Friday morning I woke and immediately asked Stephen “what time is it?” (the clock was on his side of the bed), only 5:30!! Big bummer. I had almost 5 more hours to wait until our driver was scheduled to come pick us up. And we had to go back to the orphanage Hannah’s Hope and sign some paperwork before we could go back to the hospital and visit our baby boy. Time felt like it was dragging!
Jeremiah’s doctor, told us that he was doing much better today and we got to hold him almost the entire afternoon!! Our little guy got pneumonia and then had an allergic reaction to the medicine that caused his tummy troubles which caused him to become anemic.
But the real surprise was just about to happen!
About 5 PM our driver came to take us back to the hotel. When he came into the hospital room he was grinning from ear to ear and said, “family at hospital, I have big surprise for you. Good news.” We asked him what the surprise was, but he would not tell us. He just kept saying it was good! We said goodnight to Jeremiah and went to wait for the elevator to take us to the bottom floor. As we were getting into the elevator our driver says, “Good news! Jeremiah has a brother Carlos and he will be coming to Hannah’s Hope.” We could not believe it! We knew that Jeremiah had a brother and had asked if it would be possible for us to get a picture of him, but were told probably not. We were very excited and quite overwhelmed. It was not until after, at dinner that we actually understood the entire situation.
During dinner the director of Hannah’s Hope told us that Carlos was not at Hannah’s Hope for a visit, but his birth mom had relinquished her rights for Carlos and had made an adoption plan for him. Wow, talk about amazing! And talk about feeling shocked and overwhelmed!
The plan was that on Saturday before we went to the hospital to say goodbye (for now) to Jeremiah we would go and meet Carlos and spend some time getting to know him. The director was so helpful and caring. She said that this was a big shock for us and that we should take a lot of time to think about what God would have us to do and pray much about adopting Carlos.
We could not believe that Jeremiah’s birthmom brought Carlos to Hannah’s Hope the same weekend that we came to visit! Amazing!
After dinner we went back to the hotel and met in the lounge area with the two other families that were visiting their children. We spent several hours talking about all the awesome things that God had done for each of our families in our adoptions. It was getting late so we all held hands and prayed for each other and all of our children. It was such a sweet time. Both of these families are so special to us and God used them to encourage us. And the remarkable thing is that God gave all three families two beautiful Guatemalan blessings!
Lots of thoughts were going through my head that night… what is Carlos like? Will he like us? Can we adopt him? Why did his birthmom place him for adoption? And why now? What does Carlos look like? So many thoughts!
House of Smooches 