Charlotte Nicole

We were still floating on air as we were learning more about our daughter.  Our agency was not as optimistic about us getting matched with a second child as we were.  We had until the first of May to get matched or we had to proceed and only be able to adopt our first match on this trip.

On April 4 we sent an email to our agency officially stating our intent to proceed with our adoption of Florence.  I (Sam) was traveling for work and stopped for lunch when I got an email from our agency with a reply to our acceptance.  After the usual info there was a section that caught me by surprise.  It basically asked about a special need that was vague on our list.   If we were open to it she had a little girl for us to review.  

That's big news!!!!  Enjoying a BBQ sandwich suddenly took last place on my priority list.  I started researching the need between bites and then called Michelle as soon as I got to the car.  Michelle was even more excited than I was!  She called our agency and got more information.

The next parts of the story were very, very hard for us.  There were a lot of questions about her condition.  She is less than 2 months older than Florence, which is a big deal with adoptive families.  Our Social Worker wanted us to make sure we were educated on the whole picture.  So we had a phone consultation with our International Adoption Clinic.  We had a consultation with a local specialist.  We talked with other adoptive parents.  We did tons of research.  After all of this, we felt good about going forward.  We were not sure what our Social Worker would think.

Our Social Worker called and asked about our research and said, "OK, I'll get them to release the file."  It was only then that we were able to read more and saw the beautiful face of our daughter.

We finally went 'Public' with Charlotte on Easter Sunday.  It was great to be able to share our second helping of joy with our family and friends.

We just got updated information,  pictures, and video the next day and are thrilled at how well she is doing and how good she looks.

God has taught us a lot about the importance of our dependence on Him and how faith is not about making decisions based on what we can see but stepping out having faith that no matter what, God is with us.

Florence Joy

It has been a long time since our last post.  Up until a little while ago there wasn't much to tell.  We were just waiting for a call ...

Then it came.

March 19 was normal day.  Michelle ordered some baby chickens that morning.  I was at my office when I saw a number that from our agency's area code.  I left my conversation to take it.  We couldn't get Michelle on the line so I had to track her down.  She drove right over and we called back to get the information.  We agreed that we wanted to see the file so we could look over her file, her pictures and make an decision.

It took about 1/2 a second.

Once we saw the photo of this beautiful girl we knew she was our daughter.  She was smiling!  It was apparent that she had JOY.  We were awe struck by God's amazing protection of our daughter and how He had worked all things to join us together.

We managed to print some pictures and surprised both our parents in person to tell them the news.  It was great to share our joy with our family.

Our medical team reviewed everything and for the most part she looked great to them.  By the time we got some more information and VIDEO it appears that she is catching up well.  We watched the videos about 1,000 times a day those first 2 weeks.

We love this little girl who lives across the world.  We can't wait to bring her into our family so that she can join our journey thorough life.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!