Not your usual Monday!

One of my favorite things to do each morning before Philip gets up is to check our e-mail, other people's website that I follow, and look at our agency's Waiting Children's List (list of children with special needs) to see if there are any updates. This past Monday I did exactly that and quickly noticed around 100 new files had been added to the Waiting Children's List! I tried to access them but had difficulty doing so. That's when I made a phone call that might just change our lives!

I phoned our agency to explain that I couldn't access their files, and our coordinator said, "Good, I'm glad you called because I was just about to call you." It seems they had already locked in a little boy for us just a few minutes before!!! She said he was one and a half, had a cleft lip and cleft palate, and had a heart defect. Those were all conditions we had checked on our list of things we thought we could handle. She quickly e-mailed me his picture and medical information.

When I opened his picture, I was hooked. He had the cutest, roundest face with the biggest, roundest eyes looking so sad that I just wanted to reach out across the miles and gather him up in my arms. I immediately called Kevin at school and had him bring up his picture. As soon as he saw him, he was hooked too. We called Ted at college, but you know those college kids. He wasn't up yet, and I got his voice mail instead! I did get to talk to Ted personally later on, and he also was smitten with this child.

Kevin and I did worry about the severity of this little boy's heart defect. I immediately took his records to our pediatrician and explained to her office staff that we didn't have very much time to decide and that I was sorry to give them such short notice. They were all so sweet, smiling and all interested in his info. I left thinking I would hear from her in the early afternoon, still plenty of time to get our paperwork in to our agency. I later found out our agency needed our final paperwork no later than 5 o'clock our time. I found this out around 3:30 at which time I still hadn't heard from our doctor.

Kevin and I decided that since this little guy had a heart defect, we simply couldn't move forward and say yes without our doctor's input. When I called her shortly after 3:30, her staff reported she was swamped today and couldn't possibly review the file until 6 that night! That would be too late by then! I explained the situation to them, but they said they were sorry but she really, really was busy.

When Kevin got home from school, we discussed it and felt that if we were meant to have this child, God would move to help our doctor respond before time was up. We prayed off and on until about 10 minutes to 5 when Kevin said, "Well, time is almost up. It's now or never." With that, the phone rang. It was our doctor! She felt this little boy was in great health, and we could handle his heart condition. In fact, she said that the heart defect was small and may not need any surgery. She felt this little one would be a perfect fit for our family.

WE SENT IN OUR LETTER OF INTENT (LOI) TO CHINA YESTERDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please pray for China's heart to be open to accepting Kevin's long ago cancer history (I wrote about this in a previous post last week.) They told our agency just last week that due to Kevin having had a bout with cancer 22 years ago, we would need to be open to adopting a child much older and/or with much more severe needs or they wouldn't let us adopt from them - both of which we felt we couldn't do. We wrote in that post that after much prayer and soul-searching, we knew God was bigger than any person, agency, or country. We believed in HIM only! We still do! We continue to pray that if this is our child, then China will say yes to us!