When we started this journey, we had an 11 month old baby boy and were 4 months away from giving birth to our second boy. Since we knew we would have boys, we decided we would proceed with our adoption with preference for a girl. We had already decided long ago that our first daughter's name would be Matsy Grace (with namesake to a MiMi named Matsy that is just precious!)
Well.. Twenty Six months past that initial application, our agency is giving very few referrals for girls. The wait is significantly longer for girls. And so... we prayed what that meant for our family. We prayed if we were specifically called to wait it out for a girl, God would reveal that to us. He revealed to us this... We didn't get to pick the gender of our bio babies. We have two rowdy little brothers who would LOVE a baby brother. We would save a significant amount of money due to our house already being full of all things BOY!
So through A LOT of prayer... WE ARE EXCITED TO ANNOUNCE that a few weeks ago we opened our adoption to EITHER GENDER!!
THAT'S RIGHT! If we have a boy, we will call him JUDAH!!
So what does that mean for a little girl named Matsy Grace? Well, we could still technically get a referral for a girl! If we receive a referral for a boy, we would still love to have a Matsy Grace one day, but we'll leave that up to God!
For now, we are excited at the thought of our boys having a brother! The thought of another boy getting to share in our boys' special bond of brotherhood makes my heart all mushy! The boys have been extra excited! We were driving down the road yesterday and Noah out of the blue said, "I'm ready for my brudder to come home. I'm gonna give him hugs and smooches, Mommy!" Boy or girl, they'll be great siblings!
So... there it is. The reality of the real push for our NIGHT IN ETHIOPIA fundraiser is that this process may go a (little) faster than we had initially thought. IF current patterns stand, we COULD have a referral by fall/end of the year! There's obviously never any guarantees with international adoption, but that's what current time frames and others with our agency would estimate.
We would LOVE for you to join us in prayer for our child. For our fundraiser. For our boys to understand all of this. For Judah or Matsy Grace to be protected from harm and endure as little trauma as possible. For our child's biological parents to be find hope in the Lord. For us to have patience and wisdom as parents.
