The Story:

On January 29, 2013, I received a regular email from our case worker at our placing agency, AGCI.  It was the usual Bulgarian update, but it also included the profiles of two waiting children.  One of the children was a bright-eyed six year old little girl with a cute pony tail right smack on top her head.  The profile listed some of her interests as well as some of her special needs.  

No, I didn't experience any sort of mystical moment in which I knew she was mine, but she fell within our age range, and her special needs seemed to be within our parameters.  So, I forwarded the email to my hubby, and asked him what he thought.

I actually didn't think we were far enough along in the process to even be looking at profiles of waiting children.  I remember jokingly writing to him:  "I want her...haha.  I just wish we were that far along in the process." In January, we were still waiting to get appointments set up with our home study social worker.  We were far from choosing a child (I thought).

After a few weeks of thinking about her, we just couldn't get her off our minds.  Jeremy said we should contact our case worker and just get a little more information.  When we did, we found out that no, it was not too early to express interest in a child.  We were the first and only family who had expressed interest in her, so our case worker sent us a medical report, and a few videos.  We were encouraged to review all of the information and if we were still interested, take the info to a pediatrician for further review. 

There is an excellent pediatric hospital near where we live, and there are specialists of all kinds near the hospital.  Using a simple Google search, I found a pediatric specialist.  It took a while to get ahold of her, but she was willing to meet with us for free to review this little girl's information.  We emailed her everything we had and met with her on March 15th; we could not believe how helpful she was!  When we read through the medical report, it seemed contradictory and confusing to us, but she was able to sift so much critical info out of what we had. It was a very encouraging meeting, and after it was over, we decided to move forward!

That next week was a whirlwind!  In order for the MOJ in Bulgaria to place her on hold for us, we had to expediate some of our Dossier documents.  So that week was full of paperwork, notaries, and faxes, but on Friday, March 22, the matching committee in Bulgaria met and officially placed her "on hold" for the Moorhouse family.  It was really hard to wait from the 22nd to Easter Sunday to tell our families! To read about our big reveal click here.

To answer a few questions we've gotten:  "on hold" is not the same as being matched or having a referral.  Bulgaria has to have our remaining Dossier items, namely the home study to be able to officially match her with us, but by placing her "on hold" no other family can choose her, and it buys us some time while we wait on our home study. 

We expect our home study to be approved within the next couple of weeks.  At that time we will submit it along with a few other documents and a BIG payment.  When the MOJ receives all of that, they will have to translate everything, and then they will review it and hopefully officially match us with our daughter.  

I SO appreciate the sweet emails, comments, and link-ups that everyone has responded with.  It means so much to know that people are excited with us and praying for our adoption and our little girl.  I'll be posting more of our story tomorrow, so stay tuned for more! 

Prayer Need: It's very hard to not worry at this point.  We've seen her face and heard her sing and watched her play, and she is on hold for us, but I still always have that nagging worry that something is going to fall through and I'll be heartbroken.  Please pray for Philippians 4:6-7 to be real in our lives during this time.  

Thanks for reading & praying,

--Shelly