How Great Is Our God!!

“The Lord replied, ‘Look at the nations and be amazed! Watch and be astounded at what I will do! For I am doing something in your own day, something you wouldn’t believe even if someone told you about it.’” (Habakkuk 1:5)

And with that, my jaw is still on the floor as I have watched and am astounded! This was a verse that God gave me some time ago. Almost 4 years ago, I started praying for my heart’s desire: A baby girl…not only that, but a TINY baby girl. I don’t know why, I just wanted a tiny one. As I prayed for about 6 months, God gave me the promise, and also the name. As God led us to foster care, I knew that He would answer this prayer, but also knew that it would not be right away.

Five different foster babies have lived with us; three of them are our forever children. Not one of them was a tiny baby girl. Not one of them was our “Emma Claire”. But that was okay because I knew she would come.

Emma Claire is here. She was born on March 29, 2009 at 35 weeks, weighing 4lbs 14oz, 18 ½ inches long and was addicted to cocaine at birth. She is chocolate and has the chubbiest cheeks to be so small!

To put this all in perspective and so you will know as I do that this entire event was TOTALLY orchestrated by God, let me tell you the events of the past 3 weeks.

Remember, according to DHS, our home is full and they would not ever place any more children with us.

On March 11, I called my licensing worker to ask her something about our adoption stuff. Somehow the topic of us leaving our home open came up…I honestly don’t remember. On March 18, I get an email from the supervisor telling me they would like us to stay open to do emergency care. (This would be keeping babies from 1-30 days only.) We agreed and received a call the next day. It did not work out, but at least I knew we were on the list!

By March 26, I have not had any calls, or heard from anybody. My worker was coming to reassess our home on the 27th (since our adoption has not been completed) and happened to call to change the time. She asked how the baby was doing and I told her we did not have one. Well, evidently, nobody notified her that we had not been placed with. When she came to my home on the 27th, one of the first things she said was “We are going to open your home to OK county.” WHAT??? We are not in OK county and our county is VERY stingy with their homes. It happens, but NEVER this easily and only after a week and a half. I finally (still in shock) ask her why the change of heart and she said, “Because we want you to have a baby.” WOW!!!

I cannot even stress to you what a miracle this was. Only if you have been involved in foster care in my county would you really understand, so just trust me. THIS IS A MIRACLE! God totally changed the hearts of these people.

Monday, March 30, our home is opened to OK county. (Even they were in complete shock!) I was told that they would give me an emergency placement first because they didn’t want to “rock the boat” with a long term placement. No babies that day.

Tuesday, March 31, at 9:36am, I get a call. 35 week cocaine baby (which happens to be my drug baby of choice), etc, with all the details. I ask, “How long do you think she will need our home?” I was told “Oh…this one is heading for termination…you will have her a LONG time and she will be adoptable.” WHAT???

Now…with that being said, let me assure you that this is not a done deal. We are VERY early in the game (she isn’t even home yet) and nobody from DHS has promised us this baby, but God is a faithful God and I am believing in Him that this is our Emma Claire. God promised me a tiny baby girl and I could not have asked for the details to be any more perfect!

God has answered my prayer. I have been contemplating and praying about what to call this baby girl. Her birth name is almost unpronounceable so at first we thought “nickname”. But today, God reminded me that I have been praying for “Emma Claire” and He gave me “Emma Claire”. God promised me Emma, there were no other guarantees, so I am just going to trust in His goodness and His mercy and watch this miracle continue to unfold.

Please pray for Emma as she is one week old today and still in the NICU. She is perfectly healthy, but she is not eating like she should. She is making progress daily, but she needs to be taking 40 ml at each feed. She is only up to 15 ml today. As soon as she feeds 40 ml for 24 hours, we can bring her home. Right now I am trying to make it up there at least twice a day. It’s much harder to do than it sounded like.

I had to go to a “discharge” class on Friday. It’s a class on how to care for preemies. We had to watch a video on CPR. Okay…I can do this. In the first scene, a grandmother goes in to find her baby, CHOCOLATE BABY, not breathing. SERIOUSLY???? And then they proceed to do CPR on this chocolate baby. Can you say “way too close to home”? Fortunately she didn’t make a big deal out of it when I declined to “try it out” on the “fake” chocolate baby she had for us. It was really hard, but I made it through.

How great is our God?? That’s all for now…off to bed so I can be rested for the NICU tomorrow!! Thanks for all the prayers!!