She shared that they actually had two files for us to review. This is very odd and does not happen very often. She quickly gave me the details about each little one including their birthdate and medical needs. The second little girls file interested us the most because she had the exact need we had just been researching, and she was not quite a year old! We decided to have her send both files, but would only open one at a time so as to not be comparing the girls. Luckily, Jeremy was able to run home, and we opened the file together. We first read the medical file to see if we felt we could handle her condition, and learn more about her. We were hopeful when the file indicated that her surgeries had been successful! It seemed that she was very well loved by the nannies based on how they spoke about her. After we finished reading, we saw her picture. The first picture we saw is my favorite. It will always be my favorite because it is the first time we saw our daughter! I just gasped when I saw her. Jeremy was grinning, and I think he was pretty smitten! (We never opened the other girls file, and returned it right away so that it could be released back to the shared list. Praying she has found her family!)
The next few hours were crazy trying to get a hold of doctors who would review her file. Originally, I thought our local pediatricians office would help us out. But when I called they told me that they always refer these types of things to a local International Adoption doctor. I had checked into her previously, but she is very expensive. We decided it would be best to use the International Adoption Clinic at the University of Alabama for a file review. This way we could better understand what her file was saying, and what type of prognosis she is expected to have. We had done some of our education credits through UAB, and had heard wonderful things about them. In addition, they will help us prior to travel by prescribing any medications we need to take with us (antibiotics, creams, etc....). They will also give us an on-call phone number while we are in China should we need a consult.
In addition to all this craziness of getting a referral, I had a previously scheduled hair cut that I desperately needed! My good friend Yolanda was going to watch the boys so I texted her that Jeremy would be bring them over because we had gotten a referral! I needed to tie up some loose ends with doctors before I headed out to my appointment. When Jeremy dropped the boys off, Yolanda and Greg prayed with Jeremy! That was such a sweet expression of their love of us through our bond in Christ. In addition to these prayers, we later learned that several others in our small group had been led to pray for us not knowing that we had received a referral! My sister also sent me an email that day that said..."Thinking of you and praying for you." How awesome is the Holy Spirit of God who moved these people to pray on our behalf!!!!!
That evening, the International Adoption doctor gave us a quick phone call to say she was sending her review and gave us a brief synopsis. She didn't have to do that, but she said she didn't want us to have to go through the night not knowing her report. We planned to talk more in depth with her in the morning. but we were feeling at peace already that this was our daughter. That night was another great devotional based on Psalm 84:11 "The Lord God is a sun and shield;....no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless." While in our humanness, we are not perfect or blameless by any means, we have been made perfect through the sacrificial death of Jesus. Because we believe that Jesus died for our sins and rose again, we can stand before God and not face judgement for our sins. So we can become blameless because Jesus paid the price for us. The words "no good thing does he withhold" really jumped right off the page at me. Ava is our good thing and perfect blessing from the Lord because we are walking in His will, and not our own.
TO BE CONTINUED..........
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