New Year, New Baby

I have taken my time to update this blog. Sometimes it takes a awhile after something huge happens for me to be able to sit down at write about it. Such a huge thing happened to our family the week before Christmas.
Our loan finally went through, all the papers were signed and we gave our lawyer in Arkansas the go ahead to find a match. A day or so later we got an email from him stating that we could hear from a possible match "soon". So soon is a relative term, especially in adoption. Soon could be hours, days, or months as far as we were concerned. But that same weekend, on the way to sing Christmas carols, we got a phone call from our lawyer letting us know we had a possible match and needed to set up a Skype call for the next day. So in shock, we went on our way spreading Holiday Cheer, all the while our heads were full of questions.
This adoption is much different from our first. With Isaac we knew nothing of his birth mother other than age and some family history. He was 11 months old when we were matched and our only contact was with his wonderful foster mother when we picked him up in Korea. I think often of his birth mother and pray that she knows what a precious gift she gave us, but will probably never have a face or name to go with those thoughts. When we went into our second adoption we both realized that God had been working on our hearts about domestic adoption. Our fears before about open adoption and the possibility of the birth mother changing her mind were paralyzing. But God has a way to test and grow our faith and sometimes change our hearts.
As we went about our day awaiting our Skype call, I tried to come up with things to ask the birth mother as well as questions that she might ask us. I had played it out in my head 100 times before we sat down in front of the computer that evening.
Our call started with our translator, luckily for us our birth mother speaks English which made the conversation much easier. We began with our names and over the course of an hour shared much about each other. My eyes filled with tears as she talked about the decision she was making for her baby girl. I had thought about that choice with Isaac's birth mother but never saw the pain and courage that went along with it. I felt a connection right away, like our hearts were mended together and the questions I had before didn't matter so much anymore.  The money it didn't matter, the worries of what may happen didn't really matter much either. In that moment Travis and I realized that this was so much bigger than us, than our adoption. It was about sharing God's love with all of these people. It is about praying for our lawyer who is trying to do whats best for the Marshallese people he loves with little to no help. It's about understanding God's love for our lives in a way greater than we ever knew before.
 For many of you, none of this makes sense, the risk are too great. I agree the risk are huge for us and many nights I lie awake thinking of those risk. What if she changes her mind before the birth or worse after, what if she comes back later and decides she wants her baby girl back. What if we don't have the money we need to take care of this child, what if we have to stay in Arkansas for over 2 weeks with our baby girl before we can get a court date, what if it's more like 6 weeks like others have had to wait. What if she is not healthy, what if there are more medical complications with have to pay for, but what if we go to get our baby girl and she is beautiful and healthy. What if we bring her home in a short amount of time and see that she is a perfect fit for our family, what if our relationship grows with her birth mother and she grows to understand God's love in a greater way. What if God's in control of every single detail of this whole thing, and He has called us to follow him completely. If that's the case, and we believe that it is, none of the "what ifs " really matter. We just have to trust him.
So that night as we talked for over an hour with the mother of our baby girl and we committed ourselves to each other. The next day we signed a contract and sent a check to make sure that her needs and the needs of our child will be taken care of. And somewhere around March 11 our precious baby girl will be born!
Right now we are preparing our hearts and home for the addition. I have been going through baby clothes and baby items to find out what we still need. I will post about some needs that we may have at a later date. I have sent a list of questions to our lawyer about everything under the sun and we are waiting for a reply. And as the calender gets ready to flip to another year we anticipate what God is going to do in our lives. It may not work out just perfect but I know He is in control and we are good with that. Please pray that when the doubts creep in and the questions linger in our minds that we put our trust in God alone. Thank you for the support you have already shown us, in prayer and financially. This time the wait is much shorter March is right around the corner!