We Never Expected...

We never expected Ashley, the birthmom of the baby due in October who had chosen us to adopt her baby, to change her mind about giving her baby up last Friday, just the day before we moved to New Tribes Bible Institute to begin training.

We never expected to get a phone call from our adoption agency in Utah while eating lunch in Nathan and Rachel's apartment only 5 days later.

We never expected to hear them say, "There was a baby boy born this morning...and he is your son."

We never expected to have to pack in less than 2 hours, drive to Detroit, barely catch a plane, and be in Utah that very same evening.

We never expected a nine-month-old to be so hard to entertain on a plane!

We never expected that Sharielle, our son's birthmom, would want to meet us since she wanted a completely closed adoption.

We never expected her to be so shy and sweet and tiny and friendly and lovable. (I'm not including the picture of us with her, since I don't know if she would be comfortable with it).

We never expected for her to tell us that her water unexpectedly broke at 35 weeks, that she called an ambulance because she was sure he was going to be born the second after her water broke, and that he was born in the ambulance only a few minutes later.

We never expected it to be so difficult to create a boy's middle name out of her name: Sharielle Katrice. We decided on Ri (pronounced Rye) since it is in both her first and middle name. (we wanted his middle name to contain part of his birthmom's name, since Ivy's middle name is Elena--her birthmom's name.)

We never expected to meet our son for the first time in the NICU

in a hospital in a beautiful little town surrounded by gorgeous mountains on all sides.

We never expected to be able to spend an evening up in the mountains at a famous ski resort (Sundance) while my mom kept Ivy for us.

We never expected my mom to be so incredibly willing to come to Utah with us at a moment's notice for an undetermined length of time (ok, maybe we expected that one...she is the best!)

We never expected Aaron to have to leave Utah to go back to New Tribes Bible Institute to begin classes while Israel is still in the NICU.

We never expected to be so blessed as to have a daughter and a son in the same year.

But that's our God, isn't it? Always exceeding our expectations. Always blessing us more than we ever deserve. Always proving His goodness and faithfulness to us in ways we don't expect.

We are praising God for His abundant blessings. And we DO expect to be doing that as long as we live.