HERE and NOW

What a start it has been to 2016! Get ready because there is much to share and rejoice over. God continues to prove his faithfulness. God continues to work in our waiting.

 

The end of the year brought a bit of disappointment as we were hoping to be matched with a birth mom before the holidays. We just knew that having a date for a baby to join our family would be the best Christmas present. But with no news, we continued to wait and fight through our own thoughts. Waiting is so hard. But God’s timing is perfect, right? Never late, never early, but always right on time. Just before we left for Nashville on December 18 to celebrate the Holidays, we got a call from the agency about a new birth mom. At the agency’s request, from this point forward, we will refer to her by her alias, “Victoria.” We read over her profile and felt an immediate peace. We knew we wanted our family to be presented to her. She was in jail for a few weeks so the agency took our book to show her. Victoria chose to hang on to our book for a while. The agency told us that we might hear something before Christmas day because the agency wanted to present a few more families. Christmas day came and went with no news. In between Christmas and New Years, they went and visited Victoria again and she said she had narrowed it down to 2 families and we were one of them. We got the call saying we made it to the final 2 families but that she needed time to decide. We continued to pray, knowing what a huge decision this courageous birth mother was trying to make. We texted and called some of our prayer warriors and asked them to pray. This is a hard thing to pray for. Let’s face it…we wanted to be chosen. You feel as if you are competing against another family and you don’t even know who your competition is. Haha! We knew we desired a baby and wanted to be matched so getting chosen would be great however we wanted what God wanted. We knew and prayed that if that baby was supposed to be a Daniel then she would pick us. But if that baby was not supposed to be in our family then she would pick the other family. We prayed this prayer over and over. Many of you joined us praying this. We waited. And waited some more. They told us we would know first week of January.

Side note: We choose a word and verse every year as a family to start off our new year. (see this blog post for details HERE ) This year as we made the drive back to Ft. Walton Beach from TN we discussed what our word and verse would be. Fenley said HERE and NOW. We liked that. We discussed what that means. We talked about how to be present and intentional in the wherever we are and whatever God has for us in that exact moment. We want to soak up our time here, living in Florida but also take the time to enjoy our visits to Tennessee. We desire to soak up today and not worry about tomorrow…to put away our cell phones more… to watch less TV… be more hospitable… to enjoy our family of three… to be excited about a growing family but enjoy who we are now.  Ultimately, we want to be in the HERE and NOW in life. We want God to work in the HERE and NOW. We thought that 1 Thess. 5:16-18 went well with this, “Rejoice always. Pray without stopping. Give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” We started putting this into practice and training ourselves -- Giving thanks in ALL things & trusting God’s timing with growing our family by showing extreme gratitude for what He is already doing! As we started making these words take root, we had no idea that God really had something in the HERE and NOW waiting just around the corner.

The first week of January comes and the agency calls and says that Victoria has requested one more week to make her decision. She had gotten out of jail and was starting fresh and needed some time to really think this over. As much as we wanted her to DECIDE already, we knew that we trusted her. We felt a certain peace wash over us because we knew that God was speaking to her and she wasn’t choosing quickly. She was really thinking this over…I mean it is a big decision! She is choosing the family that will raise the life she is carrying. HUGE decision. Sometimes we take days to decide things like “what will we do for our date night this weekend”.

On Friday night, January 8, we were headed to some friends house to play games. Just before we left we discussed how long this process was taking. We were growing weary and anxious. We trusted God, but we also were trying to discern. Was she changing her mind? Was she unsure about either family? Were we supposed to even be matched with her? We had so many questions and so many doubts started to creep in. We made our way to our friends house (to play Ticket to Ride – one of our favorites by the way and Yes, Nathan won) and in the car Becca’s phone rings. It is 7:30CST and our agency is in St. Pete so it is 8:30 there….why are they calling we think. We pick up the phone and they say, “We wanted you to have the good news before the weekend that Victoria has chosen YOUR family! Congratulations! She is due in MAY!” WHAT?! She chose us. We are 5 months “pregnant”. WOW. Wait, what!? Really?! So exciting! Emotions ran wild. Once again, God is never late but rarely early. His timing is perfect.

We got the match completely set on Monday, January 11 and made plans to get to St. Pete as soon as possible. We knew that God wanted to us to meet Victoria as soon to affirm her decision and love on her. We left this past Thursday night and had our appointment to meet her and one of the social workers at Applebee’s (per Victoria’s request) on Friday, January 15. We were extremely nervous as we drove there. Nathan was sweating and Becca thumbed through facebook to distract her mind. Our minds were racing. We wondered if we should stand when we meet her, hug her, shake her hand, what?! We prayed that the spirit would be present and we felt the many prayers of others covering us. Immediately upon meeting her, we felt a peace. She did too. She told us a few times throughout our time together that she felt at peace about us. We enjoyed lunch with some small talk about our families’ likes and dislikes. Guess what?! She loves Taco Bell. We love eating healthy most of the time, but we must admit that is one of our favs too. (go ahead and judge, but who doesn’t love fast food Mexican?) Our lunch went wonderfully. There was never an awkward period in the conversation. God was present.

Victoria shared different things about her family and herself. We wanted to forever remember these things to tell our child one day. On our way home, we wrote these things down so when our child asks about their incredible birth mother we have valuable information about Victoria and her family. This time and what she shared with us was so precious. We are still thanking God for those sweet moments.

After we got done eating, Victoria spoke sincerely from her heart. She shared with us why she has chosen adoption. She admitted that abortion had been a first thought but after realizing that there are families that are out there that can’t get pregnant and have a baby, she knew that would be a selfish desire. She wants to make a new life for herself and her 11 month old little boy and knows that the best way to do that is by giving this baby to a family that is excited to raise him/her. We assured her that we will forever speak of her with respect and honor. Becca was able to speak truth over Victoria and let her know our desire to let this baby know that it’s not by a lack of love that she is putting this baby up for adoption but an overwhelming love that is sacrificial. Our birth mother is such a sweet person, we can’t express that enough. She is beautiful. She is kind and tender hearted. She is courageous and selfless. We could not have hand-picked a better birth mother for our child.  

At one point during the Holy Spirit filled conversation, Victoria told us that she actually had wanted to place her baby with a family that did not have a child but that she could not get our family’s picture out of her head. We told her that was God! He obviously wanted this baby to be in our family. It was a neat moment, one we will never forget, to realize that her desire to place her child in a family that could not have children really was happening. She did not know our infertility journey but God did. Do you see that God knows our hearts desires and loves making them come true? That is the theme of our story. He loves to answer our prayers…even in the HERE and NOW. Any time we spoke of Fenley, Victoria would smile big. She loved thinking about her being a big sister. We asked her if it would be okay to have a surprise with the gender and not find out what she is having. She said that is great with her. Yes, we know that originally God had laid on our hearts for a boy BUT we feel such a peace about our birth mother that we are great with whatever God has in store for our family. So here we are…waiting. Will we have a boy or a girl? Come mid-late May we will know! Four short months sit between us and our sweet Team D baby. Please pray for Victoria as she has a doctor visit this Thursday, January 21. We are praying health over her and the baby. We will know more about the exact due date and plan for the birth then.

What are we doing NOW? We are thanking God. We are praising His mighty name. He knew all along the perfect birth mother for us.  We adore the woman carrying our child. Victoria told us that she is already detaching from this baby and she was thrilled to know that so many were so excited for this life. She said she wanted somebody to be excited. We told her she has no idea how many are eagerly awaiting this baby to enter our life and she does not have to worry about that! This brought her great comfort.

As we start to register for baby items and decide on names for both boy and girl, we can’t help but beam with excitement and peace. God has heard our cry. He had His perfect plan waiting for us all along.

 Thank you God for hearing us. Thank you God for sending us Victoria. Please bless her. Let her know she is not alone and she is greatly loved. Thank you for never leaving us all alone. You are a good, good Father.