Oh Boy! Oh Boy!

We have an announcement to make. . .

“The Call” happened on August 8. It was the day before we left for our Colorado vacation. We would actually be heading to the airport in the middle of the night. We rescheduled our trip the week before so we could be here for Pappy’s funeral and flight pickings were slim for 6 seats together on such short notice. But our girls are easy travelers and there’d be plenty of time to make up for lost sleep once we got there. The bigger challenge would be getting everything done and being ready to go.

It was a crazy day at work. The days before a trip always seem to be. Lots of loose ends to tie up and balls to get out of my court. My first day back in the office after vacation would be the final day of the due diligence period for a shopping center acquisition—the biggest project I’ve handled yet at my new job. My schedule was filled with meetings, phone conferences and drafting documents. From a work perspective, the trip seemed poorly timed, but this far into the summer there wasn't really an alternative that wouldn't require the big girls to miss some school. I would be taking some work with me and would need to finalize title and survey objections and negotiate an amendment to the contract while traveling.

I escaped for a lunchtime rendezvous with D at FedEx/Kinkos. Sometime at the end of July, in the whirlwind of funeral services and wedding celebrations, we’d received an envelope from the Haitian Embassy—containing the final documents needed for our dossier! We were soooo ready to get it out of our hands and determined to send it on its way to Haiti before we left for Colorado! We spent nine months chasing papers to compile our dossier. What a relief to have it DONE! D snapped a picture to accompany the “Dossier Done” blog post I hoped to write up:

I had an extra spring in my step as I headed back to work.

At some point that afternoon, I happened to glance at my phone and noticed that I’d missed a call from Holt. I’d sent an email letting them know I was planning to ship our dossier that day and I figured they were just confirming. Once I finished whatever it was I was working on, I took a minute to listen to the voicemail. . .

Hi, C, this is MN from Holt International Children's Services. . .

I know you're leaving on vacation tomorrow so things are kind of crazy. . .

But we do have a young sibling group of two boys

I wanted to talk with you about.

Their ages are approximately two and a half

and the little brother is about three or four months old.

Anyway, if you get a chance, call me back at . . .

My hands started to shake. My head started to spin. I called D, who'd just received a similar message on his own phone. Were we really receiving a referral? Three hours after putting our dossier in the mail? No months and months of moving up a wait list? No hint that the time was near so we could buy some champagne and set up the video camera? Did he just say SIBLING GROUP???? Did he just say BROTHERS?

We conferenced M in and he told us a little bit about two special boys. HM and JM. Pictures and written reports would be following. Thankfully he sent them promptly! We had 20 minutes before my 4:00 meeting to swoon over their precious little faces (How is it that I end up with the most beautiful children?), skim the reports (These sweet boys have had incredibly hard little lives. While part of me wants to party—these little miracles will be our SONS—the other part of me wants to break down in tears.) and figure out how to pronounce their names in French (LOVE their names, by the way. Will definitely keep them and will probably call them M and J). Had we not been trying to get out of town, I’d have taken the afternoon off to soak it all in. But that wasn’t an option under the circumstances. I still had a ton of work to crank out! So I had to pull myself together, regain my composure and get on task. Talk about impossible! The temptation of those referral pictures was hard to resist! I did my best to focus on keeping focused—pausing every half hour or so for another peek at the pictures.

To protect their privacy, since they are not yet legally ours, we'll just be sharing tiny glimpses here in the blogosphere. Just believe me when I tell you, you've never seen two more handsome little boys!

Perfect little faces:


Oh, the cuteness!


This little sweatshirt is just too much:

5:30 came and I sent my last email and ran out of the office. I had an appointment with Lindsey for a wash and mountain mama hairdo (my hair will hold a style for a week in that dry air—I love it!), then I swung by Dad B’s to borrow an extra carry-on, stopped by Subway to pick up some sandwiches for dinner, and headed home to pack for me and three little girls to spend a week in the mountains. Since our house would be tented and fumigated for termites while we were away, I also had to clean out my fridge, double-bag all remaining contents, take my houseplants to a neighbor’s home, and move my entire pantry, bedding and crib mattress to my van for safe-keeping. We crashed at 11:30. My alarm clock buzzed at 2 a.m. Dad B pulled in the driveway to ride with us to the airport at 3:30. It wasn’t until our Dallas layover (fitting, it’s where D was born) that D and I finally looked at each other and asked—did that really happen? Are we really expecting two little boys?

Lots of our time in the mountains was spent gazing at those pictures. Reading and re-reading the reports. Discussing whether we should add on to our 3 bedroom house or hunt for something bigger. Realizing that our spacious, beloved minivans will be filled to capacity. Daydreaming about having a yard scattered with Tonka trucks, a basketball hoop in the driveway, Legos and army guys dotting our floors, little league games and camping trips on the calendar. Laughing at the thought of having 5 children. Crying about how universally painful it is to be separated from one’s mother—whether physically or emotionally—no matter how old you are. Strategizing about how we’re going to fund this adoption, which will now cost about twice what we budgeted. Trying to picture what this increase in family size will mean in terms of our grocery budget. And weekly loads of laundry. Wondering what these precious boys are doing down there in Haiti—Who’s tucking them in at night? What are their personalities like? Do they feel safe, secure, attached and loved? How in the world will we be able to stand having them grow up for another year or two so far away from us? How soon can we go visit them?

Rather than broadcast the news of our referral and shoot it out into cyberspace right away, D and I both wanted to keep it close to our hearts for a couple of weeks. Though there’s never been a question about whether we would accept the proposal, or a doubt about the perfection of the match, the timing of it caught us so off-guard that we felt it best to take a more intimate and cozy approach, giving the five of us time to process it all together. Yet again, God was in the details--our trip to the mountains turned out to be perfectly timed. It's been an amazingly sweet couple of weeks of prayer and conversation.

I think the lack of details in K’s story made it easier to romanticize and tie a bow around it. But over time we’ve become more aware of how much of our joy is due to other people’s losses. Adoption is beautiful. Adoption is miraculous. But adoption is so, so complicated. Though their story thus far is theirs alone to tell, these precious boys are entering our lives as a result of hardship and tragedy. It’s heartbreaking and it’s not fair. I don’t believe it’s God’s will that people suffer and families get torn apart in this cruel, fallen world. But I do believe in His Sovereignty. I know His plans for our lives—and for M and J’s lives—are always GOOD. It’s in His Word: “For I know the plans I have for you says the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11. He can create beauty from ashes.

We are praying hard for these sweet boys. Will you please pray with us? That God will prepare their hearts for us and our hearts for them. That our boys will have divine health and protection from all sickness, injury and evil. That He will hold them near on the long road ahead. That though their journey begins with suffering, sorrow and desperation, it will end with redemption, healing and joy. That they will grow up connected—to their Mother, to Haiti, to us and to Him.

There are a lot of unknowns regarding changes to the adoption process and the future of adoptions in Haiti, but we are laying our worries at the cross and trusting the Lord in this adventure. Please pray that God's hand will be over our file at every step of the way and that we will have favor before the government and the courts. And that the process will become swifter and more efficient even as greater protections for families and children are we instituted.

We are already beginning to see these sweet boys as members of our family. Sons. Brothers. We are in love. D and I are so undeserving of such blessings and such love. We are overwhelmed with gratitude and anticipation of what this all means for our family. There is a lot of hope and excitement in the B home right now. We have great expectations. God has big plans for these two children of His and we get to be a part of it.

They just might make a movie about it someday.