The best Christmas present ever

On Christmas Eve, I was spending a quiet night at home wrapping presents and keeping up with the postings on the very active Yahoo group for my fellow and sister adoptive parents with the wonderful and charismatic Shimeliss and the Hope Adoption Agency. Thinking that I would not receive a referral until my dossier was done, and with the last piece of my dossier still in limbo at the PA secretary of state department, I read the messages from others who already had referrals and were hoping for court dates, travel dates, or any other news. I longed for the day that I would receive my own referral and I checked my email devoutly. On this particular night, with the elusive referral on my mind, I decided to write a quick note to Grace at the agency to clarify my age request. (She had previously listed me as waiting for an infant girl; I was hoping to bring home a slightly older child, around a year old.) So I started typing a message to Grace, when lo and behold, my email notification went off behind my email I was drafting. I had just received a new email from Grace, asking if I'd consider a referral for a child 9-10 months old at referral! Why of course I would! And funny you should ask right now! O holy night! I spent the rest of the night on the phone with my close friends and family, giggling like a school girl looking at her pictures. What a special holiday -- my first Christmas with my future daughter.