There still is one more...

The time was early 2001.  We were settled in with two little ones.  One was soon turning two.  One was almost one.  I knew I should be content.  I knew I was blessed.  I knew life had brought incredible joy in these two young lives.  But often I kept hearing in my mind and feeling in my heart, 'there still is one more'.  There still is a little one in China that needs to come home to her forever family.  That went on for months in my mind.  The Chairman and I talked it over.  We wanted to be sure that it was right for that little one as well as for us.

Then a call came one morning.  It was a good friend of ours.  Completely catching me off guard she asked, 'would you write a reference letter?'.  Of course I would.  They were a wonderful family.  Had three nice little boys.  Our family had known their family for years.  What is the reference letter for?  China?  Really?  Wow!  She said that she watched us go through the process.  She had seen the work involved, the anguish involved, the uncertainty involved.  In fact, the first time we got together once R came home she thought, 'I could never do that'.  But they were moved to do it.

After I hung up the phone, I was just so happy.  So happy for them.  So happy for them I was almost envious.  They were going to go to China before we would get to return.  And then it hit me in such a way it was almost audible.  That 'one more still there' was going to live with them.  It was bittersweet.

Some months later, we found out there was a baby possibly coming.  After multiple losses we didn't really know for sure.  But she made it.  And yes, 'there was still one more', but it wasn't how we had planned.

Beautiful China girl returned home nestled in her parents arms.  I looked at her longingly with a full-term baby in my womb.  Our experience in bringing home a daughter from China was so incredibly rich that I wished for that again. But that wasn't in the greater plan.

I love these girls.  Theirs and ours.  Ironically, these two girls are now in the very same classroom at school.  Friends.  And almost sisters.  Yes, life is miraculous and wonderful.

See that other beauty?  She is from ND and her family spent the night with us.  We visited and encouraged her parents as they went through the adoption journey.  She's just sweetness.

And see these?  Here they all are!  The older girls?  They were our inspiration.  Their parents helped us more than they know as we muddled through the paperwork to make things happen.  Yes,  I'm thankful that we don't have to fear the future.  Love has planned the way.  And sometimes, it isn't how we planned it.