Details...Details....Details

HIP HIP HOORAY.....JUST GOT OFF THE PHONE WITH KIMBERLY, OUR SOCIAL WORKER!!! MICAH IS ON HIS WAY HOME TO CHECK OUT THE EMAIL WITH ALL THE DETAILS.YEP, I DID TAKE A PICTURE OF THE COMPUTER SCREED. HEY, THIS IS IMPORTANT STUFF, YOU KNOW. I REFRAINED FROM OPENING IT UNTIL MICAH RUSHED HOME FROM WORK (THAT'S WHAT YOU CALL SELF DISCIPLINE!

This picture was shortly after we looked at Jude's information for the first time. Can you tell we are a bit happy?

AS WE WERE ALL LOOKING AT JUDE'S PICTURE FOR THE FIRST TIME.
OUR FIRST FAMILY PHOTO (THANK YOU TO OUR PHOTOGRAPHER, SELF TIMER)
WE HAD AN ALL OUT PARTY.....SILLY STRING, POPPERS, CAKE, AND ALL!
OUR THREE CHILDREN. (AHHH...THAT SOUNDS CRAZY!)
MICAH AND I AND OUR NEW SON. 

This post is detailed for two reasons: 1. I want to remember EVERY SINGLE detail and 2. I know that some "waiting families" watch our blog (shout out-hoorah!) and whenever those before me on "the list" got their referrals I wanted to know every detail about what they did, how they were feeling, etc. so....here ya' go......

WHAT HAPPENED THE DAY THE "CALL" CAME:

That morning, we had gone pumpkin shopping and found pumpkins that represented our family. Two big ones for mommy and daddy and three little ones for Creed, Rinn, and baby "k" (we still didn't know it was Jude....or that he was a boy, or that our lives were about to be changed forever). After pumpkin shopping we went on a few errands and then had lunch with our friend, Lindsay Laird at Jersey Mike's. 

Came home, put the kids down for a nap. Both of them went to sleep (miracle for Creed). It was quiet in the house when the phone rang at 3:04. I jumped up and had a feeling this was urgent. Sure enough, it showed our social workers caller ID. YIKES!!!! At this point my heart rate was aprox. 300 beats per minute. I answered and didn't even give her a chance to say a thing, I don't think. I just said (everything 3 times, by the way) "What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? Then, not giving her a chance to speak I said "I knew you were calling today. I knew you were calling today. I knew you were calling today." Again, no chance to speak  I said "Let me conference call Micah."

Micah gets on the phone, Kimberly gives us a brief description of our new child. Yikes. Wowzers. I didn't expect my reaction to be so clear. I didn't think we would know "right away". I thought we would have to really think on and pray about it before we got excited. Nope. Excitement....elation RIGHT AWAY for us. Micah rushed home and we pulled up the email together. Slammed. Several, I mean SEVERAL things I had prayed specifically for were mentioned in his referral. Some funny things include that he "moves from one side of the bed to the next" when he sleeps with his foster mom. Ummm....this is sounding strangely familiar (Creed!). They also mentioned that he was social (yep, he'll fit in) and that he sleeps best when it is quiet (uh oh...that rarely happens in our house). 

We were so pumped. Micah called a doctor friend in our small group to see if he could review his file (thanks a ton, Mike!) and we also sent his info and pictures to an International Adoption Physician to have it reviewed just so we can be fully aware of everything. 

I didn't sleep AT ALL!!!!! that night. Had to get out of bed at 4:30 (no, I wasn't alseep but was laying in bed) to get on a plane for NYC. Once at the airport and settled I told my mom. Micah and I agreed there would be NO WAY I could keep it from her, especially since I was going to buy out the stores buying items for Jude :).  She was pumped. However, she kept pressuring me to just sneak a peak at his picture. Nope, I actually did it as planned and waited until we heard from the IAP and until we were all together as a family to look at him for the first time. 

I arrived home (with a few gifts for Jude and Creed and Rinn) on Monday night. Micah was on his way home from another city picking up the kids from his brother's house. We've driven back and forth from Paul and Ang's probably 50 times and could generally do it with our eyes closed. Well, Micah accidentally went the wrong way on the highway and didn't notice until he was about 30 miles out of the way (can you tell we were just a little nervous and excited!). It was getting late when he got home (thanks to the daddy brain he was experiencing at the moment). When the kids walked in I was hiding and jumped out with silly string. Fun times. Then, Creed tricked me with some silly string on his own. I told them I had a few gifts for them from NYC. I gave them their gifts and then we said "but, we have a really big gift, now...one of the best gifts we could ever think of." Creed said (immediately) "WE GOT OUR REFERRAL!!!!!???" Rinn and Creed then began jumping up and down on the couch and acting insane. They couldn't hear a word that we were trying to tell them. Finally, Micah said "did you hear that, Creed, you have a BROTHER!" Creed said "I knew it, I knew it was a boy." (side note: he told us about 6 months ago that God told him it was a boy.....yep, I guess we should probably trust when God speaks to a child". Rinn's immediate response was "so, when do we get our dog from?" Background: We had told them that if we got a boy then we would get a girl dog (to even things up a bit) and if we got a girl baby then we would get a boy dog. So, Rinn's immediate thoughts went to the dog, of course (totally a three year old response, I thought). 

We all sat down in front of the computer (video rolling and self timer on the camera ready) and we opened his picture and saw his face for the first time. I really, really thought I would be an emotional basket case but instead we all just laughed the happiest laughter ever. He was just so cute, and the HAIR....we were smitten from the first glance. 

I know our friends and family have tons of questions because they love our little guy so much. Some of those details we want to tell you every little thing (like everything that was said about his personality, how we are feeling, etc.) and some of those things (like his family and social history) we are choosing to allow Jude to share that information, if he wants to, when he gets old enough to share. We can tell you that Jude appears to be very healthy, is developing and rolling over, smiling, babbling, etc. and is a genius (well, that's my official opinion!). Some things about his birth family (why they chose adoption,etc.) we will keep private. We do know that he was loved long before he was born and created by God. We also feel strongly that his birth family loved him dearly and made an incredibly sacrificial choice to give him life and to allow him to be a part of our family. We will forever and ever be grateful and bonded to them and to his country of Korea. 

Love, love, love out to Jude today. 

We love you, little Jude Han.