Good News For My Friend Erin

My friend Erin picked up her daughter, Emma, at Dulles Airport this past Friday. She got the phone call on Tuesday to be there three days later! Gulp! As we have decided to have our child escorted to us, we'll get the very same phone call. Margie says that they "try" to give us 5 days' notice. In Erin's case, she and her family had 3 days' notice! Wow! Days later, Erin reported that it feels like Emma has been with them from the very beginning, and Emma is doing very well! She is sharing pictures and stories, and it's so good for those us still waiting to hear the stories and see the photos and know that this is real...it's really going to happen to us! Interesting twist: Although Catholic Charities tells us that once we accept the referral, we are united with our child 4-5 months later, in Erin's case, they got the referral on Dec. 3 and were united with their child just six weeks later, on January 16. Interesting. Not sure if this was an anomaly or if it means that timelines are getting shorter between acceptance of referral and "gotcha day" (that's an adoption term that means the day you are united with your child--in an adoptive family, gotcha day is celebrated as much as a birthday is, because of its deep meaning). As much as I want to believe that the timelines are getting shorter, I suspect that this was just a situational quirk where Emma's escort happened to want to travel very shortly after Erin and her husband accepted the referral. I really do think that Catholic Charities' estimate of 4-5 months is more on the mark than 6 weeks. But anyway, it just shows that this process always contains the element of surprise. We'll see what our "surprise" will be. I pray every night that our referral will come soon, and that we will soon have a photo of our child to share with everyone! I've posted twice today, so I'm done for a while. Enjoy the rest of your January, and stay warm: It's cold here in Maryland!