Every Monday our amazing agency coordinator sends all the Haiti families an update. Sometimes it's International news, or new paper work requirements, or upcoming adoption webinars, and every now and then it's news that someone is going to get their kids soon. Well, as it always does, Monday came around, and I was feeling particularly cynical towards the waiting period we are in. We are waiting for our referral- a picture and some information of the child we have been matched with by our agency. When Brent came home from work he asked, "Hey! Did you read the update?" To which I replied, "No. It's nothing...it's always nothing...nothings moving...blah." He thinks I should read it, and I comply.
As I scan through the paragraph headings I see, "Waiting Children...we have 6 profiles for children in Haiti...and just added twins- ages 7 1/2." From that very moment I was gripped. Then, I panicked, thinking, "Oh no! I should've read the email earlier...what if I waited too late?" I immediately began to pursue them. I requested the password to view the children, but it wasn't working. I was dying to see them. That night was our eldest son's championship baseball game and I left my phone at home so I wouldn't be obsessing about the password coming in. But the whole time I was talking with the Lord in my mind. "Lord, are these our children? Could these be our children?? Could they be a girl AND a boy???" I would head to the stands when he was up to bat and then was off again pacing and praying. We came home, and no password. It was very late at this point and early morning on the East coast but I emailed our agency coordinator to request the password and waited up just in case she might see it at 2:00 am and send it to me. Ha!
I finally went to bed and woke up early the next morning to a whisper, "Hey babe, Michelle sent the password". I flailed over the bed grasping for my laptop with one eye half open, slurping the drool from the corner of my mouth and half asleep rasping out, "Quick! What is it? What is the password?" (I had my husband proofread to make sure I wasn't over-exaggerating. He laughs and starts flailing his arms around making unintelligible noises. Yep, that's how he remembers it too.) I'm sitting up now, eyes almost fully open and as I type in the password I'm already starting to cry a little bit. I scroll through pictures of many dear, precious faces and then I see a boy. I begin to sob and sob. I click the button to "learn more" and he is a twin. I can not find the other picture, so flailing mode again I cry, "The phone! Please give me my phone! I need to call the office". At this point, Brent is excited in his heart too, but all he is doing is anchoring down for me. We both know there is NOTHING at all that makes these kids ours. I have not even seen a picture of the second child, and he sees the mama bear in me and he knows my heart is already gone. It did feel a little out of body, and I can remember sort of seeing myself and saying, 'Fool! You need to calm down!' But I couldn't. The urgency really felt so strong. I call the agency and they help me find the info, and lo and behold- A boy and a girl! Through tears I say, "We want them! We are more than interested in pursuing them. We absolutely want them." I still had not seen the picture of the girl. Right after the phone call, the info came. I saw them both and I was in awe of them. I sent out two more emails and left another phone message making it very clear that we wanted them. And long story short we waited for what seemed like forever to hear a clear word back.
And here is the game changer. We were no longer waiting for a match to be sent to us. We were now on this uncertain path, pursuing two specific children. We wanted them. We didn't know the process for waiting children. We didn't know how many other families were possibly just as interested as we were. We did know it was probably more complicated than we thought. I knew we just had to wait and I knew that if these children were ours that there was nothing that could stand in the way, and if they weren't, then no amount of prying and pushing or pleading could make them ours. It was really only 3 days waiting, but I needed those three days to surrender and commit my heart to trust. Finally we received the call that the twins were ours!!! And again, with the tears! Our hearts were overwhelmed and now my sweet, strong-for-me hubby was fully rejoicing too! So we continue now to wait and pray. Please join us in sharing in our joy and praying that our children can be home with us soon!
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