Thursday, August 27, 2015

I've Waited Three Months to Announce This....

This is a post I have waited THREE months to write. And now I sit here and have no idea how to tell you all the amazing blessings God given to us during what could be a very dark time for us (another blog post on that coming soon). Basically, we have spent 9.5 weeks with two very sick children and one sick mama (that's me). With NO answers. And it has been downright terrifying at times. And Satan has attacked in every way he knows how. And our bank accounts are at ZERO. I wish I was kidding. Thanks to some very unexpected car issues and a whole lot of medical expenses every penny was taken away. But even through all of that, our adoption account has GROWN. Even though we couldn't contribute the amount we do each month, we have been blessed by so much generosity. As I write this, we have the most amazing auction going on over at my instagram (@mallory_crain) thanks to the Adopt Shoppe doing a fundraiser for us. Blessed. So very blessed.

Okay, here we go.

Remember when I posted about the two big boys that we had pursued so hard for 6 months and how even though the Lord made it clear we needed to let go that He also had something amazing planned for us?

I mean, AMAZING.

Well, I will let this picture speak for us....








IT'S A GIRL!!!


There is SO much more we want to say. SO VERY MUCH MORE. But, for now we still have to stay pretty quiet about the details. Basically, our agency and our baby girl's orphanage have pre-matched us to her. That means that they are recommending to the Haitian government that our family is a good fit for her. And we just pray every day that they will agree. So, when we announced that on August 18, 2015 our dossier entered IBESR (Haitian social services) we were rejoicing and crying for an even bigger reason. Because that was one HUGE step closer to our baby girl.

And you know how awesome God is? She is at the very orphanage that brought us to our beloved agency, Lifeline Children's Services. She is living at Three Angels and we couldn't ask for a better place for her to be while we wait to be able to have her in our arms. Oh what a glorious day that will be!

I know many of you are wondering what happened to wanting TWO kids. Well, we have truly felt that God has asked us to be open to 1 OR 2 children and to special needs. We didn't want to put limitations on our adoption. We truly believed that God would lead us to our child(ren) no matter what we said on paper. We are so happy with the child we believe He has planned for our family and due to the significant needs of our little one we believe He planned this perfectly. And our whole family is ready for MANY more to join our tribe in His timing. And you want to hear one neat little detail? We have always felt that twins would be in our family at some point. We really thought we would have twins in this adoption. Well, our girl's birthday is almost exactly 6 months before Israel's. Many call this "irish twins." It was always twins, just not the way we expected! He is in every detail.

So, for now, since we can't share details of our BEAUTIFUL girl, which includes her name, we will be calling her Selah. If you have been following our journey you know we use the hashtag #journeytosandj on our posts. And awhile back I explained why we referenced our future children as Judah and Selah. Our sweet Selah girl has been prayed for for so many years.

And the news gets even sweeter. We got an update that paperwork is FLYING through the process which makes us hopeful that we may be receiving our referral (that will be Haiti's invitation for us to come spend 2 weeks bonding with our girl) much sooner than expected. The "average" timeline (we use timelines very loosely in international adoptions) is 6-12 months for a referral, so we are PRAYING to be on the earlier side of that. No matter what we truly believe it will be in HIS timing. Because He is good. Even when we don't understand.

So, that is what I have been holding onto since May 12th. You guys, we are going to have a DAUGHTER!!


Never once did you leave us. You are faithful.