Still In Shock...

I am not sure that I realized how fast you could fall in love with someone you haven't even met...until I laid eyes on my son (oh my word...still so crazy to say "son!").  The past several days of our life have been the best celebration days I think we have ever experienced.  Nate and I can't talk about our little one without grinning, literally, ear to ear.  Every morning I wake up, I can see his little brown eyes and his huge smile, and I think to myself, "We may be the most blessed people in the world!"  To make this whole thing even sweeter, the WORLD is celebrating with us.  Our Facebook has been blown up, people have texted, called, hugged us, cried with us, rejoiced with us, and it has seriously been everything we could have asked for.

This past weekend was amazing.  Friday morning, we spent some time talking with a Dr. from Hopkins who reviewed Little B's medical records.  She couldn't believe how healthy he was, other than the fact that he is really little.  She told us he is gaining weight though, and that is awesome.  She also said she couldn't believe how many pictures they sent us.  Usually, they send a few.  For us, we practically got a baby book of pictures!  Nate printed ALL of them off, and we just keep staring at them:)  When we got off the phone with the doctor, we quickly called our social worker and told her, "WE ACCEPT THE REFERRAL!!!"  I am sure she was thinking in her head, "How could you not?  Have you seen this child???"  He is seriously cute...and yes, I will continue to say that for the rest of my life!

Then came the fun part, telling our friends and family.  Several of our family members knew already and let's be honest, they drove us crazy on Friday.  "Can we tell someone yet?  Can we tell just one friend?  Who have you told?  How long do we have to keep this secret?"  They were nuts, but we loved every moment of it.  I had decided that I really wanted to tell Jenny, one of my best friends in the world, who I went to college and seminary with, who has cried with me throughout this journey, who has prayed non-stop with me, AND, who is pregnant with a baby boy that is due in a couple of weeks.  Pause in the story...ONE OF MY BEST FRIENDS AND I ARE GOING TO HAVE BABY BOYS ONLY 4 MONTHS APART!!!  Seriously, what are the chances?  Only God could do that.

We called Jenny and her husband Brian and told them we were coming down their way (they live 45 minutes from us) to go shopping near their house and wanted to drop something off to them.  When we got there, Brian immediately said, "So where exactly are you going shopping?  I can't believe you guys come down this way to shop.  That is crazy.  Have you already shopped or are you going now?"  Well, I made something up...don't really remember that part...and then said, "Oh yeah, Jenny, I have to show you this video I found." I pulled out my phone and began to show her a video of our little one.  "Whose baby is that, " she asked.  I looked out her and said, "That's ours!!!!"  Well, in those moments, I thought Jenny might actually have her baby right there!  She started crying, hugging, looking at the video, hugging more, crying more, looking at the video more.  It was the best.  That's when I told her that he was 4 months old and that our boys were going to be besties!  Pause again...sorry for all the exclamation points in these blogs, but I can't help myself, I am excited!  Well, Jenny and Brian took us to dinner to celebrate and I presented her with a little bag with two pairs of PJ's...one for her boy and one for ours, so that soon we could have a sleepover (wow...even as I am writing that is bringing tears to my eyes).

We spent the rest of the weekend traveling to some of our closest friends homes and sharing the awesome news.  We showed the video so many times and it still blows my mind every time we see it.  Sunday, we got to continue the celebration with our church family.  At the end of each service, our Pastor asked everyone to be seated and said we had a bit of an Easter surprise.  He invited Nate and I to come up to the front, and you could just watch people's eyes have anticipation in them.  Nate said, "You know, they say a picture is worth a thousand words, but a video...that's so much better!"  Behind us on the big screen was our little guy and in front of us was a group of people who had prayed for this boy, cried with us, encouraged us, and loved on us during a journey that at times was more than painful.  Let's just say there weren't many dry eyes on Sunday.  My parents church was the same exact way!  At the news (which hopefully my mom will guest blog about sometime), the church stood on their feet and cheered and clapped.  One of our biggest prayer warriors, a friend who has two children from Kenya, apparently ran out in the aisle, picked my mom up and swung her around congratulating her.  I am sure at this point my Dad was crying...again!  Ahh...I love our family!!!

The comments, congratulations, and celebratory words we have been given in the past 5 days have completely blown us away.  Teenagers in our youth group have wrote some of the kindest words we could have read.  Friends from college, family members, church family, girls I have coached in volleyball, friends from Seminary and former jobs, and people we don't even know have celebrated with us.  God has been so good.

Yesterday, I met someone on Facebook who was at our son's orphanage this past January.  She said he was the cutest thing in the world.  Yup...you guessed it...I cried again.  It is a very small world and again, God is so good.  I share all that to say, THANK YOU, thank you from the bottom of our hearts for continuing to celebrate, but most of all, for sticking with us throughout this journey.  God is beyond good, his plans always prevail, and His story is so much better than the one we could have written for ourselves.

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