I don’t believe any prayer goes unanswered, but the answer may not be what we expected or even hoped for. God answered our prayers for a child in a way that wasn’t expected or in the way I dreamed up when Michael and I got married.

But we officially have a son now.

I still feel the need to be protective of him on this public platform, so you may not see pictures of him or see his name written on my blog for quite some time.

But if you’ve followed our story, you can know that he is ours.

While I wouldn’t define myself as a cynic, there is usually a snag in each step along the way to adoption (just read my previous posts to know what I mean). Therefore, it was only natural for me to prepare my heart for some sort of complication. Again, I’m not cynic. I just learn from experience.

And of course there was one last “expect the unexpected” moment before adoption: We weren’t on the judge’s docket.

The whole thing took place on Zoom. As we waited for our turn, we celebrated and shed happy tears for all the other families that were adopting that day. We were the last ones when the judge said that those were all the families on her docket. My heart skipped a few beats. To our TREMENDOUS relief, the court clerk confirmed that we were scheduled to adopt at that time and then proceedings with the judge began.

I like to think it was God’s sense of humor and His way of telling me, “You see all these bumps in the road? Haven’t I always got you over them? I just wanted to remind you of that. So chill out.”

I highly doubt God said “chill out” because who says that anymore? (Okay, I do). But I’m sure He said something along the lines of “Be still”. He reminds of that so much that’s it’s literally tattoed onto my wrist.

I was curious as to how our son would feel on Adoption Day. Because he is older, I wasn’t sure if he would view the day as a sad ending to his previous life or a beautiful beginning to a new life. Thankfully, he was just as excited as we were when the judge signed the papers saying the adoption is now finalized.

He has a new name. A new family (even though he has technically been a part of it from the moment he walked in our door). No worries at the pit of his stomach that he’ll one day get taken away from us.

I think the best part for him was that he can now spend the night at his grandparents house without us. I know this because he asked almost immediately in that all-too casual way that makes it obvious that it’s not casual at all. “Soooooo….when do you guys think I can spend the night at Mawmaw’s and Pawpaws?…Probably not for a while….right? Or tonight…maybe? Tomorrow?”

Real subtle, dude. The first thing you want to do when you get adopted is leave our house? (I kid. For a child who has never had to spend the night at someone else’s house for the sheer fun of it, I didn’t blame him one bit.)

We did the next best thing and left the country a day later for a week on Royal Caribbean. And we didn’t have to get approval from DFPS to do it.