Three years ago today, I received a phone call from our adoption agency director, Lymaris. We had begun this process 2 months (to the day) before, and had another month before all our paperwork would be complete.
She told me that they had just received a little 17 month-old girl who was malnourished, but seemed otherwise healthy. She knew that we had "requested" a girl between the ages of 12 and 24 months on our application and thought we might be interested in her.
Well, needless to say, I was excited! My heart was pounding and my mind was racing. We hadn't expected to get a child referral until after all our paperwork was completed. This phone call caught me off guard for sure!
Lymaris went on to tell me that she had photos of this child and would be happy to email them to me right away. I of course, told her to go right ahead! She asked me to take a look and contact her later to let her know what we think.
After I hung up the phone, heart still pounding and mind still racing, I called Bryan at work and told him of the very interesting call I'd just had. I told him that I would be receiving photos via email at any second and asked him if I should wait to look at them until he got home..... several hours from then, or would he mind if I looked without him. He said to go ahead, but that he didn't want me to forward them to him at work, he wanted to see them at home.
So now, alone in front of my computer, (Emily was off playing), I click to receive any new emails. There. It. Is. The subject line read, "fotos de nena nueva", (new baby photos). I hesitated to click to open the email. I knew that the moment I opened it and saw the pictures, I would be looking at the face of my child. This wasn't going to be me browsing through photos of some little girl in Guatemala, shopping for a daughter, no. I knew THIS little girl was going to be OUR daughter. Pretty big stuff.
Well, after a few minutes, I took a deep breath and clicked. There were 7 attached photos. This is the first image I saw of my little girl.
So tiny, so sad. Those red shoes. I opened the rest of the pictures, and yes, there were tears! Tears of happiness to see her face, but also tears of sadness to see her face. I didn't know her story, but I could see, by looking at that precious face, she had been through so much already in her young life. 
The photos were date stamped. They had been taken just the evening before.When Bryan got home that night, he sat in front of the computer, clicked open the email and saw our daughter for the first time. More tears, but more importantly, an immediate mutual knowledge that yes, she was meant to be ours. There was no hesitation what-so-ever. Whatever we needed to do to bring her home, that's what we'd do.
Fast forward 3 years and 3 years worth of "Whatever we need to do to bring her home". We remain fully committed to this child. Our child. She is SO worth it.
Just look at that face.
