Our path to adoption - part 4

This is the last post about our path to adopt our children, I hope it has been an encouragement to you.  It has been good for me to look back and see God's faithfulness over and over in each situation.  He has truly blessed us with five wonderful children, and this post is about how he gave us our youngest.

Andy and I always wanted five or six children, so when our fourth son was three we had our homestudy updated and got ready to adopt again.  We had moved to another state again, so we had to find a new agency.  This time we decided to go with Lifetime Adoption.  They are a national adoption facilitator, and they are very helpful and supportive. 

While we waited to be matched I constantly felt like someone was missing from our family and we needed to find them- and I felt a strong need to pray for him or her, more than I had with the others.  We had opened up our preferences and said that we would adopt a child up through age 3, so I knew that our child could be alive out there somewhere.  I felt such an ache inside from missing someone who I hadn't even met yet.

This adoption wait turned out to be our longest yet.  After waiting 1 1/2 years I told the family that it seemed hopeless.  One of the boys said, "Don't give up Mom, because if you give up then we have to give up."  Then a few days later one of the other boys said, "We just have to keep praying about the adoption, Mom."  We couldn't quit with support like that! (:

A couple months later we were on a trip driving through Colorado when our cell phone rang.  It was Lifetime, letting us know that a lady had chosen us to be the family for her three year old son!  She lived in Hawaii and had been through a lot in the past couple years.  We emailed back and forth with her for a few weeks and learned about her history and our new son's story.  She is an amazingly strong lady who has been through so much.  She helped our new son with the transition, teaching him to call Andy, Daddy, and me, Mommy Carmen.  I can't imagine how hard it must have been for her.  Adoption is not all happiness and excitement, it's tears and sorrow too.

We never would have dreamed that we would be adopting from Hawaii- what a nice place to have to stay for 2 weeks waiting for the inter-state compact paperwork to go through!  As soon as our plane landed and we had our rental car we drove right to our new son's house and met him, his birthmom, and his birth sister.  Adopting a three year old is a little different than adopting a newborn, you have to take things a little slower.  We walked to the park and played for a little while, and then when it was time to go we took him with us back to our hotel and he was quite willing to go!  I remember that trip in the car to the hotel we would ask him questions and every answer was "yes."  I wonder what he was thinking.

We spent the first few days with his birthmom, which helped with the transition.  It was so good to get to know her and his sister.  We spent a lot of time swimming in the ocean, hiking and enjoying touring Kauai, but our son's favorite place to go was the park!

I love this picture, it shows how well our son adjusted to us, it was really amazing.  He is a little sweetheart.  Just yesterday he brought me a bindweed flower. (:  He is all boy too though- just watch him wrestle with his brothers!  He fit right in in our family and he was definitely worth the long wait- we love him to pieces! 

A verse I have underlined in my Bible from when we were waiting so long to adopt our son is
Psalm 42:11-

Why are you downcast, O my soul?

Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God,

for I will yet praise him,

My Savior and my God.