No, Tegan is not a girl.
But his baby sister is!!!
Now slap that look of shocked amazement and uncontrollable curiosity off your face and get ready for a serious story. I know, I have quite a bit to catch you up on.
It all started with God’s plan, we said yes to adoption and no to further fertility treatment and we found ourselves in the middle of a three year process of bringing home our son. The wait times kept extending and we kept saying yes, we kept trusting that this was his plan for us and our little boy was out there somewhere, someday to be united with us. But it took us a lot longer than we would have ever expected. God seemed distant year after year of waiting and no change, no children, not even a name or a little face to look forward to. Just blah. We were worn by this wait. We thought we wanted to adopt from Ethiopia again, but when it came to signing the paperwork we had absolutely no peace or clarity about moving forward. We selfishly felt that it might break us if we had to wait 5… 6 … maybe 7 years (??) for a second adoption. We lost sight of faith and began to stress about building our family. We wanted peace on the next step, assurance that we could do this again, that it would turn out alright, that we would have at least ONE sibling for Tegan! But where would we go, what would we do??
In the middle of this, God gave us a referral. We had a son, a name, a face, an age… an estimated timeline for bringing him HOME!
He was and is beautiful, he was a miracle – we were overjoyed to say the least!
But in the back of our minds we thought, could we really endure this again?
God convicted my heart as we flew to Ethiopia that first time to meet Tegan. I could do this again, a million times over if HE wanted me to. I had lapsed into a faithless spiral of planning out my own life and forgotten that it was GOD’S PLAN that brought us here – to this very child – in the first place. (In fact, had I not listened to Him, Tegan would not be sleeping in the room next to me as I type. Convicted? yeah, just a little). God was no where to be found in my stress and worry, and I knew I needed to let go and fall headlong into the trust I had in Him in the beginning, (maybe even more trust than that!). Eddie and I prayed on the rooftop of our guesthouse in Ethiopia that God we would be able to enjoy this time with JUST Tegan, that we could be at peace with where He had us in these moments and we prayed that God would make it clear to us when and where to go next. We prayed for the trust we didn’t have that He would open the door to our next adoption in His timing, not our own.
fast forward to just 5 weeks ago, (3 weeks exactly after we brought Tegan home), we got a phone call from Sean and Erin Traynor, good friends of ours.
‘We know a couple that we’ve been good friends with for a very long time, they know a woman who is pregnant, due in early October and can’t keep her baby. Do you think you would be interested?’
When Ed got off the phone our conversation was mostly made up of stares of amazement. I MEAN, THIS DOESN’T HAPPEN TO PEOPLE!!! Who are we to EVER question God, this was so clearly a miracle that we almost couldn’t help but laugh. It was ridiculous, really. Crazy, completely out of the blue, totally unexpected and totally knocking us off our feet in bewilderment over the kindness of God. Yeah, our lives would be crazy, yeah our son just got here – but can you imagine an adoption where someone basically just drops an invitation to take their NEWBORN baby arriving in just two months and raise her from DAY ONE!? Ok, enough exclamation marks and capitol letters. Or wait……
DID I MENTION IT’S A GIRL!!!?!?
Ok. done now.
We decided to take the next step and meet with Sean and Erin’s friends – and after that meet with the birthmother – and after that the birthmother’s parents. I actually got the call on August 7th (my 30th birthday) that the birthmother was so excited to have finally found the couple that would take her baby, US!! We’ve started our new home-study and boatloads of new paperwork and every step of the way we’ve been met with one open door after another. This is really happening!!
And God has been so clear in all of this. The birthmother has had a rough past. But as I told her on the day we met, adoption is always born out of something hard, but it turns into such a beautiful thing! The most beautiful part her of this story is her faith. She knows Jesus, and she wanted to be sure we did too! She could have cared less about the fact that Ed was a “pastor”, she wanted to hear straight from his mouth and mine that our faith was in God alone, that we knew we were sinners and trusted in Jesus who died for our sins and rose again to pay the penalty for us as our Lord and our Savior! Her gift to her child is not only a stable family but the message of the cross. She knows that she can’t spend this life with her precious daughter, but she can spend eternity with her in heaven. (and this is where I turn into a puddle on the floor, I cannot believe this woman’s faith!). God is good.
So here we are in the middle of adoption number 2 just months after bringing home our first. I still have my doubts (rationally/reasonably speaking the mom could back out at any moment, and still will have 30 days after the baby is born – if she would like to take them – to change her mind). But even in my doubts, I am learning to trust that what God wants to accomplish, He will. I am wrapping myself in faith that He has this one in His hands -and I would be foolish to doubt that He isn’t capable of giving us what is best. So, right now I feel like Job at the end of his long and torturous journey of loosing everything… to be doubly blessed in the end.
“Behold we consider those blessed who remain steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful“. {James 5:11}
We praise you God for your kindness in this life, and we thank you for all that you give us, good and bad, as it points us back to you; your greatness and your Love for us.

Bring on the crazy, we’re having a baby girl in October!!!
2 comments