The Day We Met Isaiah...

It was a Friday. September the 11th to be exact, so a date not easily forgotten. Not that we could anyway. That was the day we met our second child, Isaiah.

We had plans that night to go to "Rock the Universe"...a Christian event at Universal Studios in Orlando featuring Christian music artists. So in preparation, I washed and detailed the car that morning. Isaac and I were both a mess, I had not showered, Isaac had played in water and dirt all morning.

In a once in a month moment, I remembered to take my cell phone outside because I was expecting my friend Cara to call. About 11:10 the phone rang. I looked at the number expecting it to be Cara and that's when my heart skipped about 4 beats, my eyes did something funky where I can't tell if I was about to faint or it was like a mutant moment where things seemed to happen super slow as I time warped for just a second.

The number was Bethany Christian Services. I'd dialed it for various reasons in our relatively short time since beginning the process. 407-877-4006. It was the 4006 that I recognized.

My first thought?

TWINS

That's right. Twins. A week before on Friday the agency had contacted us by email about a birth mom wanting to make an adoption plan for the twins she was carrying. We told our adoption workers they were free to show her our profile and the entire week we had been praying for her and her babies and asking the Lord to lead how He desired.

So when it was Karen (our adoption worker) on the phone and she said she had some unbelieveable news for us, I just knew what she was going to say.

"We wanted to let you know that a birth mother viewed your profile this week and she has selected you." Karen said.

"Wow! You didn't tell me to sit down first! Wow. Whoa. Are you serious?" I replied.

"Yeah, you'll wanna sit down for the next part. It's pretty incredible." Karen said.

"Wait don't tell me anymore," I said, "I want Anthony and I to hear whatever it is at the same time. He's out on the tractor mowing the groves. We'll call you back when he gets here."

I called Anthony and relayed what had happened. "You're kidding. Nuh-uh!" was his first reaction. "Do you think it's the twins?" He asked exactly what I was thinking.

I told him to hurry.

Then I screamed. A scream of joy. And then squatted down to grab Isaac and say, "ISAAC! YOU'RE GONNA GET A NEW BABY!" Then we went inside and I made Isaac lunch so he would be settled when we made our phone call.

Anthony called his mom on the way to the house. He couldn't tell her much because we didn't know much. But there was honestly as much joy in our hearts over the knowledge that we had been chosen...that our baby was out there somewhere as we were when we first saw and heard Isaac's heartbeat on the ultrasound. It's the kind of joy that makes you want to shout and then call everyone you know because it's so amazing.

Anthony arrived. Isaac got settled in the kitchen and we made the phone call.

Karen and Sarah both picked up. Sarah is the birth mother agent/counselor and Karen works primarily with the adoptive families. We had the phone on speakerphone.

Karen repeated that we had been chosen by a birthmom and then she said the "incredible" part of the news...

"The baby was born Monday. He's here at the office. Are you guys interested in receiving this placement?"

"YES!" We said. "Holy cow! Tell us more. Mother? Father? It's a boy right? Where was he born? When did she see our profile?" and about a million other questions rolled off our tongues.

"The birth mother is Caucasian and the birth father is Jamaican. He was born on September 7th and he's perfectly healthy. He's been hanging out with all of us at the office today and we can't get over what a beautiful baby he is."- she described him. OUR SON!

Our birthmom hadn't decided beforehand that she was going to make an adoption plan and instead decided at the hospital after the baby was born. She debated long and hard for 2 days about what was the right thing to do and on Wednesday she decided placing her son in a home with a mommy and a daddy was the best thing for him. What an incredibly selfless choice!

So, because our agency was contacted at the 11th hour, they didn't have time to send out an email or call a bunch of people and ask, "This is the situation, would you like your profile shown to this birth mother?" Instead they went with what was on our "openness" page in our homestudy. The openness pages describe situations, mostly to do with the health history of the birth family, but also other things like race and gender and what all we as adoptive parents are willing to "accept" in a child. Ours was pretty open. Except for a few physical disabilities which would prevent us from living easily in foreign countries that aren't wheelchair friendly, we basically said "yes" to everything. So, when this healthy baby boy with a white mom and a black dad was born, they knew from our openness page that we wouldn't mind our profile being shown to a birthmother with a child who is biracial. So they scooped up a few of the profiles and went to the hospital for our birthmother to view.

And she didn't pick ours.

She chose a family who were leaders in a church with a large mixed race congregation thinking that kind of environment would be a good place for her son to grow up in. But for reasons I have no clue about other than God had his plan, when the agency called that couple to tell them, in the end they decided not to take Isaiah as their own.

So the Bethany workers called "Mama L" our birthmother back and told her. She was disappointed as can be expected. And they asked her if any other profile stood out and they said she immediately said, "Anthony and Sharon." I'll tell the story later of the day we met her and the reasons she gave for choosing us.

Until then, just know she picked us and we said yes to the beautiful baby boy she carried and delivered and cried over and placed lovingly and selflessly into our arms.

We'll write more later about transracial adoption as well, but I wanted to add here that we're actually thrilled our son isn't all-white. For us, adoption isn't about getting a baby who will never get questioned about his parentage. It's about adoption. It's doing what God did for us. He sought us out, called us out of our old lives and into new life with him... as his children he gave us a new name, an inheritance, discipline as our father, and a gazillion brothers and sisters including Jesus Christ.

All why?

Because he loved us and wanted to show in our lives how glorious he is to redeem us for himself.

AND because he loved us, we can also love. God didn't require I do anything before becoming his child...I didn't have to be perfect, or white, or Jewish, or circumcised (er...you get my drift on that one) or even understand fully what I was really recieving when I recieved his offer of life with him in exchange for my sin. But he did it. And now I'm a beloved daughter to the King of kings!

So Isaiah's skin color being differnt than ours isn't a big deal- not to us anyway. What IS a big deal is that we call him "Son" with every right and priviledge (and in the days to come, discipline) that entails. And no one...NO ONE... can ever change that. We're not trying to equate ourselves with God...we are NOT the perfect parents. But as Christians we're called to do his will "on earth as it is in heaven." So we sought him out (leaving God to the actual timing of it all) and gave him a new name. The only problems we see in our family with his skin color is that Isaac might get a little jealous in the summer because Zay's tan will be awesome!

The next hour or so was a flurry of activity. We called our parents and told them to come home, I called my sister to tell her. She was in awe. "Shut up. Are you SERIOUS?!" was her reaction. We both got showers and my mom and I dug out the baby clothes I had brought back from overseas to find something cute to bring him home in. In all this commotion, Isaac had fallen asleep in his seat at the table:) We called a few more family members to tell them. I also called our cousin Michelle to tell her she wouldn't be needing to watch Isaac that night because we weren't going to Rock the Universe. She was beside herself and I could hear the tears and disbelief over the phone. Our world changed instantly!

We all loaded up in the car and headed toward Orlando. We made one stop at Target along the way to buy a carseat so we could bring our baby home (a few onesies, socks, and a blanket snuck into the cart as well:)

We discussed the whole way what name we were going to choose. When picking out Isaac's name we had almost used Isaiah Kingston but just felt he was an Isaac (and boy he is!) so we "saved" the name Isaiah in case we ever had another boy. We considered Ilias and (believe it or not) Irving. I like the name Irving but Anthony doesn't. Anyway... the general consensus was Isaiah.

The Kingston probably came from Gwen Stefani naming her son Kingston a few years ago...but honestly, I can't remember if I had heard the name before that, then she made it cool, or I heard it from her and it gained coolness over time. It's very British sounding and I had always loved Annie Agarwal's kids names (Collin & Griffin) and how stately and colonial they sounded...anyway. No matter how it came to be, it was meant for our son as his birth dad was born in Jamaica! (Kingston, Jamaica sound familiar?)

We had the carseat and the name... and we finally made it to the agency about 3:30.

I hadn't really thought about what I'd think or feel when we met our adopted child.

I had hoped we'd get to be at the hospital when he or she was born and maybe even lucky enough to be in the delivery room. The moment a child first breathes is always so incredible. God-breathed life. It's incredible every time. So anytime I pictured the birthday of our new son or daughter, I always pictured it at a hospital and being there.

Walking into an adoption agency office wasn't ever in my mind. So when they brought Isaiah around the corner and put him in my arms I was just speechless and tears welled up in my eyes. He was the most beautiful thing ever. I think some of the emotional punch was taken out because he was neatly snuggled in a footed onesie and was all cleaned off and there hadn't been a long hour filled with yelling "PUSH!" preceeding the moment, but it was breath-taking nonetheless.He was awake and when I saw him, he looked exactly like our son. Not genetically (though we don't think he'll get much darker, so we won't be surprised if people think Isaac is the adopted one with his blue eyes, blonde hair, and fair skin) "looked like" my son...but in the sense that no other baby in the world could be him or fill the position of "2nd born son" in our home. He was OURS. 100% Grade A Rivers.
For all of you out there considering adoption and especially those of you who have biological children, I say this for you. There was EVERY BIT as much love for Isaiah as I had for Isaac from the very first moment. Kinda like a crazed animal I wanted to hold him and kiss him and let him hear my voice and look at him and care for him for all eternity. It's a God-thing for sure but somehow he knitted our hearts to Isaiah from the get-go.Isaac thought he was neat enough, but more wanted to play with Adrienne and Nick (his cousin and the agency director's child).

We held him and talked to him and took pictures for about 30-45 minutes.
Then we had to go sign papers so we handed him off to probably either Grandmama or Aunt Heather.
The whole time my heart was pulled into the other room. He was already MINE and I wasn't holding him. It was that same feeling I had after being wheeled to my room at the hospital after my c-section and then waiting a good 30 minutes or so before they brought Isaac to me. Any longer separation and I would have needed a straight-jacket!
So we signed the papers as fast as we could and Michelle (the director of the agency) gave me a run-down of Isaiah's schedule the couple days she had kept him. Which was odd, because usually it doesn't happen like that, so Michelle was particularly happy to see him placed and particularly sad to see him go. But go we did.

We loaded up our 2 kids and headed to Universal Studios.Kidding.

Well sort of. My dad was still going to go so we met the rest of the group and dropped him off.

They were all in awe.
The Wednesday before (2 days before) we had shared at church about our adoption and asked everyone to pray that we would get a baby soon- in God's timing of course- but soon.

I think now I want to ask our church to pray we'll get a million dollars! I tell you what! If it works as well, I promise to take all you blog-readers out to dinner. :) Kidding.

**From here the story gets a bit slow, but read on if you want**

We then headed to Babies R Us in downtown Orlando to find a different carseat. The one we had was awful, so we tried there. I put Isaiah in the sling laying down, so when people realized there was a baby in it, they asked the standard, "Awww! How old is he?"

You should have seen the poor moms when I said, "4 days." Some of them had 5 or 6 month old babies and still had baby weight and here I was in non-maternity clothes, hair done, make-up on with my 4 day old. I then removed the hit their self-esteem's took by adding, "We just adopted him today." Their faces lit up then. Mostly at the fact that he was adopted and it's not something you see everyday (or realize you see, especially the "day of") but partly because they didn't need to compare their tummies to mine! :)

We didn't find a seat there (but we did find Isaac's Halloween costume! Can't wait!) so we loaded up again and went to another Target. Found one at the next Target and went home.

It was so great going home. My heart was SO full.We didn't have a crib the first couple of nights so we just made a pallet on the floor in our room for Isaiah. The first night he slept 5 hours. I knew I had won the baby lottery at that point. He (still) hardly fusses and sleeps great.

So that's it. The day we met Isaiah.
He's perfect and he's ours. Forever!