As I was beginning to write this last addition to my travel blog, it dawned on me what day it is. It is May 5, 2011. That may not be a day of significance for many of you (unless you are Mexican!) but for me, it is very much so. Four years ago on this day, Brian finally decided that we should try to have more children. For almost 2 years prior to that, I had been desperately praying that I would hear those words. But even as the decision of that day sunk in, I never imagined that our future would unfold the way it did. I didn't expect that it would take four long years to welcome more children into our family, and I didn't think it would be by adoption that our family would grow (even though that was my heart's original desire). God sure surprised us in a BIG way!
So what a perfect day it is to talk about April 21, 2011: our boys' "Gotcha Day"! As you may or may not know, that name is frequently used in adoption circles to indicate the day that children are legally adopted. It was two weeks ago today, which seems amazing to me. Time is moving quickly, yet not quickly enough since we want to bring Milkanu and Tadesse home. So, we and the four other families in our group went to the courthouse at 9am Thursday morning. We had been warned that we may wait around all day, in a very crowded, warm room, with possibly no place to sit, until it was our turn in front of the judge. But we were very fortunate to be called into the judge's chambers at just before 11 a.m. She called us in as a group and asked us about six or seven questions (which we all answered as a group "yes" on every one of them). We had heard that with all the delays and changes going on right now with Ethiopian adoptions, some families don't get approved on that day of court because all the paperwork wasn't in on time (but they almost always pass court a few days later). This fear was hanging over all of us as we waited for her to call our names. I remember she said something like, "Milkanu and Tadesse... It's approved" (or something else short like that--it's all a blur now!). We were so elated and so relieved that all went so smoothly. As we listened with held breaths, she went through each family, and thankfully, everyone passed court! We all beamed at each other and tried to remain composed before the judge, but we discussed later that we all felt like jumping up and clapping. It's hard to keep it together when the judge announces news so incredible and profoundly life changing! Once outside of her chamber doors, we hugged and cried together. It was an incredible day I will never forget.
So, here I sit trying to wrap my mind around all of it. It has been sinking in more and more, but I know I won't really "get it" until they've been home with us for a few days. It's hard to believe that I will be experiencing my first Mother's Day as a mother of four, not two. That leads me to another very special May 5, two years ago. (I blogged about it on May 16, 2009.) It was a couple days before Mother's Day, just like it is now. It had been two years since Brian had had the vasectomy reversal, and two years of infertility. I had just found out that once again I was not pregnant, and I had desperately cried out to God wondering why this was happening to us. My kids didn't know about the negative pregnancy test or how upset I had been just moments before, when they came into my bedroom to give me the Mother's Day gifts they had chosen for me. They were leaving town for a soccer tournament, so they were giving the gifts to me early. Taylor gave me a bracelet she had picked out which had the words "Faith" engraved in it, and Preston gave me a Willow Tree angel which said "Angel of Miracles". I knew immediately that God had used my children to send to me a message of hope. He wanted me to hold onto my faith and believe that a miracle was truly coming. Here I sit, two years later, seeing the fulfillment of that miracle in our two wonderful Ethiopian gifts from God. Praise the Lord!
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