From now on we will get to celebrate "Family Day" every year on April 4!  We started out the day like every other day for the last two weeks - waking up around 7:30 and heading downstairs for breakfast. We then spent an hour or so back up in the apartment playing before heading up to the roof to play outside with bubbles.  As we were coming down from the roof, we met our hardworking lawyer Marta and her son, who is also our driver, translator, tour guide, and so much more (thanks Ricardo!) who had frantically come to look for us because our signing, which was originally scheduled for 3:00 and then rescheduled for 2:00, had apparently now been moved to 11:00.  Now, that was fine except for the fact that it was 11:12 and none of us were dressed for the day.  In fact, one of us was still in pajamas!  We raced back to the apartment and in 12.35 minutes, all three of us were dressed to impress.  When we arrived to DINAF, we dropped Noah off at the play area, and Ricardo stayed with him. Then, we went into a room with six other participants/observers, where the notary read the entire 10 legal-sized page document of the official adoption decree aloud. We didn't understand much, but we heard our names and Noah's name several times and felt very grateful that this was the moment that we would be officially recognized as a family of three.  We proceeded to sign off and place our fingerprints on the document and in just under an hour, we were returning to the play area to be reunited with Noah. Ricardo said he cried a lot and Called for Mama and Daddy - that was the first time we had been apart in two weeks.  Noah was so glad to see us, which totally warmed our hearts 😍.  Next, we were on our way as three Hatches!

Now...although we had the official signing today, we still have a long way to go before we can come home. The official papers from today will be turned in to the courts tomorrow. Then, there is a mandatory law that requires a 10-business day waiting period (but in Honduras, the country pretty much shuts down from work for Semana Santa, which is their celebration of Easter during the week leading up to Easter; so we will now have a 15-business day waiting period because of this) before we are able to obtain Noah's new birth certificate which has his new name and our names as his parents.  Because of this, we are expecting the get his new birth certificate on April 25, so lots more waiting. Once we have his new birth certificate, we will be dealing with the  immigration department here and the US embassy for passports and visas. We anticipate that those aspects will take around two weeks. It appears that we won't be coming home for around five more weeks. It's really hard to let this part sink in, but as some special people reminded us recently: God's has had His hand on this adoption since the beginning and He's got this too. "For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may received what was promised."  - Hebrews 10:36

The waiting has always been and will continue to be hard, but what an incredible thing God is doing in our hearts and lives!  We greatly appreciate each and every prayer to our good Father in heaven on our behalf. They're being answered!

Thanks to everyone for sharing in our exciting day through all of your encouraging and kind comments on our post and pictures today!!