If I had known when I woke up on the morning of May 7, 2008, that that was my last day to sleep in or get a full night's sleep, I would have taken advantage of that. But we never know what God has in store for us. . .
At 10:30 a.m., I got a call from Courtney, our adoption case manager. She said that she had some bad news about the older boys, "Sammy" and "Alex" and that there was some paperwork and reports missing from their file and that us getting them would be delayed a few weeks more than just the original delay of getting them the first week of June. I was extremely disappointed, but I knew that God was in control of it and had so wonderfully put all this together for us, so it was okay for us to wait just a few more short weeks.
Then Courtney told me to sit down. Well, I was in the kitchen working, and I was not interested in sitting down because when someone tells you to do that, they usually have some bad news and I was thinking, "what more bad news could there be?!" I thought for sure that there was going to be yet another glitch in getting the boys placed in our home and that maybe it was something that would take more than a few weeks to handle. But I was wrong. So wrong!
Courtney told me that the boys' birth mother had just gone to the hospital two days earlier, May 5th, and had another baby. She went on to say that the birth mother was unable to keep the baby at this time and she wanted to know if we would be interested in taking the baby as a foster child at least temporarily, but in hopes that we could eventually keep him too. The only think I could say was, "Wow!" And I must have said that one too many times because Courtney asked me, "Are you alright?" She said I should talk to David and get back to her within 30 minutes because they needed to find a foster home for him now and they were going to release his profile to all the Texas placement agencies if we said no.
So, I hung up with her and started on my journey to talk to David. When I say journey, I really mean journey! I tried his cell phone, but there was no answer. It went to his voice mail. I left him a frantic message to call me as soon as possible. He didn't call after just a few minutes so I tried again. Voice mail. I texted him. Nothing. I called again. No answer. I knew he was making visits and was at that time supposed to be on a specific visit with a family who had been visiting our church who had just moved to Texas. They lived in Arlington. We had tried to visit them a couple of weeks before, but I didn't have their address or remember the name of the street. I didn't have their number. What should I do? It was nearing 30 minutes and I was desperate. I called my mother and told her what was going on and she was excited, but didn't know what to do either.
I started praying and I asked God to help me with this situation. I asked him what David would say if we were together and what we would decide. God said, "Of course, you would say yes!" So, I called Courtney back and told her that we would take the baby. I kind of expected to have him brought to our home within the next couple of weeks, but I was so wrong. Courtney told me that the baby was being released from the hospital that day, and they would bring him immediately to our house, and that he would be here in a few hours. WHAT?!
I started thinking of all the things that had to be done and I hadn't even told David yet! So I had to take care of that first. I tried his cell phone again and got no answer. I decided to get in my car and drive to Arlington to see if I could find him. I went in the general direction of where we had tried to visit them before and God must have guided me, because I was headed down a main road when I saw another street and thought, "I think this is it" before I could even see the road sign which was hidden by a tree. I got in the turn lane and started to turn onto the street and then I saw the street sign. It was the right street - I remembered the name when I saw it!
I drove down the street looking for David's truck and I found it. I sat in the car for what seemed like an hour (I think it was like 2 minutes) and waited for him to come out. I couldn't take it anymore! So I went up to the front door and rang the doorbell. They answered the door and I was basically in tears and asked to see my husband. He was inside and heard me and thought immediately that someone close to us had passed away and he started to get upset. I told him I had tried to call him and he said his phone was in his truck. I told him about the baby and he was so excited.
We left there pretty quickly and went to the adoption agency to look through their donated goods to see if we could use anything there. Then David went home and I went to Wal-Mart and had a baby shower for myself. I didn't have any clue what I needed. So I just got diapers, formula, and a couple of onsies. I thought for sure the baby would come with something. Wrong!
We got home and my mother came over and at about 3:00 p.m., the caseworker arrived with Joshua. We were so excited and didn't know what to do. We went outside and David walked out to bring the baby in. He was the first one to see him. After Joshua was inside, he was still in his car seat just sleeping away and I reached down to undo his straps and I picked him up. He was so small and precious. I think we were just beaming. The pictures we took that day have a special sparkle in our eyes (and it wasn't just tears).
What a surprise Joshua was! God is so good to us! He was about to give us two boys and we got a special surprise with a newborn baby to love and care for. God is so good!
