If You Want to Hear God Laugh… Tell Him Your Plans (Part I)

Sorry it has been so long since we have updated the blog. We’ve been extremely busy lately… with our new baby Jayden!!!! I can’t believe I’m typing this, and I sure can’t believe it’s been two weeks since he was born and I kept it quiet for this long. In Georgia the birth parents have ten days to change their mind about the adoption, so we tried to keep it as quiet as possible… until now… the ten days are up!!! Thank you God for our precious son!
Now that I got that out, I want to share our story in detail, but it is probably going to take a few posts, so here I go…

… two Wednesday mornings ago I was working in a board room at a bank in Atlanta, Georgia when I got a phone call from my friend Julie. I used to work for Julie at a wallpaper store when I was in high school. When I was 17 and she was in her mid twenty’s she was someone I really looked up to and respected. She taught me a lot about self respect and self confidence, she helped me mentally prepare for college, and she even used to send me packages in the mail my freshman year of college with all sorts of little goodies. We’ve kept in touch over the last few years with a few phone calls, lunches, and events. Julie and Joel’s first, biological daughter was born with cystic fibrosis (you can read Elena's blog here or Julie's blog here to learn more about their story), but as a result has adopted two children since. When Julie saw my blog and found out Jason and I were trying to adopt we began emailing and talking again; and again she acted as a mentor in giving me advice about her experience with adoption. Anyways, at 8:30 on Wednesday morning she called me and told me about a little boy who had been born the night before; she said the birth mom wanted to give him up for adoption and Julie was asking me if we would be interested. Just three days before Julie had found out she is pregnant which is why they couldn’t adopt him (God’s timing is so amazing… just three days before she would have adopted him). She said the birth mom just specified she wanted a young, educated, outdoorsy couple to adopt her baby. I immediately started shaking like a leaf and my heart was about to come out of my chest. All I could say was, “Can I call Jason and talk to him?” When I called Jason I was so nervous and excited all I told him was that there was a baby born and Julie wanted to know if we were interested in adopting it (he later messaged me asking if it was a boy or a girl… oops forgot to tell him it was a boy!) He wanted to call our pastor and then he said he would call me back. Our pastor didn’t answer, so Jason called me back and all I heard through his very “manly” tears was, “My gut’s just telling me we should do it.” I called Julie back and told her we were interested in adopting and she very excitedly gave me the number to the hospital. I talked to a nurse who just got my name, phone number, and a few facts about us and said she would call me back. In what seemed like a century, but was really only a few hours I got a call. I answered the phone thinking it was the nurse, but it was the birth mom’s dad. He just wanted to talk to me a little bit to find out some information about me and Jason and he told us a little about his daughter; they had adopted her as an infant from Columbia, which was why she was so comfortable with giving her baby up for adoption. After talking to him for a few minutes he said he had a few more families to talk to and that he would let me know something by early afternoon. So, I tried as hard as I could to start working again, but my mind was definitely not where it needed to be as far as work was concerned, but I knew I needed to keep working to help time go by faster (although it didn’t really help). I called Jason to fill him in about my conversation with the birth grandfather, and Jason had already left work, came home, packed, and was ready to head to the hospital if he needed to :) It was less than an hour later, the birth grandfather called us back and told us that his daughter wanted us to adopt the baby!!! I was completely in shock. The whole time I was waiting I was telling myself over and over again, “don’t get your hopes up, don’t get your hopes up.” And then, all of a sudden, I could let my emotions out… I could be excited… ecstatic… I felt like I was dreaming. When I called Jason to tell him he was already outside talking to the neighbor while he waited to jump in the car and head to the attorney’s office. His mom had contacted an attorney in the same city where the hospital is located. She is a real estate attorney who does adoptions on the side as a passion. She had a huge real estate closing planned for that afternoon, and a couple of hours before Jason’s mom had contacted her about our situation, she had been pulled from the closing. She said we made her day with our story because she had been so upset about loosing the closing. God has perfect timing!!! Her whole afternoon had freed up so that she could handle our adoption! And, her office was only a couple of miles from the hospital, so she could go talk to the birth mom and handle all of the paperwork right away.

In the mean time, I had to go get my car from the hotel (I happened to drive separately to Atlanta from my coworkers because I had planned to stay in Atlanta and meet Jason to eat Ethiopian food for dinner that Friday night). Once I got back to the hotel, packed, checked out, and got my car, I had to go back to the client’s office and wrap up a few things, and then I headed to the hospital to meet my baby boy for the first time!!! Here are a few pictures from that first special meeting!!! 

Now that our ten day wait is over, it is like a huge weight has been lifted; however, this also means that we have to call our Ethiopian agency and let them know what all has taken place, so please pray for us as we call them tomorrow.  We aren't real sure what this means for our Ethiopian adoption, or if we should even continue with that adoption process.  I feel like God put Ethiopia on my heart for some reason, even if it isn't meant for us to adopt from there right now, but PLEASE be praying that we make the right decision and that God's hand is in it 100%.  I would love to continue with our Ethiopian adoption, but I don't even know if the agency will allow it.  The wait is currently long enough that the age difference between Jayden and our Ethiopian baby wouldn't be an issue; however, we are pretty sure that it is not financially possible.  Now that we have baby Jayden, I cannot travel with work anymore, and therefore am only going to be working part time when needed.  As much as my heart hurts to think about not continuing with our Ethiopian adoption, I have a peace knowing that if it wasn't for us pursuing that adoption, I wouldn't have started blogging, and my friend Julie would have never called me about adopting Jayden.  So whatever your plans are for our family God, help me to trust you and know that you have it all planned out from start to finish, please help me to have faith in you and be confident that you will lead us.