The journey home.

Attention, please, attention please...can someone please pinch me so I know this is real?

It is going to be difficult to recap what our last 48 hours have held, as we now hold the most precious baby girl in our arms. After the last failed adoption match, we told our adoption counselor that if the parents did not want to meet us to wait until the 10 days were over to tell us about our baby girl. While not knowing anything is difficult, the "10 day revocation time" was far more torturous. I found it much easier to live in peaceful naivety.

To truly appreciate the full story of Evangeline's arrival, one must first know the very first things we knew about her. In January of 2010, Jonathan and I had been praying for the Lord to align our hearts on when to conceive baby #2, but we couldn't agree. There was this wild thread of adoption floating around our hearts and minds, too. We committed to praying about it, as the Lord has always been faithful to give us one vision for our family. I traveled to visit my dear friend in Waco, TX and attend a conference at her church. I spent the weekend petitioning the Lord for a vision for our family. As my friend and I drove north on I-35 at the end of the conference, I called Jonathan and said something that seemed slightly crazy. I said, "I think we are supposed to adopt a black baby girl...now." And...surprisingly (or maybe not) without hesitation he responded, "Ok!" The Lord had worked in our hearts and given us a clear vision...one that we hadn't even entertained before then.

For everything between then and now, click on my adoption thread. It's been quite a few months (years) worth of stories. Otherwise, fast forward...

In August we returned to Waco for my dear friend's wedding. I felt a little sweetness toward the small city, as it held what I felt was the conception of the daughter I still hadn't met. I had never imagined I would return without her 19 months later. We went to church on Sunday morning and I begged the Lord to clarify our vision for adoption. Had I heard Him in part and not in full? Was there anything left in our hearts we needed to surrender? The journey had been so much longer and harder than I expected. During church, the one thing that really came to mind was that the Lord hadn't said our daughter was a newborn. So, as Jonathan and I drove north on the same place on I-35, I threw another crazy question at him, "So what do you think about calling the adoption counselor and telling her we are open to an older baby, too?" My amazing husband replied, "Well of course. The only reason we said newborn was because we wanted Josiah to be the oldest and he was two when we started this process." Rather than wait until we got home to call her, I decided to pick up the phone right then and leave her a voicemail at work. The message went something like, "Hey, I know this sounds crazy and a little out of nowhere, but we wanted to let you know we are open to an older baby if you have one come up. We know it is crazy rare, but we remembered one story about an older baby being placed, so we just wanted to throw that out there."

She got my message on a Monday morning. On Wednesday morning, she got a call about our daughter.

We were in peaceful naivety until this Monday morning when at 11am we got the call that there was a 7 month old baby girl for us. By 1:30pm we were meeting her. We walked in and she held her arms out very readily to us. I think after about 10 minutes we were looking at each other and saying, "I mean, is there anything really to decide?" We were required to wait until the next day to take her home. We spent an hour and a half passing her back and forth and gathering as much information as we could about her schedule (which wasn't much). We left, got the car washed, pulled the infant car seat out of the box, and adjusted our car to accommodate two sweetnesses in the back seat. I rushed around the house, pulling out things I expected to have plenty of time to sort through such as baby toys, bibs, and clothes for an older baby.

Then, at 7pm, I went to work because that's what someone crazy like me does. I wanted to finish the race strong at work before going on leave, which I did...for the most part. I ended up sending myself home at 5am for a few hours of sleep under the strong encouragement of my coworkers, who knew it was then or, well, not at all. I slept for 3 hours then I got up, showered, packed our diaper bag and pulled out piles of baby stuff into every corner of our previously clean house. Let the chaos commence.

Prior to picking her up we went to Babiesrus for a baby dowry. At least that's what if felt like when we walked out with size 3 diapers, formula, and baby food. Then, we waited on her to arrive at the agency office. She finally arrived, and she and Josiah met for the first time. He was a man of few words and lots of smiles. Then he announced, "Mom, it's my turn to hold the baby." We sat him in a chair and put her in his lap. He threw his arms around her tummy, grinning ear to ear. Then, she put her head back on his shoulder like she has known him all along.

We put her in a special outfit to travel home, took lots of pictures, and eventually walked out to start our new life, puzzled that these people were actually letting us leave with this cute baby. We commenced a day of surprising people with our new addition, all the while wondering if it was a dream. It still feels too good to be true!

I will type more later on how sweet tempered our new baby girl is, but what started as Mommy rising before the babes has turned into two sweet children ready for breakfast!