So I have been wanting to write this story for almost 2 1/2 years now. Many people, even random ones ask us about adoption and any advice that we can give. Honestly, I dont have any great advice except that Zyan's story is a God story and only he could have put this all together. So here we go...
I was in my own world 2 1/2 years ago loving life, going on road trips, livin close to the beach, havin my dream job, sharing every minute of it with my blonde bombshell of a hubs. Then, the earthquake happened in Haiti in February of 2010. My heart sank and went out to all the people I was able to met a few years prior. I just new I had to go and share love. So I went alone on that trip. While being there little did I know that God would bring lil snapshots of my future life. I was in an orphanage holding a lil baby they just found in the trash and was singing to her lil frail starved body. A man came up to me and said, "Whitney, God wanted me to tell you that you are to adopt this child." I assumed that meant the one I was holding. I went to the nearest Internet cafe and wrote Andy and all my family an email about this child and asking Andy if we could adopt this baby. Blondie hubs has always wanted lots of kids no matter where they come from so he was on board. However, our first question when we began to look at this option was how in the world were we going to pay for this. The only money we had was money in our trip fund to the Holy Lands that we had been saving for 2 years. We decided before we made any more decisions Andy needed to experience Haiti the way that I had and hold this child and see him for himself. So we went back in July.
So of coarse, he met him and feel in love and thats all we talked about the whole time we were there and trying to find out information about this orphaned toddler. On the plane ride home, I couldnt stop thinking about it and kept selfishly thinking about how badly I also wanted to go on our big trip and if I was really ready to be a mom and "give up" the life that we had then to do so. Andy got his answer a little quicker. We were sitting in the Miami airport and opened his book and the first thing it said was, "You dont have to go to the Holy Lands to experience Jesus. You can experience him in your everyday life." Andy closed the book and that was the last time he looked at it. My answer didnt come until later.
A few weeks later, I woke up in the middle of the night from a crazy dream with a lil african american boy sitting in our bathtub calling me mommy and he was playing with a lil lion and a lamb type doll. I didnt know what this was suppose to mean but I new it was from the Lord. So I got up and opened my bible and I came to the passage in Prov. 24:11-12 that says.." Rescue those who are unjustly sentenced to die, save them as they stagger to their death. Dont excuse yourself by saying,"Look we just didnt know." For God understands all hearts, and he sees you.He who guards your soul know you knew. He will repay all people as their actions deserve." I was tired of making up excuses. I woke up Andy and said I am ready. We canceled our trip the next day. We started calling and emailing everyone that we new about adoption and how they could help us in this journey. We had some awesome people behind us. However, the more we got into it the more uncertain things became and then some very scandalous stuff began to happen. So we pulled back confused and angry and devastated. We were for sure this is what God wanted. This was in November 2010.
We began to seek counsel from 2 different families in our church asking them about their domestic adoptions. We still werent sure what to do with all this money since we couldnt go on our trip. We still felt like we were somehow suppose to use this money for some bigger purpose. Each of these families had adopted in different ways so we had lunch discussing our options if we decided to move in that direction. To our amazement; one of the sweet families asked how much we had saved and matched what we had. This wasnt a few hundred dollars people this was several thousand dollars. We just wept. We couldnt believe this and still were so confused because we didnt even have a child yet or even moving in any direction towards this; yet they just believed in this purpose for our life. We sat and waited.
One of the other families who we spoke with sent us an email on a wednesday in January 2011 with a listing for a child in need of a family. It was through a lawyer in a few towns over. We looked at it and decided to call. It was a posting for a lil girl in Kentucky. They needed to know right away if this is what we wanted to do. We didnt even talk about it we just looked at eachother in our car and said we would like to pursue this girl. They asked if we had any papers done(homestudy which takes 6-9 months to complete). We said, "NO, we have nothing done." We got all of our homestudy paperwork done, interviewed, accepted, and talked with birth mother all in one week. A few days after we got approved as the adopted parents and writing ridiculous amounts of checks, people began sending us money left and right. We were amazed at how generous people were even people that hardly new us. We picked out a name, Laney Grace. Thats a whole other story about why we picked that name and began buying girly stuff. Then we got a phone call. ITS A BOY. I was even more excited to be honest. My dream I had so many months before was beginning to make more sense.
TO BE CONTINUED....
Each year I get a new picture frame and put a picture of our family doing something from that year to remember.
Andy as a baby along with zyan and my themed presents this year.
I get a new plate each year.
Its baking time already.
Our tree in our room is very special. Its our travel tree. Every place we have gone we get an ornament and also ornaments that zyan has made. We pick out a new one for him each year that has do with something he did. Next year we will start putting his ornaments on his tree.
