Miracles

 When you ask God for miracles, and then you actually SEE them, you want to shout it from the rooftops.

And yet words fail me.

In October we announced the news of our son, you can read here. And HE is a gift! I feel like the luckiest mama in the world that he is ours! Syler Blane, our 6^th child. He evened us out!

You may recall I wrote in that post about my longing for a baby girl. How humorous that we started out for a baby girl and ended up with an 8 year old BOY child!

And we were SO happy with our boy! 

But God… He wasn’t done. He was putting his plans in motion. He knew the ending & he was still writing our story.

We have a baby girl.

Well maybe not so much a baby, though she is in our eyes.

She is 2 years old.

And she is a miracle.

I first laid eyes on her in 2012. So to answer the question, yes she is from Chenzhou.

The day I saw her I knew, she was mine.  I can remember the moment I laid eyes on her. I gasped, I got tears, I dropped to my knees and looked at the nannies in wonder.

Back in 2011 I fell in love with a baby we named Rosebud. I adored that baby girl and would have taken her home with me. But she was not meant to be mine. I have been blessed that I have connected with her family and they are so gracious to let me see her life!

She went home in 2011, shortly after I met her.

So when I walked into the baby play room in 2012, and THIS baby sat there, looking SO much like that baby, it took my breath away.

As I fell to my knees before her to soak her in, the nannies started to laugh and started saying Rosebud (her chinese name of course) because they knew exactly what I was thinking!

I had sworn this trip I was not going to focus on ONE baby as much. I was going to spend equal times with ALL babies.

And then I saw her and well, she was just my baby! She was perfect and smiley and I called Mark and said, I want to bring her home!

And oh did they want to send her home with me.

But of course that was not an option. And at that point while we had tossed around adopting again, it was simply that. Tossed around, but nothing settled.

We spent the next months praying over this baby girl. Praying over our family. Are we supposed to add more? Are we going to be ok if we start an adoption and can't find her file? Are we CRAZY! 

We knew going in we would only find her with a miracle. 

But we also know that God IS a God of miracles. 

And so we trusted in His plan. 

I am not going to lie. It has been a LONG year. My faith felt like it was on a roller coaster of up and down. I wish I could say that I stayed strong, I never complained, I kept a happy attitude and knew that in the end God would give us a miracle in one way or another. 

My friend shared this verse with me, and I wanted SO badly to live that! 

Waiting is not something I have ever been good at though. EVEN now, I can't hardly stand it. We found Syler in October and we wondered, what is God doing? We were SOOO excited to have him as our son! We tried to come to peace with it might be just him. But my heart just kept saying, don't give up.

And God, who is a God of Mercy, gave us our miracle.

There is so much more to her story than I can even put into details. We are still processing through it all. But we do know this, God is good. We are blessed. Not only do we have an amazing son, we have my baby love.

I know it is a gift that I have been given to celebrate her 1st AND 2nd birthdays with her. 

I watched her go from a smily happy baby to a nervous toddler that is scared of strangers. 

I know that she loves puffs, and that was my secret ammunition in July. 

She is a tiny peanut, weighing in at a whopping 22 pounds. She will be 3 in July. 

She was born VERY early and the fact that she is alive IS a miracle in itself. 

She is ornery, and some families who met her have called her Ms Attitude or simply, Trouble. :-) 

Her name is Lin Fei, and just happens that MY middle name is Faye. 

She does not have an English name yet, she is up for the letter M. 

Her report was so detailed, of that I am so thankful. My favorite line is that "she is a beautiful dainty princess." And she IS. 

She is now the baby princess of our family. She is our daughter, never to be an orphan again. She is so loved and cherished and WANTED more than words can say. We have prayed on our knees and continue to do so for this sweet miracle. She is our gift. 

There are moments when I stop and just weep. We started this journey and it was so unknown what would happen. We knew what we wanted to happen, but we just had no idea what God would do. We would look at files and lists and dream and wait. 

My dreams though, they were only THESE kids. Always. 

So now we wait. We will travel SOON though for BOTH kids. We are praying to meet them on March 31st, will you pray with us? 

I really do hope to get back in this blogging thing because I do love to keep track of these things for my kids. Someday I may not remember their stories in detail, but they can read them! 

SEVEN children. It just seems like the perfect number if you ask us!