The best phone call of our lives!

WE RECEIVED THE CALL! The phone call that we have been waiting for for almost 2 years!
Here is the story of our referral call in a nutshell!
   Yesterday morning I was working a 12 hour shift at the hospital and Andrew was in the middle of a 48 hour shift at the fire station (perfect timing right?). At approx. 9:30am I went for my coffee break and checked my phone as I usually do. I noticed that I had just missed a call from our adoption case manager "K" a few minutes earlier. "Darn" I thought. "I always miss her calls". I was wondering why she had called because it wasn't time for our monthly check-in call yet. I figured it must be a paperwork issue or something. I decided I would try giving her a call back before my break was up. To my surprise "K" answered right away and said she was so glad that I called back because she had some exciting news for us. I immediately started shaking and felt like I was in a dream. She said that she had a child referral for us, in fact she had TWO! "Two?" I didn't know if I was going to be able to contain myself after I heard those words. I just felt like squealing with joy! "K" waited until I resumed my composure and then began to tell me a few details. She said that they have to brothers ages 3 years and 5 months! "Oh my goodness" I kept saying that over and over again. I could not believe this was happening. I was really wishing that Andrew was right there with me so we could find out at the same time. I asked "K" if I could call her on my lunch break because I didn't want to know anymore details until I told Andrew. I tried to call him on his cell right away but he didn't answer. I was freaking out because I really wanted to tell him about our referral call right then. I went back to work and was trying to stay focused on my patients for awhile. I tried Andrew again a few minutes later but still no answer. "Ahhhh, he must be on a call right now", I thought. It just so happens that Andrew was not at his regular station because he was working for another firefighter so I had no idea what station he was assigned to. I frantically called a station that I had the number for and they gave me the number to the station he was at. I'm sure that firefighter thought I was a crazy wife on the phone. No answer at that station either. Now I was really freaking out! Of all the times to not be able to reach my husband! I again tried to focus on my patient load. It was a really busy day for me and I had a pretty critical patient that needed my full attention. I silently prayed that God would ease my mind and I would be able to do my job without constantly thinking about the life changing call I had just received (at least until lunch break;-). About one hour later I got a call on the hospital phone from Andrew asking "What is the Emergency?".  "We got the call!" I tried not to scream those words as I stood in the middle of the busy nurses station. I briefly told him all that I knew, which wasn't much at that point and quickly had to hang up. He had been in the middle of his fire drill when he heard I was trying to contact him with an "emergency". Okay maybe it wasn't an emergency but very urgent I would say ;-) On my lunch break I was able to connect with K again and get all the details about "our" boys.
   It has been over 24 hours since we got "The Call" but I still feel like I am in a constant state of shock, amazement, excitement and so many other emotions that I have never felt before! We are going to be "ready-made parents", no kids to having a 3 year old and 5 month old in a very short time. We are so thankful to God for allowing us to receive our referral at this time. Despite many days that we felt hopeless that this day would never come, we now see that God was and is in the details of this and His timing is perfect.

So.....what are the next steps for us?

1) Meet with a pediatrician at the UW that specializes in international adoption for a consultation on Friday.
2) Phone meeting with a social worker from ACGI to discuss our transition plans on Friday.
3) Fill out paper work (again) and get documents notarized in our referral packet and send off to AGCI
4) Wait for our court date in Ethiopia (about 2 weeks).
5) Fly to Ethiopia to meet our precious baby boys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Prayer requests!

**Please pray for safety for the boys as they are adjusting to living at Hannah's hope.
**On Monday, the 3 year old fell while playing and fractured his leg. He is now in a cast. Please pray for healing.
**Pray that all our paper work will all go smoothly and there will be no delays.
**Pray that we will receive our court dates soon and can travel to meet our boys before Christmas.
**Pray that God will be preparing the boy's hearts and emotions to meet us and with the transition of coming home!

****We have decided to not put up any pictures of the boys or background information until they are legally ours. We do have the option of showing part of a photo without faces but we would rather wait!
If you would like a sneak peak at photos we can show you in person! They are SOOOOO cute!

 More info to come! Thank you all for being a part of this journey with us for the last 2 years! Thank you for your continued prayers, support and love! We can't wait to bring home the boys so they can meet all of you and see how many people love them already!
Megan & Andrew