I am able to start David's story from last July which would have been about a month from his due date. James and I were driving home from Oklahoma City after celebrating our anniversary. We were just talking back and forth about the future. Our first foster placements had just left and I was preparing to have surgery so we were on a "break" from foster care but it was exciting for me to wonder what God's plans were.
I have girls names picked out just in case God ever decides to bless us with another girl and at that point last summer we were thinking of trying to foster and adopt a girl but I told James we should think about boy's names because we could possibly need one! I wanted a strong biblical one, and we started going through the popular ones, when we got to David, James stopped and said "I like David" " I love the story of David and I love my uncle Dave." That was pretty much the end of that conversation, we put the name David on our "just in case name list."
Fast forward a few weeks to our kitchen, I was doing well after surgery, school was getting ready to start and we were ready to foster again. We were talking about what would be best for our family and my brilliant and amazing husband said "Why don't we just leave it in God's hands. Let's be open to whatever child he has for us." That is exactly what we told our Buckner workers. The VERY NEXT DAY (August 22, 2014) our phone rang, there was a 10 day old baby boy in the NICU needing placement. James and I said "yes!" at the same time! Just a few minutes later it was a done deal, we were told we go to the hospital to hold him and visit with the NICU nurses.
First, we had meet the teacher with the older kids then we needed to drop them off with grandparents plus there was the matter of not owning any baby supplies so we made a mad dash to Wal-Mart, put together the car seat and stroller in the parking lot and headed to meet this precious baby boy.
We rang the NICU buzzer and his nurse came out to meet us, we had to scrub and gown and then she took us to his little room, it was directly across from the nurses station. It was there that we peeked into that bed and laid our eyes on the baby God had planned to be our son. I asked him to hold him and she placed him in my arms. He was so tiny and he smelled so good!! He smelled like vanilla, which turned out to be from that pacifier they gave him.
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| August 22, 2014 |
Right after James took that picture, He told me this baby was going to stay with us forever. He just knew it. Our Buckner worker sat with us that evening, we had to take a NICU dismissal class, catch up on some of his care and do paperwork. She told us two other families had been passed on because they were foster only and CPS felt sure the baby would go toward adoption. We prayed for God's will to be done in his case and prepared ourselves to take home an infant for the first time in 6 and a half years!!!
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| leaving the hospital |
Our sweet friend Kerra came that night with dinner and baby supplies! I am so thankful for that baby swing! James' mom and John bought the big kids home and met David that night as well.
We called him David from that first day and his middle name had to be James since all of the guys in our house have James somewhere in their name. It was a fitting name. He really had some giants to face those first few months and he conquered them all.
He was an instant hit with Makayla, Christopher and James Henry! They love him and he loves them, he thinks they are all so funny! This was the morning after we bought him home and they held him for the first time.
It was pretty clear as early as September that his case would go to adoption. He had amazing people fighting for him to have a wonderful life. I am thankful that everyone on his case down to his lawyer ( yes he had his own) and the judge always kept his best interest first. By February his case moved to adoption and in May we met his adoption worker, Alisha and July 2, 2015 we finalized. Everyone involved told us how "easy" his case was and how quickly everything happened. It is very rare for a case to wrap up in less than a year and in less than 11 months he was adopted. Do these legal circumstances make us lucky? No. Blessed, is what they make us. This was all God's plan from the day David was conceived.
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
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