Ask and you shall receive....

Working on 'lil sis's room

You know as we started this wonderful process of adoption again we did so after studying China's new changes (and there have been many, especially for the sn route), and researching many agencies. It was really a confusing time and trying to figure out when to start the process was hard, when you think about travel and money and planning for time off, etc. So after spending endless hours studying this whole new process I came to the conclusion that it may take us 3-6 months to get matched through the special needs program and so goodness we better get started. So on May 15th we sent in our application to the same agency we used with Taylor and began the process. I had started praying specifically for our child, that God would have his hand in this whole thing and guide us and our child to each other. With so many changes in place I also specifically prayed that it would be great to have a sign, you know a big sign, that it would be so obvious to us that we would know when they showed us a file that yes this is our child we are looking at. I had also been daydreaming of names and had starting looking on name websites. I wanted a special name, because Taylor was named after his daddy, James Taylor and so being that he was named after his dad it would only be right that our next child have a family name or a special name. For a girl name, I was brought back to childhood memories of the story of my birth that my mom always told me. You see I was the second girl born to my mom and dad. My sister, who btw took after my mom was born with brown hair and big brown eyes and the prettiest complexion. So of course when my mom was pregnant with me she thought I would have brown hair and brown eyes like my big sis and so she had picked out my name and I was to be Rachel LeighAnn. Well God had other plans for my genetics and I took after my dad's side of the family and was born with red/orange hair, blue eyes, and a very, very fair complexion. So once my mom saw me all she could say was that is not Rachel LeighAnn. I just didn't fit what she had in mind and so they changed the name they had chosen for me to Jennifer Michelle. Well in 2005 at the very young age of 54 my mother passed away unexpectedly. She never got to see me become a mother. So as I started daydreaming about girl names I thought well if we get a baby girl from China she is going to have brown hair and brown eyes, so we can name her Rachel Lian and I will love getting to tell her the story of my name and her name and it will give me the chance to talk about my mother, her grandmother. So back to my prayers about our new child, as I was praying about needing a sign, you know a big sign, I thought to myself you know a good sign would be if she had the name Lian(and I even thought of it in that spelling) and we would know she was our Rachel Lian. Well when Erin called us 9 days ago, God had answered my prayers and given us our sign. We are so blessed and so thankful. We have her precious pictures up on our computer and each day my heart just gets fuller and fuller of love for this little face looking back at me. I am excited, and nervous and I already feel as though I am in nesting mode. I just need to be doing something for her and since I can't physically hold her or see her or comfort her I still have this need deep inside to do stuff for her. So Friday she got a new dress, Saturday she got a new dress, and also Saturday we started cleaning out her future room. It gives me a little relief from this great need I have to care for her. And if you haven't done the math yet, no it did not take 3-6 months to get matched, it took less than 1 month.