Officially waiting!!! (aka Pregnant on Paper)

Woo hoo!!!!!! We received the awesome news yesterday morning that we are ICAB approved!! This means that now the Philippines has put us on a list of Prospective Adoptive Parents (PAPs), and they are ACTIVELY searching for a child or children to match with us. YAY!!!!!

Karin (from Hand in Hand) called yesterday right after I got to work. As soon as I saw her phone number come up on my phone I got excited. She told me that she had good news for us, that we were approved!! I started crying and thanking her over and over. She just laughed and squealed in delight with me. She's so awesome :) She told me that she had called the Philippines director of the agency (Vickie) the day before to tell her that she was feeling very impatient for us, and just wanted to know if there was ANY news at all. Vickie told her it was funny that she had called because she just received the approval THAT DAY! She received ours, as well as another couple's approval who had been waiting since JULY. Yowsahs! I cried happy tears off and on all day yesterday :) I e-mailed Karin later to let her know that it's like she's the doctor who gave us the news we've been waiting on for 4 years - we're pregnant (on paper)!!!!!

She also let us know that we have been approved since SEPTEMBER 30!! Holy cow! We've already been officially waiting for 2 months and didn't even know it! That's awesome!! Our approval came in just under 6 weeks from when we sent our dossier in to the Philippines. We were approved on Dave's mom's birthday, so Happy Belated Birthday to you, Jeanne!

Dave's reaction to the news was pretty funny. He turned a little white, and started pacing a little bit. Once I got off of the phone with Karin he gave me a big hug and then we decided to go celebrate with some breakfast. On our way there he asked if we could go to Home Depot - he wanted to start buying closet supplies to make a better closet in our baby room. Once we got there, Dave was very serious about what we needed to get - while I was still floating and smiling on cloud nine!! Dave cracked me up. He's very serious about getting our house just perfect before our child/ren come home, and is pretty nervous. He keeps me from flying off the face of the earth in my excitement :)

So what is the next step?? Well, next we just wait. "Again??" You may be asking. Well, this is the OFFICIAL wait this time. Every PAP that has been placed on this list in the Philippines has been matched with a child - EVERY ONE. So we know that we will be matched now that we are approved, it's just a matter of when. We expect that the match will come in anytime between 9-18 months from now. At that time we'll know how many we're adopting, as well as what ages, genders, etc. they will be. After that, we will have to wait about 3 more months until we can travel.

Now I am in the process of making a list. I may have to enlist the help of my professional (and wise) list-making friends to help me with this. I'm so excited to start preparing for everything we need, and still feeling giddy from yesterday!! I know that we have another long wait ahead of us, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it's a beautiful light (Dave told me that I have my rosy glasses on now that we've been approved :)! Thank you for all of your prayers and support during this time. It wasn't an easy wait, but I really feel that God worked some wonders on my heart through the wait. I'll share that in another post, though.

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Celebration supper at Olive Garden with Rachel's family