THE CALL

Yes indeed.  Every parent that has already experienced the international adoption process knows what I'm talking about.  One of the biggest milestones in the entire adoption process is the day when you get that call from your agency to announce the details of your child referral.  Today was that day for us! 
Our coordinator called Amber first, then the two of them called me.  When I got the call, I was in the midst of another super-busy afternoon.  I hit the answer button on my phone, and initially thought, "D'oh!  I don't recognize that phone number.  I should have just let that go to voicemail. Oh well, I have to answer it now."  I was immediately hit with the significance of the call when I heard the lady's voice on the line congratulating me that this is my referral call.
Our coordinator gave us the essentials.  Amber had the presence of mind to ask a few good questions.  I mostly just listened and took notes.  Afterward, Amber and I chatted.  She was so blown away she had to stop baking the cookies she was working on.  She couldn't work the oven timer any more!  All my office mates were watching me take the call the whole time.  I felt like I was on stage.  Weird.  It was cool to share the moment with them though.  We're pretty tight.
Unfortunately (and this pains me to say) we can't divulge most of the details of the referral.  I know!  That stinks, right?!  Privacy laws are strict, and I don't want to do anything to endanger the adoption process for us or her by being stupid on the Internet.  I can share that she is a really healthy 2 month old baby Ethiopian girl.  We do have 2 pictures of her, and she is SUPER CUTE.  I'm being objective, and you'll have to trust me on this for now.  We have all kinds of medical reports that all say she has no health issues, which is awesome.  She's obviously being fed WELL. :D
I'm pretty floored that she is so young!  I was totally expecting a referral for a child near the older end of our requested age range since young babies are in higher demand.  We'll be getting her just at that baby sweet spot (from a dad's point of view), when they're beyond that boring infant stage when they just eat and sleep.  Sure infants are cute, but dad's like to INTERACT!  I can't wait to share more details about her, but I'll have to wait a few weeks.  Travel dates are dependent on a lot of variables still, but let's just say 2-4 more months for now.  Totally stoked!  Thank you, Jesus.

We are ON DECK!

This is a really good sign!  We received an email from our adoption agency last Friday, officially putting us "on-deck".  What that means is that our family "could receive a referral within the next one to three months".  Yes, they're giving themselves a lot of latitude, and we're trying not to get too excited, but we have had numerous friends who received their referrals within days of receiving an "on-deck" email.

We're noticing quite a few referrals for kids from our agency once again.  That's good to see, because it says that a lot of the weirdness we saw in the weeks following the Haiti earthquake seem to be behind us now.  Unfortunately we're almost definitely going to have to travel twice, but at least adoptions are moving forward.

Stuff is feeling even more real now.

-bryan