6 weeks of bliss...time to tell the story.

Six weeks ago this morning I got a call from our adoption director letting me know that our son was on his way into the world. So much has happened since then and in the year leading up to his birth. Here is part one of Jonny's story.

It was my birthday, a year ago on July 13th that we finished our application to adopt from China through CCAI. China you say? Yes, we started off on our journey to China. Many things happened in the following months. We felt God pull our hearts closer to home. We decided on domestic adoption close to the holidays and began our home-study. In March we finished and began waiting for a match but we were told by our agency that it would be a long wait. Of course, me being the most patient person in the world (sense sarcasm) I began to "throw out the adoption net" and expand our search for our son. We spoke with some adoption attorneys, other agencies, and even searched for available children through foster adoption. We were open to age, and ethnicity. 

Towards the end of May we got a call from one of the resources that we reached out to. The adoption director told us she had 5 profiles to show a new birthfamily, and would we like to be shown as well? I was sort of in shock that so soon we were waiting on the call to let us know if we had been chosen or not. It was a busy time, I had just finished with my full time semester and the kids were still in school. I told my husband and he sort of just assumed that this would not work out. Much to our surprise we got a call from her that evening letting us know that they had chosen our family! I'll never forget it. We were all outside doing yard work, Tony was raking up leaves, I was pulling weeds and the kids were playing in the sandbox. I got the call and ran to the patio. The director said "they chose you guys" and my mouth dropped open. When I got off the phone and told Tony he was in shock! He just said "help me throw these leaves into garbage bags". Haha. It took a few minutes to sink in. 

Shock, disbelief, amazement, excitement, joy, and fear about how it would all work out (financially and otherwise) were the emotions that I felt. The baby was due August 1st and we only had two months to come up with all of the funds that we would need. It was overwhelming but both my husband and I stuck to our belief that God would provide for this adoption. Stepping out in faith in this way was a huge faith step for both of us and it was no easy step. We worked hard to back up our faith with our own efforts and started applying to all sorts of grants and fundraising for adoption. 

We met the birth parents two weeks later. We loved them. They were right for us, we were right for them. Then we began the waiting. I registered for baby things. Started planning the nursery. We waited until Father's Day to tell the kids. They were so excited. 

There was never really much "drama" with this match. I kept waiting for something to go wrong. For our bubble to pop. We were wondering how we were going to come up with the funds but everything else was just falling into place beautifully and rather easily too. The waiting was peaceful. I could feel the prayers that we asked for. I knew God was working it all out. 

to be continued...