Referral Day!

Today we finally got to see our daughter’s face! (See picture above) I got a call from Andrea Jones from CCAI at work a couple minutes before 11am. We had told them to call Brian’s cell phone 1st, but he didn’t answer, so they called me at work. I didn’t want to get the call alone, so I asked if we could call them back. I did however ask right away how old she was. Andrea said yes, so I tried to get ahold of Brian. He was nowhere to be found at work. I’m sure the office staff was frantically running around looking for him. It was kind of like deva ju with Mikayla’s birth. Finally I told them to just have him call me when they found him. As soon as I hung up the phone, he walked into my office at work. We quickly went to a private room and called Andrea.
Here’s what we learned about our daughter…

Her full name is Jiu (“nine”) Fen (“sweet smell or fragrance”) Fu (the city where she is located). Her birthday is November 19, 2009. She is only 6 months old! She is in an orphanage called Fuzhou City Social Welfare Institute (you can google this for more info.) in Jiangxi Province. At her last check-up, she weighed 12.76 lbs. and were 24.8” long. She wakes up about 0730 and take two 2 hr. naps at 10am and 1pm and bedtime is 8:30pm. She eats 7 times at day. Her diet includes milk and rice formula, rice cereal and steamed eggs. Favorite toy is a rattle. She loves to be held, can hold her head up when on her stomach, follows moving toys with her eyes, laughs out loud, knows her name, is active, likes music, and playing games. Her overall health and hearing is good.

We just love the referral picture.  Our kids didn't have that much hair until they were at least 3!  Auntie Mindy already gave us clips for her.
Tomorrow we will receive a Fed Ex package with a hard copy of all the info. we were given today. I think there are also more pictures. There will be an acceptance letter to sign and Fed Ex back right away. Our travel group is #1597. Andrea said we should travel in 5-7 weeks.

We called Grandma Marsha first because we knew her birthday was in November, but we couldn’t remember the date (it’s Nov. 9).  Next we called Auntie Mindy and then Grandma Tammy. My boss let me have a long lunch, so I went to show her picture to her sisters. They were excited, but I think they don’t feel like it’s real yet. I was also able to stop by Mike and Joan Rose’s and Susan Derry’s to tell them the good news.

What a day!  Like one of our friends who just got back from China with their daughter said, "When you see her face, it makes the wait all worth it!"