Saturday, November 10, 2012

Happy Adoption Day!

I Am Thankful For Adoption #10: I am thankful that one year ago today, the court recognized what God set apart from the beginning of time.  Benjamin is our son!

When we started the journey to adopt another baby, our world looked quite different.  Andrew and Annabelle were 2, I was still teaching.  My dad was still here.  We wanted our kids to be really close in age and we were grappling with how the wait of an Ethiopian adoption would effect that.  We started praying.  A few months later, my dad died.  Our whole world as we knew it came crashing down.  Andrew stopped talking, Annabelle started worrying about everything.  And that is just the kids...  We could not fathom how another adoption would work without our Pappy.  God had other plans.

So we continued to pray.  We prayed for more than 2 more years before God gave us a peace to start our process over again.

We prepared our dossier and as we did, God was changing our hearts.  We had always envisioned 5 Ethiopian babies in our family.  God stopped us in our tracks and reminded us we could trust him.  He had always been faithful before, we just needed to trust him.  So we did.  We let go of the dream of 5 Ethiopian babies and took hold of a dream that seemed much scarier.  Domestic adoption had so many risks.  What is the birth mom changed her mind?  What if, after all of this, we were left with empty arms?

So we kept praying.

As we proceeded, we had the most amazing peace.  As we had a need, God provided.  As we had doubts, God filled the worrisome place.  Four months after our first home study visit, we were meeting Benjamin.  He was just a few hours old and he grabbed our hearts so completely.  His birth mom was and is a treasure.  She made the greatest sacrifice in love so that God could have his way in all of our lives.

Nine months later, one year ago today, Benjamin became a Sanborn.  With our older kids, court was just a formality.   They were already ours in the eyes of Ethiopia, so we couldn't give them back:)  Benjamin's court hearing was different.  He was still Baby Boy P******.  After nine months of loving and bonding and caring for him, he was still not technically part of out family.

Of course I cried.  Our poor Lawyer didn't know what hit her!  I was hysterical, so was my mom.  Thank goodness Aunt Brenda was there to take pictures or we would have literally NO record of that amazing day!  Thank you to Aunt Shari, Gigi, Grandpa and Miss Erin for joining us on that special occasion!  Thank you Lord for the heap of blessing that is our son!  Your plan is always best, and for that, we are so thankful!
This is the judge with our family:)

This is our court appointed lawyer...  No, I have no idea what Annabelle is doing...

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