Becoming a Family of Four

 

It's a girl!

"She's pretty. She has hair like mine!" -Zain

We are proud to announce that we received a referral! We have been matched with a 19-month-old girl from Ethiopia!!!

Excited. Nervous. Sad. Thrilled. Happy. Butterflies.
There are lots of emotions flying around here. We have been in the process for over a year with paperwork and waiting, however being matched once again feels sudden and immediately life changing. We are so happy. We are also sad because every adoption story includes loss, and though we do not know everything about the first year of her life, we know it was hard for her and her birth family. We are a bit nervous about parenting two at a time, but we know we can do it. It will be a big adjustment, but we are ready.

There are many aspects of this second adoption that are the same, however some changes in the process have occurred. Lord willing, we hope to bring her home sometime before she turns two. In May, Zain will turn 3 and she will turn 2 a couple weeks later. 

We will go to Ethiopia once this spring to appear before a judge to officially say, "YES! We want her!" That trip will be about five days long. This time we will come back to the U.S. to await news of her paperwork being ready to return to Ethiopia to pick her up. We will go back for about a week to bring her home to Illinois!

Because she is not legally ours, we once again cannot post pictures or identifying information about her before the adoption is final in Ethiopia. For now, we are calling her Hoolet. This is simply the Amharic/Ethiopian word for number two! (You might recall that we called Zain "Moosh" for a while. This is similar.)

Since we can't show you her picture unless you see us in person, we thought you might want to see Zain's reaction to first seeing the picture of his new little sister! I didn't get the camera on right away, but you can kinda tell that at the beginning he is saying, "She looks kinda like me!"

A few notes: In the pictures we have, she is in a cute dress with purple flowers on it and pants underneath. In one of them, she is riding in one of those "Little Tykes Cozy Coupe" type of cars and there are some toys laying on the floor in the background. 

Zain cannot wait to meet her. He wants to play Legos with her, teach her to bake muffins, play drums with her and race cars. He knows he is the big brother and she is the little sister. He smiles every time he sees her picture. 

We have seen God's hand in some incredible ways over the past eight weeks. He is so good.

Happy New Year! Here's to becoming a family of FOUR!