Birth and Marriage...

I am a little slow with this post!  It should have been done a week (actually ten days) ago.  I will start with the birth part.  On May 3rd somewhere in the middle of Serbia our daughter was born.  I know nothing else...don't know how much she weighed or how long she was.  We are pretty sure that her mother loved her...we met her mother and she had lots of love in her eyes!

This story has been told somewhere in this blog before...but it is worth repeating.  A little background on how we found our daughter.  Hubby and I were talking about adoption to grow our family.  We went through the training and home study to adopt through our state.  Got that done and it did NOT feel right.  So we looked around and decided to adopt from Ukraine.  Well we found a facilitator to help us and we were on our way to completing the steps to adopt.  I wanted a little girl about two or three and name her after my mother and grandmother.  That is what I thought I wanted more then anything!  Then we found out that Ukraine was not excepting any more dossier (paperwork to adopt) from the US.  Great...now what?

Now comes the God part...as I was removing some websites and such about Ukraine I came across a website I had never seen.  It was a photo listing of kids with special needs.  And can you guess?  Yep, that is where I found a picture of Kristina.  Not a very good picture, she looked sad and worn out.  I looked up her need (Cystic Fibrosis) and did research on it.  Well, the hospital I was working in was one that was accredited with the National Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.  They have very high standards working with the CF (Cystic Fibrosis) children.  I believe that was from God.

We then inquired about her.  She was three (yep, just what I wanted) and not quite legally free for adoption.    There was an issue with parental rights and no one knew how long that would take.  Break my heart, but I was trusting God and we continued with our paperwork to get her no matter how long it took.  Then came the moment we were ready with our paperwork.  Well, on her end there was still a mess...so we committed to adopting a sibling set.  Wow, I thought God this is not what I thought we were doing.  We were ONE piece of paper away from getting a travel date, then we got an email telling us that Kristina was now available for international adoption.  Did we still want her?  Um, YES!  Okay God, now what?  So we keep on going forward for Kristina...and her whole adoption process took nine months!

Our trip was uneventful and being in Belgrade was surreal!!  All the way across the ocean in a strange place.  In a way we were freaked out!  Well, if I would have had paperwork that I left at home with my favorite shoes we would have been okay.  Another God story for another time! Anyway, we were in the country where I would become a mother and hubby would become a father for the very first time!  Like a birth...

This story will continue in a few weeks when we celebrate her gotcha day.  A gotcha day is when you take your child out of the orphanage/foster family for the last time.  When you become the parent in the child's countries eyes.  It's a great story...

Well, the marriage part is the fact that hubby and I have been married twenty-two years!  (Actually today it is twenty-two years and eight days)  My hubby is the best!!!  God created him just for me!  I prayed for a husband...didn't know if I would ever get married.  I gave God three requests, please.  1)  He had to be tall as I am short  2) He had to have a long last name...don't ask me why!  3)  He had to be able to walk along side on the beach with me...again don't ask me why because we live in the middle of the country and the ocean's are far away!  Two weeks after I prayed for a husband or for God to take away the desire for me to be married.  I met my husband...of course not knowing he was my husband until two months later.  Actually two months and two days after meeting him we were engaged.  Yippee!  Then seven months later we were married!  And yes, God provided each request I had!  Thank you God for the wonderful and godly man you have given me!