Adalynne Hope

The problem with having a dream is you can't run away from it; you carry it with you everywhere you go!  

Our journey to meet Adalynne Hope seemed like the longest of all.  Month and months passed after our failed adoption and nothing...no matches...nothing!  It was a roller coaster between hopelessness--and then we would rally just enough to keep going--then back to hopelessness.  I believed God had put the desire to adopt again inside of me but I did not know if I had the strength to continue to wait.  For those of you who are not familiar with the process, once your paperwork is done you just wait. Wait!  You have to be mentally, physically and emotionally prepared to bring a child into your family at any moment but then wait.  It is a very unusual situation to be in. 

I remember Christmastime 2008 I was really searching.  Our Pastor preached a message about being pregnant with a dream.  He used an analogy about how at the end of pregnancy a woman becomes very uncomfortable as she begins to prepare for the birth.  He also talked about how everyone else around only has a surface knowledge of what is going on inside of her.  Others can see she is pregnant but they go along with their lives.  To a woman at the end of her pregnancy that is all she thinks about.  It is her life!  He said some of you here today are pregnant with dreams; you are uncomfortable because you are in the waiting stages of birthing a dream God put inside you and it is all you can think about.  It is your life.  This hit me as I stood in the back of the church and I felt weak in the knees.  God was speaking to me.  So, I went home and told Adam what had happened and I told him I was going to reach down deep and find the strength to continue.  I went out and bought a sign for the nursery that said "dream" to place on the door.  It was like God had told me yet again it is okay to believe.  Human nature is to question and try and figure out the future.  So, after waiting that long for something to happen I began to question what He had said in the first place.  Have you ever been there?  Not fun!  I remember times in those months after our failed adoption that I sat on the floor of our empty nursery sobbing; angry that God had ever birthed this in my heart in the first place.  It was to painful to carry around this unfulfilled promise inside me.  My mantra became "hope deferred makes the heart grow sick".  I was sick from hopelessness and I was inclined to stay right there on my empty nursery floor.  Not physically, mind you, but emotionally and spiritually.  So there it was...by faith I hung my sign "dream".  Then I was reminded by a dear friend and sister in the Lord the rest of my mantra that I had forgotten.  "But A Promise Fulfilled is a Tree of Life".  She will never know what that did to me.  I have read the Bible since I was a child but sometimes you need someone else to remind you of what you already know to be true.  She reminded me of Hope!  It was then that I knew if God saw fit to bring me a daughter part of her name would be Hope!  

Now, I know the best read would be that within 2 weeks she came to us and we all lived happily ever after.  That was not the case.  We received two separate calls about possible matches but neither became reality.  Months passed and we neared the year of the anniversary of our loss in June 2009.  It seemed hopeless to the natural eye. but now I had a benchmark.  I remembered all of those things God put in my heart at Christmastime.  The summer was hard and I struggled to stay focused.  Adam and I decided that we would wait until the end of the year and if nothing happened then we would consider it over and move on with our lives.  I still am not sure how we would have done that but that was the plan! I started heavily networking with other agencies and gathered information thinking we would tell our current agency that we were pulling out of the program.  At least I felt like I was doing something!  So, I penned a letter to send our agency and I thanked the director for all the help she was with Jordan.   I also expressed that we felt we were running out of time and we needed to maximize our last few months we had left on our home study.  So, there it was. I showed it to Adam to proofread.  We felt assured that was what we were going to do; as well as network hard for the next five months.  Well, out of his wisdom Adam said lets sleep on it for 48 hours. I had another agency contact me with a birth mom who was due in September and she wanted to phone conference the next day.  July 21st at 3PM.  So, Tuesday morning July 21st arrives and Adam goes to work as I prepare to talk to this birth mother in the afternoon.  I was excited about the prospect of having a match.  So, much so that I never sent our agency the message about pulling out.  Then at 2pm July 21, 2009 our agency called only one hour before I was to talk to that other birth mother.  I couldn't  imagine why our social workers was calling so I started to express that we were running out of time and we felt we needed to look at other options.   I never could get all those words out because she began to tell me that there was a baby girl born in Ohio that morning and they had chosen us to be her family!  Now at this point you know God has got to be laughing.  We had our plan in place and I was taking matters into my own hands.  However, it was always in His hands anyway!  

So, we loaded up the kids and the baby stuff and headed for Cincinnati.  I would like to tell you that I was not scared but that would be a lie.  We prayed as a family and I talked to God the whole way out there.  I wanted to make sure He knew that I could not go through anything like last time again.  Hours passed and we hit New York.  I remembered the pain I had felt in that hotel room and I put in a worship CD.  The van was quiet, kids were sleeping, and God met me in that van in a way I will never forget!  Israel Houghton started to sing "I am not Forgotten"  and all of the sudden I had a picture of me looking down into a brown eyed face and singing to her "You are not forgotten; God knows your name..."  That is a private part of the story only a few know about.  I didn't even dare to say the words out loud but my heart believed she was mine.  Well, my mommy instincts kicked in.  The hospital was huge.   I had to go up all alone to the 36th floor with suitcase in hand  to meet my new daughter.  I think I was too tired to be scared.  I found a nurse who says she will go find my baby.  I watch her wheel out an isolate from the corner of the nursery.  There she was just waiting for me.  They took us back to a very tiny room intended for nursing mom's because there were no open beds and then she shut the door.  No husband?  No family?  But see God was in that room with us!  There was no fear.  Peace flooded me and I took that little brown eyed angel into my arms and I started to sing..."you are not forgotten, you are not forgotten, you are not forgotten, God knows your name..."  The night was spent cuddling and singing.  She was so peaceful.  I was so peaceful.  God held us both.  There was a supernatural healing in that room that night.  All the broken pieces were put back together, all the waiting forgotten.  She was mine and I was hers, and God knew all along!  We named her Adalynne Hope.  She brought hope back to me and we brought it to her.  She was born on a Tuesday and on that Sunday I held her in my arms at my brand new niece's dedication and I sang with her from Jeremiah 29:11   "I know the plans I have for you..."  It was one of those full circle moments you hear about where the light shines and you can clearly see everything.  She is 16 months now which is the same amount of time we waited for her to come home.  She has brought such joy into our hearts.  She loves to dance and always has a smile.  I can already see the song in her heart and I believe she is destined to bring a message of Hope to many!   Adalynne Hope  July 21,2009  <3