DNA

We received an email today from the agency telling us that they have the DNA authorization from the US Embassy to proceed with the first DNA test for our little Rosa! This is exciting for a couple of reasons. One, the adoption appears to be moving forward, second, Melissa said that we could come for our first visit with Rosa when the first DNA is complete! Little Rosa is already 3 months old, I am dying to get my hands on her!

3 months old!

Wow, Rosa is 3 months old today. I can't believe it has already been 4 weeks since we accepted her referral. She is growing up so fast, too fast, and without us. But I know that she is being taken care of and God is watching over her. We were able to send a package to her via the agency so maybe she got it today, or at least hopefully this week. We hope to get new pictures of her soon. I think they do a medical update and picture once a month so we are crossing our fingers for new information soon.

Trying to catch up

Since we are waiting to share the news of Rosa, I had not been blogging, but decided I wanted to try to get some posts out so that when we are ready, we will already have her story started. You know how it is, the first child gets everything, all the pictures, the baby album, etc., but when #2 and so on come along, they get the shaft. I am trying to give each girl equal time. On Dec 26th, Rosa turned 2 months old. It is hard for me to think about her growing without us! It makes me sick at my stomach that I am missing this time of her life.

On Jan 4th we receieved new pictures and a medical update.
She was 12 lbs and 4 oz and 57 cm long. She's growing!
Here's her 2 month picture.

The rest of the story

After we got home (still in shock) we spent the rest of the night looking at pictures, talking about names, rereading the medical report about our little girl. We felt so blessed that God had chosen us for this blessing.
On Friday, December 21st, we signed the Power of Attorney for both Fernanda and Rosa. We have prayed daily for both of our girls. We pray that God has allowed us to slide in and be "grandfathered-in" under the old system.
We have decided to keep this new little blessing to ourselves until we make it to PGN with her.
So now you know "The rest of the story".
Here's another one of the referral pictures we received.

Surprise!

On December 20th, while driving in downtown Atlanta, our adoption facilitator called us and said, I have a baby girl for you and I will be sending you pictures today!!!

(A little background...We were in Atlanta having our fingerprints done for INS. We had already started the process of adopting a little girl from Guatemala, but as the end of the year came closer, we feared that the adoption would fall through because of changing laws in Guatemala. After MUCH prayer, talking with our facilitator and our pastor, we decided to move forward and pursue another child.

Since we requested up to 2 children in our home study, we thought, well if things work out with the first child, then we'll just take them both. )

OK, back to Dec 20th , downtown Atlanta...

After we told her that we would take this new little baby, she said, are you ready for a miracle??? The foster home where the first little girl was has decided to let us sign the Power of Attorney for her in hopes of being grandfathered in under the old system... so WOW, we are adopting 2 little girls... Bill and I just sat there, teary eyed, not sure what we were doing.

We spent a little more time in Atlanta and then headed back home. About half way home we stopped to eat dinner and while in the parking lot of the restaurant, we pulled out our laptop, "borrowed" the wireless signal from a nearby hotel and tried to see if we had gotten pictures of our sweet baby. There is was, a message from our facilitator with this subject, "Would you like to meet your little daughter?"

We got the pictures to open and just as we were reading the attached medical report, the battery died on our laptop.

OK, I'll stop for now and let you take a quick breather.

Yes!