (all the adoption paper work) and have it turned in, approved and finalized, they are then put on a list based on their parameters of what they're adopting. There are three lists with AGCI: Boy, Girl, and Sibling. Some families may be on all three lists, on two of the lists, or just one list (like us). So if a girl referral goes out and they were on all three lists (because they're parameters put them on all three) then the boy list and sibling list would drop down a number as well. Make sense? So each month we're given new lower numbers based on how many referrals went out that month. One month it may only drop down a couple spots and another month it may drop 10... we never know! Right now they're saying that from now until our referral could be anywhere from 12-18 months, so it's quite a wait, but one well worth it! Once our number is zero that means we'll get our referral. At that point we'll be given a call and they'll let us know all the information they have on our boy. It may be very little depending on the situation that brought him to Hannah's Hope, it just depends. Regardless, they'll give us as much information that they have on him. They'll email over pictures of him and his medical records which we'll have reviewed and then as long as God doesn't give us a major red flag we'll accept our referral! From that point we'll make two separate trips to Ethiopia, one for court and the other to bring him home. That's the gist of it at least! Do let me know if you have questions or are curious about any of this though- it's all new to me too and we're learning as we go!
#71... a number I'll always remember for the rest of my life, near and dear to my heart!