Some birthdays are just memorable. Like my 8th birthday when my sleepover party had to be postponed as Hurricane Hugo ripped through SC. Or the time my friends, sisters, and I recorded an Oscar winning performance of Cinderella on my grandparents' huge camcorder for my 10th birthday. I will always remember all the butterflies on my 21st, when I'd just started dating Matt and he took me to a George Strait concert. And then my next birthday was memorable in a bad way, as we had just gotten married, moved to a new town. I couldn't find a job and was really lonely sitting at home while trying to adjust to being a new army wife. Oh the memories! Anyway, this year's birthday will always go down as one special day.
I took the kids to school and went for a run with Raven. I was just praying and thanking God for all the ways he has worked in my life and how in all the big moments, he has been there showing me that he is real by giving me a sense of his presence as things line up in unexpected ways. I also prayed again about my concern that we would have trouble finding a little girl to match with whose special needs we felt comfortable about taking on. What if Matt and I couldn't agree? What if we felt too afraid and had to keep bypassing the children whose files were sent our way? I felt a reminder again that God's got this and I went on with my day, which thankfully included a fun shopping outing with birthday money and a wonderful friend. :)
While browsing at the outlets, I got a text from my friend Lisa, as in the one who is directing our adoption. I knew it was her without looking because I give everyone that usually texts me a distinct ring tone so when I'm driving or busy I can know who's on there. Lisa's text tone is one that sounds like someone's about to make an exciting announcement because hey- she might have super important news! (Or she might be texting about a movie we want to see, but that's fun too.) This time it was a request to call her so I was very curious as to what it might be about. Sometimes I've gotten bad news calls from our agency about something with our papers, so that crossed my mind. We weren't logged in yet so did not think it was about a match.
Lisa shared with me that she had a file she wanted to send if we were interested, but that she would explain the special need and we could say whether we wanted to see. The little girl was 14 months old with a heart condition called tetralogy of fallot and was actually on the special focus list that we could be matched with at any time (as opposed to waiting to be logged in for the most minor needs children). But Lisa thought that her situation didn't seem to scary and we might want to consider. I told her yes and she sent her info and pictures and a video right away, which I looked at right away in the store with my friend and pretty much fell in love with this sweet girl right then, though tried to be cautious, as I had the feeling Matt might not feel comfortable, since she will need another surgery later on and we are nervous about affording extensive healthcare costs.
I sent everything to Matt, who was at work, and had to wait until later that afternoon to hear his opinion. I was just kind of shocked to get a possible match so soon. I didn't think we'd get any files for another month or so. Finally Matt got home and looked at the info while I held my breath in the other room. He then came and found me and announced that he thought "this little girl looks pretty good." What?! I was pretty surprised at his reaction, as this whole adopting thing itself took a lot for him to get on board with. We looked at the files again together and decided we should talk to any doctors we could find to try to make sure we understood her condition. We also submitted some questions to be sent to her caregivers. We were able to talk to two doctors the next day, both of which echoed Matt's feeling that she'd have a good quality of life and just need one or two procedures that would not be a huge deal.
I talked to Lisa again, who told me that 1) She could not believe she unknowingly sent me a referral on my birthday (she knew it was coming up but we were celebrating weeks later and wasn't paying attention to the date) and 2) She had responsibly shown this little girl's file to families waiting in front of us, though she really had felt compelled to show us the whole time and just had to wait for the other families to say no. This info made Matt and I both feel even more convinced that God was at work in bringing this little girl to us.
We waited a week to hear back from the foster home...a week in which I looked at the pictures in the file often, sometimes multiple times an hour, and some nights couldn't sleep because I just wanted to think about her. I knew she was in a very nice foster home, where orphans who need surgery are sometimes sent to be cared for, so I looked up their page on facebook and found what I was almost positive were pictures of the little girl when she had her surgery. I checked my emailed a thousand times, hoping for news.
Finally we heard back with some videos and answers to questions. I poured over every frame of the video, trying to get to know this little girl, and we pondered whether we could say "Let her be ours, come what may", considering that one number we were asking for (to indicate the success of her first surgery as an infant) was not a very healthy one. We decided that yes, we want her to be ours, though having another child to care for is overwhelming and having a child with a heart condition is scary...she needs a family and we were already becoming attached. It's not the first time I've made a big and scary step forward based on looking back and remembering God's reassurance to me in times of prayer about the situation.
We are anxious to get our girl home and to figure out her health status, to really get to know her and love her and to settled into life with her. In the meantime, I will definitely be doing a lot of praying and turning over my worries over and over again to the only one that is over all things. I am so thankful to him for the gift of this child.
And now, if you're still with me, you know the long and the short (or maybe just the long) of our matching story.
PICS FROM FILE
PIC FROM UPDATE WE ASKED FOR
PIC FROM SCREEN SHOTS OF VIDEO UPDATE
