Signs

How many times do we pray and ask for a sign? How many times do you get a sign and completely miss it? I was lucky to miss mine when it happened but could, in hindsight piece it all together. 

While we were waiting for Janke it was an anxious and somewhat stressful time for us. A lot of people close to us did not approve, a lot of people questioned our decision, we lost some friends ... it was a bit of an eyeopener on many levels. So we asked, several times for signs that we are doing the right thing and that our decision be blessed. Anyway, I was so determined to make this work that I was not looking much for asked signs. So when my mom referred to our little one in waiting as Kayla, I was down right furious. How can grandma to be not remember our child`s name? A name we chose before we even dated properly. It is not as if we were secretive about the name either. Anyway, when the call came that there is a little one assigned to us we were over the moon with excitement that little Janke Marjolein Gerber is finally going to join our family. Did I get hit with a sign in the face in the social worker`s office when I learned that we are receiving baby Michaela in a few days time? God planted her name in my mom`s thoughts months before we received her. 

Three years later...
While we were waiting for the adoption agencies to get back to us we decided to choose a name for our newest little one ... so off to the internet we went. I sent a few options to Kobus and he liked one of them, so we had a little discussion and Anya Mari Gerber was conceived in our hearts. Marie was my grandmother`s name and I really miss her and wanted a small piece of her back in my life. 

The weekend that followed the "conception" Kobus asked to see Janke`s time capsule and together we looked through all the special things I saved for her. I found her armband that she wore in hospital at birth. I was floored when I saw the name on the armband ..... Baby Anja! Can God give you any better sign as a blessing and confirmation than that?

In 2015 God showed me Anya`s name on Janke`s hospital tag and He confirmed it again on 19 December 2016 when I saw her birth certificate for the very first time. She was registered as Lize-Marie. Our chosen name for her was Anya Mari Gerber. How more tangible do you want a sign to get? We trusted God with our journey, and He delivered it spectacularly!

So the moral of the story is this ... if you ask, and you believe, then He will deliver, one way or another. It is definitely NOT within your time frame or according to your schedule, but somehow, some way He will give you a sign that you are on the right track and that blessings will follow.

So, if you are reading this out of pure desperation (like I was when I read others`) please know that your happy ending is out there. It might not be how you planned it, it might not be the journey you chose and it might not be your timeline but He has something amazing planned for you. So look for the signs and be open-minded when that crossroad come when you might need to go down a path you never planned. There will be signs to guide you. 

An update

I saw a post from my cousin this weekend where she blogged about their journey with infertility and how they chose a completely different route to ours, for completely different reasons. It brought me back to our journey and how blessed we were with our family and that in turn brought me back to my own blog.

I realised that life happened much too fast and that time ran away with me much faster. So much has happened to our family since my last post....herewith then, an update!

Anya Mari Gerber was born on 10 October 2016 and placed with us on 20 December 2016. My best Christmas gift EVER! .... sorry babes, the Carrol Boyes comes pretty close...

Our adoption journey is now complete ... technically, but our life journey just got a lot more exciting.

Our second adoption took much longer than the first one and my patience and trust were tested over and over again. I became so despondent at one stage that I refused to buy anything for the little one in waiting. Very different from my first approach where I was ready for action from day one.
We also had a daughter already that we had to guide and coach on this adoption journey in order for her to understand what adoption really is and what it entails. Before this, the word "adoption" was just a word that she knew and a story that she knew and recited but she did not really understand. The full weight of that story and how you tell it really only dawned on us properly when we had to look into those trusting eyes and pray that the right words will be dictated to us by a higher hand.
How proud am I not of my Janke child. Embracing her story with so much joy and pride. She blossoms when she tells her story and how she became a big sister. I pray that when the time comes that we have to tell Anya her story that she too will take pride in her journey. Credit I can not take for this, I am much too inexperienced. I can only thank God that He is in control of this ship. Many days I feel like the deckhand on this vessel but I draw endless courage to know that we have the best Captain ever. 

So, here we are ...  the blessed parents of two spectacularly different divas.