On September 26, 2011 we got “THE call,” the call which is the adoption equivalent of two pink stripes on a pee stick. “It’s a girl!” the director of our agency told me. Later in the day, after my husband came home, we poured two shots of Armenian brandy, sat down in front of my computer, and opened the files we’d been sent which contained a few photos and two video clips of a somewhat angry looking baby girl.

For most “expectant” adoptive parents, this is the definitive moment in what has been a long, arduous wait. And it was for us too, except this wasn’t the first time we’d received the call. You could almost say we were experts in this arena. This was the fourth time, over a four year period, I answered the phone to hear R.’s familiar voice excitedly say: “It’s a ….” And it was the fourth time my husband and I sat down together to anxiously look at photos of a child who lived half the world away, a child who might become our child.

There had been two boys and two girls whose photos we’d seen and whose brief history and medical condition we’d reviewed. Two of these babies we’d flown to meet in Armenia and now we were told we had an opportunity to fly and meet a third. We had a little over a week to get our plane tickets and fly to Armenia, spend a week getting to know this baby and, if all went well, register our intent to adopt her with the Ministry of Justice in Armenia.

In a few months we’d receive final approval to adopt from her country. A few months after that we’d receive approval from the U.S. Altogether, roughly six months would pass after meeting this little girl before we would get permission to travel, attend court in Armenia and become a family! If everything went as planned.

Of course we knew things didn’t always go as planned. In fact if anyone knew how many ways things could go south, it was us. We’d already experienced two referrals falling through, one in spectacular fashion only 10 days before we flew overseas to bring her home.

Yet here we were again. Within 24 hours we booked plane tickets. Nine days later we boarded a flight to Paris and three days after that flew to Yerevan, Armenia. Three more days followed before we drove—in what was one of the most memorable taxi rides we’ve ever taken—to Gyumri. And it was there the three of us, two hopeful parents and one 5-month-old baby, first set eyes on each other and began the journey that would change all our lives.

It’s all about the journey,

Beth