Reflections from a Momma's heart

Recently I have spent a little time putting things away in Delaney’s room and have been unloading totes of items we’ve accumulated over the past 7 years.  I have located items I had remembered buying and was eager to hang them up or find a spot for them and many I had forgotten.  We’ve made a lot of preparations for her.  Funny how you dream and plan and  it’s a complete act of faith.  “Believing in things unseen” but with such expectancy; believing  your prayers would be answered.  On more than one occasion this night I fell to my knees and sobbed clenching little items in  my hand, some sentimental and some silly.  But each time praising God and in disbelief how He would choose to bless us with this child.  I felt and still feel so undeserving of this blessing.  It is clear that HE loves us beyond what we can comprehend. 

I hung up a lot of pretty little dresses and prayed God would help me to teach my daughter about inner beauty and how that far outweighs external beauty.  I want to raise a God-fearing young lady who loves God and knows HE loves her.   I pray I can help her to value herself because Christ does and to teach her modesty and purity.  I am so thankful God has allowed me the privilege of motherhood and to be entrusted to care for her  while on this Earth.  “I need Thee, oh I need Thee, every hour I need Thee!”    

Here's our Precious Little One!

We present to you the child God has blessed us with ! 

Delaney Grace HeMei

 

For this child I prayed; and the Lord hath given me my petition which I asked of Him

I Samuel 1:27

 

 

 

*I know we are about a week overdo sharing this picture but we have made a lot of effort to share with family first. Today we would have been waiting 89 months to see this face but we saw her for the first time just a little over a week ago.  We feel blessed beyond measure.  Praising our Lord for His faithfulness and His goodness.!

So, after "THE CALL" then what??????

We received the call on March 11^th, 2014 at 12:15.  We first viewed our e-mail with all our Baby Girl’s info on it late the same afternoon and headed off to tell whoever we could find.  We gave  priority of course  to  immediate family! 

We headed to Larry’s Mom and Dad’s and were able to tell his Dad first and provide him with a  pink, “It’s a girl” sucker.  He was at home working under a car and my mother- in-law was (yep, you guessed it- at Wal-Mart).  We drove on to Larry’s oldest brother’s house and found his wife and grandson- we shared suckers with them and the good news.  Then off to Larry’s sister’s house.  Here we were totally caught off guard.  Ithough I could bust into the kitchen and yell the good news and the girls would be there after school, instead Sheila and Abby were in the front yard, saw us coming and gave us no time to plan as she met us int eh driveway.  I stammered around and tried to think of something  and Larry said we were meeting his mom and she’d be there soon.  She was onto us, “I know why you’re here, it’s the middle of the afternoon and the middle of the week and you’re not making me hold out until Mom gets here!”  We went to the front yard where Abby was sunning herself- I asked if she’d seen the Stork on the bus today( a little joke between us) and she said no, she’d forgot to look.  I then said, “you wouldn’t have seen him anyway because he was with us” She jumped up and ran at me.  I made she and Sheila close their eyes as I presented them their suckers.  We talked and cried and laughed.  Larry’s mom finally got back from Wal-mart- in her excitement thinking she knew why we were calling- she got in someone else’s car at Wal-Mart. Poor crazy Grandma, she was beside herself.  And then we shared the news with Allen  and  Jenna. More tears and joy. Jenna and Abby were so sweet, so happy for us.   This resonated in a special place for Sheila  and Allen and they were extremely thankful and happy for us.  Randy and Denise stopped by and they were happy for us as well and offered their congratulations.

Then we were off to my Mom’s.  The plan was to pick her up for her belated birthday celebration at 5:30.  We were headed to Charleston to Shen Yun Performing Arts (5000 years of Chinese history celebrated by music  and dance and spectacular costuming).  We walked into Mom’s kitchen  and she was ready.  I apologized for not bringing her a card but she knew we were going to the show for her birthday.  Then I apologized for not bringing her a cake, then said; “But I brought you a sucker.”  She read the “It’s a girl” logo and was absolutely shocked and speechless.  “Does this mean what I think, oh, thank you God”.  Tears flowed and the smiles wouldn’t stop.  Dad phoned while we were there and I told him over the phone that he was a Grandpa.  He was happy and really thrilled for us. 

We started on our way and stopped at Dad’s briefly to share the news again and delivered a sucker. 

On our way we called, my cousin Jerry, my Aunt Gloria and Uncle Ronald and my Aunt Sharon.  We decided to see my Uncle Johnny and Aunt Pat in person as we are looooong overdo for a visit with them.  We also called some very special families too, the James’, Baldwin’s, and the Johnson’s. 

What a great night for some Chinese music and dance!!!! 

"The CALL" (a recap)

Two weeks today we received the ever-so-sought-after phone call.  This is the phone call that adoptive families wait for, and for us, it was over 7 years that we waited for that call. Our paperwork had been logged in or registered in China since 11-27-06, 88 months. 

We had been corresponding with our agency in Texas more frequently since the first of February and by the 18^th they told us we should anticipate THE CALL by the end of the month.  This was the call to reveal the gender, age, location, and name of our child.  So the last week of February and until  March 11^th, we were on high alert.  Our phones were with us constantly and the volume turned up, they went to the bathroom with us, lay on the table while we ate and were carried in pockets, transported in cup holders in our cars and placed on desks in plain site.  This level of watching and waiting produced some significant symptoms of anxiety and some psychosomatic symptoms as well, ie, disturbed sleep and gastro-intestinal junk, chest pain and concentration issues.

We had a little reprieve on Friday evening the 28^th and then a week later on the 7^th knowing we wouldn’t receive a call over the weekend .  So we waited it out and we kept ourselves busy until Monday.  We were told a couple times by the agency that we “might” hear  by Monday or Tuesday but maybe not until Thursday or Friday. So you see, each day took on a whole new level of anxiety. 

Finally the day came,  but we didn’t know it would be “the day”.  In days prior I would often get up and make a blog entry or comment or two on face book so we’d have some documentation.  But honestly when Tuesday the 11^th of March came around I had doubts the previous night that our adoption would even happen.  Sorry to say my friends, my faith was wearing thin, not because I didn’t trust God, I was so worn down emotionally that I was starting to build the wall back, as I'd let my guard down for two weeks.

So, anyway, . . . Tuesday was really warm and anticipated to be one of the first warm days in the 70’s.  We were picking my Mom up after work and taking her out for a belated birthday celebration.  We had bought tickets to see Shen Yun Performing arts.  However; Mom was getting ready to get the most surprising birthday present ever!   We went to work like any other day the past few weeks but maybe with a little less anxiety and just trying to be “normal”.  I had carried my phone with me all morning but no call.  I had returned to my office and left my phone and went to the restroom and grabbed some lunch in the hospital cafeteria.  Country fried steak and gravy, potatoes and lima beans!  I love lima beans!  I had debated taking my phone but left it in my desk.  I came back to the office with my lunch and was rambling on about how gravy was all over my lunch including the bottom of the container, my lima beans, and my sweater sleeve.  Literally “up to my elbows” in gravy.  Then my co-worker gently said, “you’re phone just rang, just a couple  minutes ago”.  I picked it up and recognized the number.  It was our agency and the number said “Austin, TX”.  So I got my drink and borrowed a tissue from my coworker (mine were covered in gravy) and she told me to take my drink.  Good thinking.  I headed to the lobby and saw it was a voicemail.  I could barely hear it and realized I didn’t  have it on speaker, I was yelling at the phone, “I cant hear you”.  I pushed speaker in time to hear, “ I didn’t get you on the phone so I didn’t call Larry but she is 25 months old and she’s soooooo cute.”  The rest of the message said for us to call her.  I tried to call Larry and the call failed 5 times as he was trying to respond to an e-mail from our agency that she had left moments after the message she left for me.  So I texted Larry, then I called him. He was trying to call the agency again.  I finally got him- he hadn’t got my text or talk to anyone at the agency.  So I told him we have a girl and she’s 25 months old.  We cried and praised God and then said we’d try to conference with the agency.  I called back and left a message saying we were both available and would call back by 1:00 if we hadn’t heard from her.  All this started at 12:15. 

I tried to return to eating but was shaking and ready to burst with excitement.  I waited 10 minutes and called back- she conferenced Larry and told us we have a beautiful Little Girl from Shaanxi China.  She's 25 months and her name is Wei, He Mei and she is living in the Weinan Children’s  Welfare Institute.   I had this lovely print out of “the call” questions and didn't want to write on my nice neat sheet so I was scrounging for a scrap of something to write on and wrote the name down wrong and misspelled a lot of other things and really have a very illegible piece of paper for our scrapbook.

We got off the phone with the agency and called each other back.  We made arrangements to run home and meet each other so we could open the agency e-mail together and get the info again.     I was on cloud nine, I remember thinking all the way home, “her name is He-Man” (obviously I was so excited I didn’t write it down correctly).  And obviously this wasn’t the only think I thought about on the way home.  Could she talk? Was she petite or stout? Was she light or dark complected? Would she like us?  Oh, no, she  hasn’t been anticipating us like we’ve been anticipating her.  What if she’s mad because we take her from China.  Oh my the joy and the unknowns!

I got home and Larry was showered and ready.  We just stood and held each other and sobbed and laughed and praised God.  We  set up the computer and videoed ourselves opening the e-mail.  We were a little clumsy and our minds would not allow us to think real clearly, we even had trouble opening the e-mail!  Something we do multiple times a day. 

After the e-mail we were off to tell the parents and family we could find.  More on that later.  I know this was a very long entry, and not terribly exciting for you . There is no way to capture the emotion we felt and the relief we had knowing she was ours and this day was finally here. We were overjoyed and I was speechless  for the most part.  I just cried and we laughed a lot and praised God some more.   And this went on pretty much for hours and into the night. 

Okay, I know you're wondering . . . where have we been?

To all our faithful followers, . . .I know you're wanting some info about our precious Little Girl but we have been so busy and so elated our feet have barely touched the ground in the past week. Until I can get some time to blog, I thought I'd share this with you- it totally explains why I haven't been updating here, sorry.  More info to come I promise! 

The Stork has arrived!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



STORK!!!!

OUR STORK!!!



Stork pulling in the driveway

Making the curve, headlights flashing.

The Stork is SMILING!

Yeah, that Stork, you know he's a careful driver.

Making the last loop.

The SCAN!



The Hand-off.

 Thank you Stork and we thank God Himself!  To all Fed Ex, UPS, USPS, and delivery workers everywhere, never underestimate the importance of your job!  The Saunders Family salutes you!

Stork watch- waiting for Fed Ex ground delivery

Penny on Stork Duty

 

Me and my mother-in- law are on Stork watch today impatiently patiently waiting on the Fed Ex to deliver our package.  We've already seen the contents as they were e-mailed to us yesterday afternoon.  What a wonderfully "lucky" St. Patrick's Day we had!  We received a call from Great Wall that was followed by an e-mail containing pictures and medical records.  We cried, of course, seeing that beautiful little face.  We hurried off to our local Chinese restaurant to get some assistance from the owner regarding the translation of her name.  The meaning is still not terribly clear but basically it means "togetherness" and "beautiful".  Then we went to Larry's sisters' to print the pics but were totally sidetracked with joy and tears and a little on-line window shopping.  So it was late and the grandparents had no info yet and no pics (sorry) because the printer ink was low and we had to choose between sleep or getting the pics printed.  Yeah, I know, we should've printed the pics but we were functioning on a dangerously low amount of sleep.  So the pics will be printed today. 

 

As we wait for the Stork we've had a few false alarms, our garbage service, a utility truck,  a low-boy hauling a grader, and a truck hauling propane.   As it would happen, I checked the fed ex tracking service and the package was put on the truck at 8:14 this morning, only 45 minutes from my house and delivery was set for 10:30.  But now its 12:10 and no truck, no Stork, and no package.