Our Sweet Annie: December 2008

I should have posted sooner but it's been a whirlwind week. On Friday 12/19 we were matched with our baby girl!!! I was out to lunch with my friend Chrissy at Monti's, we were celebrating our birthdays. After lunch I called home to check my messages and my agency had left two messages. I could not get home fast enough. The 5 minute drive seemed to take forever. I called back and Morgan told me about our little girl. I asked him to email me her information. I quickly checked my email, saw her precious face and read just a little bit about her. She was born July 11th weighing 7.7 pounds. I called Lance and he told me he was almost home. At this point it was about 10 minutes until 1pm and I was due to be in Calvin's class at 1 for his holiday party. Lance walked in and I showed him the photo and then he was off to his office for a 1pm conference call. I rushed to school and to Calvin's class. I told him the wonderful news that he had a baby sister! He was so happy and started telling all his friends. Soon it was time for recess so I went out, found Nathan on the playground and told him the great news as well. So exciting! The next hour I spent in Calvin's class and it was all a daze. I could not wait to get home, read more about our girl, stare at her photo and celebrate with Lance and the boys. When school was finally out I hurried over to a group of my friends (Kelly, Katie & Carmi) and told them the big news. More excitement and hugging. I found Crystal & Nicole (2 of my friends who have adopted from Korea and Taiwan) and told them. Then we went home.

That afternoon I brought the baby's medical information to our Doctor's office for him to look over. All weekend we spent sharing the news with our family and friends as well as getting ready for Christmas. I saved lots of my shopping for the last minute. On Monday morning we heard from our doctor that in his opinion our daughter is healthy, growing well and is being well cared for. We called our agency, accepted her referral and they overnighted her documents to us. We got the documents on Christmas Eve. We had to go get 30 signatures notorized!

On Christmas Eve we went over to my mom's house to celebrate with family. Then we headed over to my dad's for a big family dinner. Christmas morning was very special here. My mom came over for brunch and the we headed down to San Jose Christmas afternoon. There was so much more celebrating, both for the holiday and the newest addition to the family. Lance's sister Lisa went a little crazy shopping at my favorite store (Oilily) for our baby girl. I will have to post some of the photos of those later.

We spent the night in San Jose and then went over to Lisa's house this morning to play Rock Band on the Wii. My favorite was playing the drums. We finally arrived back home this evening and this is pretty much the first time I have sat on the couch and relaxed for a week.

We have a ton of work to do in the next few months. I'm overnighting the adoption documents back to our agency in the morning and then they will start the immigration process. They said our daughter will be ready to travel in 4-5 months but I'm really hoping and praying it's closer to 3.5-4. My sister-in-law Lisa will be traveling to Korea with me to pick her up in the Spring. In the meantime we will be getting the home and the nursery ready here.

More about our baby! We'll be naming her Annie after my grandmother. We're still deciding on a middle name. She has the cutest chubby cheeks and lots of hair. Her paperwork mentions her dimples. I can't wait to see them. I hope that while we're waiting we'll get more photos of her and possibly even video!

Enough rambling, here is our Sweet Baby Annie!