Black and White Wednesday - "Referral Day"

As you could well imagine, the last day two days have been so super exciting for our family. We are just thrilled to have finally received the referral of our precious baby girl and we are so very thankful to be surrounded by our loving family and friends at this very special time!

We cannot stop looking at our beautiful girl. We have printed out a few copies of her scanned pictures so we have something until we actually receive her file from our agency.

At this point, the only information that we have received is exactly what I posted....her Chinese name, her date of birth, her province, and her orphanage. Her file is now being translated from Mandarin to English and we expect to receive it in the next few days. Needless to say we are very anxious see what it says:)

I was the one that received the initial phone call from our agency Monday afternoon at 2:16pm. History repeated itself and I was sitting in my bosses office in a meeting when my cell phone rang with the big news....... just like it did four years ago when we got the phone call the day Sarah was born!

As soon as I received all the details, our agency verified our email addresses and told me that they would be sending the pictures over within the hour. As soon as I hung up with the agency, I immediately called Pat with the wonderful news and told him her photo would be coming to his work email within the hour.

After that we each called our parents to let them know our girl had finally arrived. I called my Mom, who was with Nick and Sarah. They were at the mall shopping, so I told them that we should have her pictures by the time they got home.

Pat ended up seeing her face first..... I had gone back into my bosses office because of course he was anxious to hear the news and all of the details. When I came back out and went to sit down at my desk, I called Pat one more time and he was saying how cute she was..... I couldn't believe the pictures came so fast. I quickly pulled my email up and could not believe my eyes!!! Four and a half years of waiting and dreaming about her.....and there she was...... it was truly love at first sight!

It took me a good hour or so to get everything together and get myself out of the office and on my way home to celebrate with my family. It was a long commute from Philly, but I smiled the entire ride home.

I pulled into the driveway around 6pm and Nick happened to be outside and ran to meet me as I got out of the car. He gave me the biggest hug and said "She is SO CUTE".

Pat had arrived just before I did and when I walked into the house he was standing there with my Mom, Dad, and Sister waiting for me to arrive to start the celebration. I was the once picking up the champagne:) After we popped the cork and Pat made a special toast to our girl, we ordered Hunan Chicken along with a variety of other things from our favorite Chinese restaurant.

Later on that night after my family left, I headed into the office to det on the computer to start going through some of the emails and comments. A few minutes later, Sarah walked in and climbed into my lap. She looked at me and said "I want to see my sister. Can you put her face on the computer" MY HEART MELTED when I heard those words.

It was the perfect ending to the most fabulous day!!

If you can't tell from that picture above, Nick and Sarah are both very proud of their new little sister and are very anxious to meet her.



I know you all saw this picture yesterday. It was one of the three photos that were included in her file, but I could not let black and white Wednesday go by without including our girl...

Have you noticed that I keep calling her "Our Girl"

We do have a name for her.

Some of you picked up the "subtle" hint in the Beach Post the other day. Nick was writing her name in the sand.

Reagan Elizabeth Wen

We are still very much floating around on cloud nine and I suspect we will be up here for a few more days.....maybe weeks:) I will post more info as we get it!

Thanks again for all the kind comments and emails..... Pat and I have read each and every one! They mean so much to us!

ALMOST FORGOT..... The lucky winner of the BRACELET!!! JONNI, you won the bracelet! You picked her province and you were two days away from her birthday. Congratulations! I will be sending it out to you in a few days:)