Throughout the few weeks following that phone conversation with my best friend, I thought about that couple quite a few times.\u00a0 It was\u00a0around this\u00a0time that our birthmother from our failed adoption in October called and said that she had reconsidered and wanted to fly her\u00a0sweet baby down to us and sign the papers.\u00a0 But there were hiccups and drama along the way.\u00a0 The birthfather\u00a0(although not being a proper father in any way we would describe one) was\u00a0threatening legal action\u00a0and I could feel that the birthmother wasn’t perfectly solid in her decision.\u00a0 Her family was dead against it – even though it truly was the best thing for the baby.\u00a0 Drama ensued.\u00a0 We decided that we could not help her bring the baby down.\u00a0 She would need\u00a0 her to pay for her flight and commit, if she truly was wanting to place.\u00a0 We had already spent five thousand dollars on this adoption failing once, we needed to have her investment. For a few days I believed she was just bluffing, but then she bought her flight and she got on\u00a0a plane to place her baby with us.<\/p>\n
During this\u00a0time, I kept thinking of the couple my friend described and their newborn baby.\u00a0 I kept thinking to myself, “That’s exactly how it should be.\u00a0 It should be simple and easy to have children come in to your life and they should come in a peaceful idealistic way.\u00a0 That’s the way the Lord intended it.”<\/em> I questioned all the drama that was swirling around me. On one hand, I felt that the Lord had led this little prospective daughter to us; there had been miracles on the way.\u00a0 On the other hand, the theatrics of it all were a complete turn off.<\/p>\n Then one day, right before the baby arrived, I was driving alone in my car up my street.\u00a0 I was thinking about that couple again –\u00a0 how I thought babies were supposed to arrive.\u00a0 I had that ideal image in my mind and I was talking to God about it.\u00a0 The way this baby was arriving was not the way I had intended it to.\u00a0 It was hard.<\/p>\n I then had a flashback.\u00a0 A memory flooded my mind of me driving up that same exact street\u00a0four years before.\u00a0 I was on the way to the airport to fly to Uganda for the upteenth time to try to get my Ethan and I didn’t want to go.\u00a0 I was emotionally drained and the chance we would get Ethan were slim.\u00a0 I was filled with anxiety.\u00a0 Similar to the anxiety I was experiencing about this new baby arriving.\u00a0 I awoke from my flashback and I\u00a0heard and felt\u00a0God\u00a0whisper into my\u00a0ear in\u00a0no uncertain terms,\u00a0 “Loralee,\u00a0I do not send you easy babies.\u00a0 I send you your babies<\/em>.\u00a0 You take them how they come for they are yours and no one else’s.”<\/em><\/p>\n I thought about my dear Ethan and I started to cry.\u00a0How selfish I was being for telling the Lord how and when I wanted my babies to arrive – when He was sending me my babies as fast and as easy (and at the right\u00a0time)\u00a0as He could.\u00a0 I didn’t want just any baby.\u00a0 I wanted my<\/em> babies – and how they came was how they came.\u00a0 I didn’t care how many times I had to drive up that street with anxiety.\u00a0 It was my street and they were my babies.\u00a0 And it was all worth it.<\/p>\n As every one knows by now, the baby came and went.\u00a0 For whatever reason, it did not work out.\u00a0 But I will be forever grateful for that experience because it was a not-so-subtle reminder to a stubborn woman.\u00a0\u00a0As I look at my<\/em> Ethan and my<\/em> Vienna and my <\/em>Boston, I realize that life is not\u00a0a fairytale\u00a0ending\u00a0– but it does work out perfectly.<\/p>\n To top off the experience with a cherry, my best friend called the other day.\u00a0\u00a0 She had\u00a0ran<\/span> into the couple again.\u00a0 This time she\u00a0got to see the\u00a0sweet baby inside the stroller.\u00a0\u00a0She peered in to see a \u00a0little brown baby.\u00a0 The couple\u00a0had adopted.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Now I don’t know the couple\u00a0and I don’t know their story, but I imagine that it wasn’t as ideal of process getting their sweet first child as I had made up in my mind in the beginning.\u00a0 I also don’t doubt that it was no accident my best friend\u00a0ran into them again.\u00a0 It was the Lord reminding me of the sweet blessings\u00a0He has given a Blondie in Texas and that\u00a0He expects me to welcome them in any terms they come.\u00a0 He knows me too well.<\/p>\n I send this message out to all who are struggling with a life issue that isn’t going as planned.\u00a0 I am slowly learning that the Lord has a plan that is so much bigger and better and more\u00a0mine<\/em> – than any\u00a0of the best laid plans\u00a0I have\u00a0floating idealistically in\u00a0my thoughts.<\/p>\n
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