Our first "yes" referral.

that's right. 

we finally had a referral that we said YES to. 

it was the day after christmas and we were on our way down to medford to have our family christmas at my mom's house with all my siblings, spouses and my nieces and nephews. 

it's about a 7 hour drive (depending on how many potty breaks you have take! and surprisingly, they are mostly for bubba, not rowan ha!) and we decided to stop in salem after about 3 - 3.5 hours and get some lunch and to find a park or somewhere for rowan to let our some energy. 

well when we pulled off i-5 i saw wunderland and thought.. HEY! we should totally stop there. i mean bubba and i used to have some serious house of the dead game playing there, after all. so of course he was down. off to wunderland we go and surprise!! they totally still had house of the dead. the original one that we used to play in high school! so awesome. 

after some butt-kicking in air hockey, skee ball and house of the dead we left wunderland and started to head over to subway for some lunch. i then proceed to check my email, duh, like an addict. waiting and waiting for an email. to my delight there was a referral sitting in my inbox. i say: hey bubba any chance you've checked your email? {he has totally read a referral before and didn't even tell me that we had gotten it!}

he hadn't, so i begin reading it out loud until he pulls it up on his phone. at this point rowan is in her car seat, buckled up and ready to go and we just sit there and keep reading. in the past, bubba will just stop reading once he reaches a part in the referral that he knows won't work for him. but he just kept reading. for the first time ever. and we both read all the many, many pages until it finally ended. and bubba said: well, i feel like just turning this car around right now. 

so then i knew he was saying yes to this referral.

we had rowan put on her headphones and turn on a movie while we discussed the situation. i had some concerns and questions and talked about it and decided to call our agency with our questions. 

they answered all our questions the best they could with the information given to them. 

we got off the phone and decided to head to subway to get our lunch. 

there we sat and discussed and talked about it over our sandwiches. 

this girl had to be picked up today. 

and we were 3 hours from tacoma.

we made another call to the agency with some more questions that we had. 

and after discussing it again, we said YES, put our name in the hat! we want this sweet girl!

so there we sat. in subway. 3 hours from home. 

waiting with this feeling of excitement from just saying YES for the first time to a referral. with wonder and nervousness -- this little girl could really be ours -- TODAY!! 

and we talked about the scenarios and how we would have to cancel our christmas plans with our family. and how would that make rowan feel? and oh my gosh! we would need to go and buy a car seat! 

all the thoughts, adrenaline, and fear that was rushing through me. 

it was so. hard. to. wait.

this girl could be ours. 

even though a judge could have ordered her to a relatives two weeks later, we didn't care. we felt that this sweet girl could be ours forever and ever. 

so we waited some more. at this point we decided to just wait in salem until we knew either way. we didn't want to drive back to tacoma to be told no and then drive back down to medford the next day. 

we didn't want to continue our trip to medford if we got a call saying, yes! come and get her!

so we waited. 

thankfully, my sister lives in salem and so we just stopped at her house and hung out and rowan played with her cousins.

but i was checking my email every 15 minutes. 

we ended up waiting for 5 hours before we got an answer. 

and unfortunately, another family was chosen. 

that was hard. it was hard for me, but i think it was harder on bubba. he really felt like this was the one for us. and he thought for sure that we would be chosen. the feelings were a bit rough.

i was thankful that we had plans and things to distract us afterwards.

we had a great 4 days down at my mom's and we were busy the whole time, so it was wonderful. 

but we know that we were told no for a reason. that our child is out there waiting for us. and that we will find our perfect match for us. 

it's good to know what to expect. to be able to experience the rejection and to know what to expect if we are turned down again. 

at this time, we continue to wait, pray and hope. 

our day is coming. :)