4 YEAR REFERRAL ANNIVERSARY

June 8th marked our 4 year anniversary of receiving Elizabeth's referral.

I remember being in the San Diego airport waiting for our flight home when my friend Keely called me to say that our agency had just posted a new list of waiting children.

At the time, our agency was assigned children to find homes for....families would apply for the child they wanted to be matched with, and then we waited for a committee to convene, pray over, and decide which families to match with which children.

As soon as we arrived home, John and I both looked at the list separately ~so as not to influence each other.

Then we sat down to talk and we both were drawn to the same 3 or 4 kids on the list. We prayed ALOT, took these files the our pediatrician, and were able to narrow down who we wanted to apply for. :)

I remember just looking at Elizabeth's pictures that entire month (yes -we had to wait an entire month to know if we were matched or not!) and thinking "wow, this baby girl just looks so familiar". I couldn't place it....it just seemed like I knew her.

On June 8th, I had both kids at the local pool for swim lessons. I was just about to get in the pool for the mommy & me class when my phone rang.

Normally I would have just let it go to voicemail considering I was standing there in a bathing suit in public :) but I noticed the area code and HAD to answer the call.

I remember the agency rep on the other line saying "Jeanette......congratulations, you have another daughter. You have been matched with Ellie."

I cried.

A Lot.

Now I knew why that little girl on the other side of the world looked so familiar.

She was our daughter.

I remember trying to collect myself and get in the water for swim lessons. :)

As a fun side note, our agency gave each child an English name to make it easier when talking about the kids. The name assigned to Elizabeth was "Ellie". It didn't dawn us until we were matched with her how ironic and what a God-coincidence it was.....we had known we wanted to use the name Elizabeth for our daughter from China...and we had even discussed using the nickname "Ellie" for her.....and here our agency had already assigned her the nickname we had intended to use. I'm still baffled that we never realized it until after she was ours. :)

I can't believe it's been 4 years since that call...and almost 4 years that Elizabeth has been home.