Adopting Little I

I've been meaning to do this for a long time. My memory is not that great (& I'm sure my love for Coke Zero is not helping that) so I feel that I have to journal things to remember them. Our story of adopting Little I follows.



Our plan was 2 kids. God was so good to us and we were able to have 2 chilren on our own. As soon as I had recovered from my c-section with C-Man I said I wanted another. Cowboy thought I was crazy and reminded me that our plan was to have 2 kids. I got tired of nagging him and just turned it over to God. I asked Cowboy to pray about how many children we should have. He heard from God and it wasn't the answer he wanted, but he obeyed. (I just LOVE my husband!)



We were not able to have any more kids on our own and decided that we should become foster parents in hopes to adopt. We had friends who had done this and knew there were plenty of kids out there that needed homes. We made the first phone call in August of 2005 to get information about becoming foster parents. We finished our foster parent classes in December of 2005. We were SO ready to have another baby by this point, but we still had more red tape to go through.



In January of 2006 God gave me a dream. God has never before or since given me a dream or vision. In this dream I was on a playground at an orphanage looking for my child. I found him. He was a beautiful 5-year old boy with brown skin and big brown eyes. I woke up from the dream and told Cowboy what our boy was supposed to look like. Even though I knew we were supposed to get a baby, not a 5-year old, I knew God had shown me our child.



We finally received a phone call on March 29, 2006 to ask us if we'd take 2 little boys. Because of some extra responsibilities I had at the time, I had to say "no" to 2. I asked the worker if she had any brown-skin boys under 1. She told me she had some. The stress set in. How would we decide which boy to accept? I called Cowboy, who was in the car with Miss B and C-Man. We said a quick prayer and knew we were to take Little I.

We picked up Little I the next afternoon. He was SO tiny and had the hugest brown eyes. He was a malnourished 9 1/2 month old baby with Don King hair. In those first weeks I told him numerous times, "We'll always feed you when you're hungry."

Many details and 2 1/2 years later he is officially OURS!!! We can't imagine life without him. He brings us great joy everyday with phrases like, "Knock your cheese off!" and "Hey, Bobby!"

God is SO good!

Ebony or Ivory?

If I choose ivory this time, does it mean I'll never get another ebony?...

I have been teary today and I don't know why. I think I'm getting a bit overwhelmed at thoughts of the past week and a half. We were able to finalize adoption on our sweet Little I on October 31st. This has been such a long wait for our family. After the adoption, the Judge looked at me and said, "You know there's more where that one came from." I told him we were ready for more.

Now it looks like we could have another placement, but it's not the placement we thought we wanted next. We had in our minds that we needed another brown-skin boy so that Little I wouldn't feel like an outsider within his own family. When I write this down it seems so silly to me. I think about God's adoption of me. He didn't seem to care that I am completely different from every other child of His. He didn't make sure I was a certain race, gender, or age. So why is it so hard for me & Cowboy to make this decision? At church today God seemed to be telling me in a variety of ways that we should say yes to this placement. However, Cowboy doesn't agree. Because I love God and trust him to give Cowboy the answers for our family, I'm waiting.

By the way, it took Cowboy quite a while to decide we needed a 3rd child. Then, when it wasn't possible to have a third biologically, it took even longer for him to decide that we should pursue adoption. I'll just wait on him to hear from God or I'll trust God to change my heart on this matter.