Our Referral!!!!

You read that right, our referral has arrived. It actually arrived Monday but we wanted to really think and pray on it before officially accepting it (which we did today). I was waiting to tell you, dear blog readers and have been excited to do so. Especially since this is my 100th blog post and I must thank our newest son, Mr. Tariku Asamu Abiyu for the best 100th post in recorded history.

To the details...Tariku is around 2 yrs and 8 mths. We are not allowed to post pictures on any internet sites until we go to court, but I will post his picture on here immediately once they let us know we can! Even without the picture, he is perfect. As the social worker was telling us about him, I was of course crying and soaking it all in. He is perfect in every sense of the word.

To set the stage, as noticed from my last post, the SW didn't have our homestudy done. So I had left her a message "nicely" stating how disappointed we were that it wasn't done yet. Well during nap time on Monday, I heard my phone ring and saw that it was her. I was honestly considering not answering because I just wasn't in the mood to hear any excuses. But, against my "better judgement" I did. Conversation went as follows (or something close)

Cindy: Hey Tesi, It's Cindy, are you sleeping?

Tesi: Of course not! (thinking she would not let me adopt should she find out I like napping in the afternoons)

Cindy: Oh okay, well I wanted to call and talk to you about something, is Zach there? (Note: after that, I knew what the call was about because on our adoption forum, everyone has said they say key things to let you know it's the referall call)

Tesi: Um, he's in his office that's just up the hill, well I guess you know where it's at since you've been here, but I'll run really fast, well as fast as I can anymore, you know what I mean. This phone can't dial 3 way can I call you back on this number when we have speakerphone?

Cindy: (laughing) yes, that'd be fine. talk to you soon.

I sprinted out the door (man it felt good) tried running with Zach's slippers on and noticed it would take 3 seconds longer if I tried to make it there with them so I threw them off. Ran up the hill and pounded on Zach's door to his office. He was meeting with his program director at the time but I didn't care. I yelled, through glass and open air, "Cindy is on the phone, we need to call her back, it's THE call honey"!

Zach: Come in (said rather sarcastically now that I think about it, how rude)

Tesi: panting

Zach: How do you know she isn't just wanting to talk to us about the homestudy?

Tesi: feeling bummed because I never did qualify it as being THE call, "Well no, I think it's really happening."

Zach: give me your phone.

We call Cindy on my cell but the speaker phone doesn't work so we have to hang up and call her on Zach's work phone (thanks Scott County Family Y).

Well it ended out great, obviously. We heard about our baby and I haven't stopped looking at his picture and reading every word since. We already got an update on his measurements and it looks like he's around 3' tall and 30 lbs which is nice sized even for American standards, let alone Ethiopian. (Those that know the Klipschs now understand why God gave him to us.)

In all honesty, God is good. And the picture shows Tariku's spirit. I look at him and his personality shows me that, contrary to everything he has experienced in life so far, he truly believes life is good. Dearest Tariku, I couldn't agree more.