CLEARED!

Oh, what a twenty four hours we have had! I am COMPLETELY wiped out. And I am getting on a plane in less than 48 hours. Let me back up.

I told you that we received notice from our case manager that our adoption was being filed with the U.S. Embassy on Wednesday. Well, Ethiopia is 8 hours ahead of us, so that meant that we would very likely be receiving our clearance notification sometime during the wee hours of Thursday morning. Based on the experiences of adoptive friends of mine, I was expecting to hear something between one and five this morning.

Sooooooo, needless to say, I was not anticipating a night of blissful sleep when I laid my weary head on my pillow last night. Sure enough, I was wide awake until two this morning. I read for a while, counted my breaths for a while (made it all the way into the 600s once!), tossed back and forth for awhile and checked my email approximately every three minutes.

Nothing.

Sometime after 2, I drifted off and then snapped awake at 3. Checked my email.

Nothing.

Dozed on and off till 5, checking my email every few minutes. When 5 rolled around, I was too awake to even think about falling back asleep.

Still nothing. So disheartened.

I will tell you this, though. During those silent hours, I prayed harder than I ever have before in my entire life. I was pleading with God to work a miracle. To PLEASE move this mountain so that our boy could be with his mom and dad on his very first birthday.

Around 5:15, I left our bedroom and went to sit on the couch, switching between chatting with another adoptive mom who was waiting on the same email and refreshing my own.

And then suddenly...

Click on that picture to make it BIG and beautiful! 

There it was. The email that we had really been waiting for all along. Our case had CLEARED. We had permission from the United States to go get our boy and bring him home. I responded right away to schedule our interview appointment. We heard back quickly, and... 

I leave in two days to go get my son. 

Did you catch that?

Itineraries are being finalized and bags are being packed. 

All praise and honor and glory be to God alone. He has done this great thing. 

Oh, and that sweet son of mine? He will be sitting right here with me, in this house, on his very first birthday.  

Love, 

Baylor