The Beginning

In McLain news this week: We are a family of 4!!!! Been waiting SO long to say that!
So I promised the details and I am gonna do my best to remember them all!

So as you know we were matched with a baby due in November. What I didnt tell you is that the same day we were matched with that baby, we turned down being presented to another situation due around the same time. It was a little more expensive and so we just decided to stay matched to the original one. What we didnt do was take time to pray and ask God's opinion! This was all on Thursday.

Fast forward to Sat morning. Aiden had spent the night at Maw Maw's house because Joe and I were gonna do some yard work to get ready for our SS class coming to our house in a week.

Sat morning, I felt the need to get the baby car seat in the car. Remember our "baby" wasnt due for another month. WAY too early to put a second carseat in my tiny car! But I felt the need so I asked Joe to do it....and he did. Then we got ready to go to the store to get some flowers and things for the yard. I grabbed my cell and noticed I had a missed call. It was Courtney (our adoption facilitator). Honestly, when I saw it, my heart sank because I thought our birthmom had already changed her mind...and I knew if she did, we were through! SO I dialed her number to call her back. She explained to me that she was actually calling because the birthmom that we turned down had her baby that morning (Sat) and that she knew we had said no...but she wanted to run it by us one more time just to make sure. He was little and early (34 weeks) and in NICU but doing okay. Let me just stop and say, this baby was born on SATURDAY. What is SO cool about that is SATURDAY is the day that we had named our last day just 6 days earlier before we were matched with the other birthmom on Tuesday. You with me??? GO GOD!!!!
Anyway, so we said to go ahead and present us to her. At this time, we still were thinking we would probably not be picked........how many times had we been turned down before by other birthmoms?? ALOT! :) SO a miracle would have to happen....but that is when God shows up! So we went on to the store expecting nothing to happen. A little while later, Courtney called and asked us a couple of questions that the birthmom (Sabrina) wanted to know. Then we hung up and waited (in LOWE"S) and a few minutes later the phone rang. No decision yet....but Sabrina was crying now and it looked as if she was realizing the finality of the decision she was making. So we assumed that she was about to decide to keep the baby.
Another 10 minutes later, Courtney called back and said, "Okay, she is 99.99% sure you are her family but she wants to talk to just Nicole on the phone." So I said okay, give me 5 minutes to get to the phone and I will call." Luckily, I didnt have time to get too nervous....just ran to the car, said a quick prayer, asking God to give me wisdom and to be myself no matter what she asked." I called. They handed her the phone. She was very medicated and I could barely understand her. I had to ask her 4 times to repeat the first question....and I quickly prayed for God to help me understand." Her first question was what color are my eyes and hair! Let me just stop and say......adoption is a humbling experience. You have someone else on the other end of the phone trying to decide if you have the right hair color to parent their child......while I totally understand her question, it's a hard pill to swallow. What I didn't know was that she was asking because her other 2 children are blond haired, blue eyed........yeah - that's not me or my husband or Aiden........but she still chose us! the questions went on and on....and one of the last questions she asked was what religion I was. I was afraid that she would not like our answer....because we had been turned down a couple of times before for this reason. SO I said we were Baptists. SHE WAS TOO!!! I believe that is what sealed the deal in her mind although she didn't say anything at the time. So she said okay, we talked a little more and she said someone would call me back. I hung up. Joe and I waited a while......I was convinced that I said something wrong since I didnt hear immediately back. A few minutes later, Courtney called and said that this was our baby!!!

There are many more details of the story to come......so stay tuned....but right now Aiden needs a bath! :)