Introducing....Hailey

Does anyone remember this little girl?  She has been listed on Reece's Rainbow for quite some time.  Isn't she precious?!

This sweet face is little Hailey from China.  We first noticed her a couple months after we had gotten home from Ukraine with Anna and Toria.  Her little picture just tugged at my heart, and I remember thinking how I wish we could adopt her.  It was one of those thoughts where you know you can't really do it, but you just want to think about it!  And how awesome it would be if you could.  But then reality hits you as you stare at the 7 kids you already have at home and 4 of them are age 3 and under...  And you just spent 25K on an adoption and you are still really just adjusting to it all...  

I would love to go into the whole story, but I will try to shorten it a bit.  Last Christmas, we first saw her picture.  For 5 months or so, we prayed for her, thought about her, prayed some more, and just really were hoping she would show up on the MFFM page at Reece's Rainbow.  She is so adorable I thought for sure someone would step up and claim her!  But that didn't happen and in June I noticed she had an updated picture.

And oh my word....  She was even cuter in this picture!  This one really got my attention and tugged hard at my heart!!  I immediately started posting her on facebook and on this blog to see if anyone was interested in adopting her.  I honestly could not believe she had stayed listed that long!  She is absolutely precious, especially in her new picture! 

We kept praying for her and trying to find her a family.  And there was no response.  Nobody inquired about her that I know of.  And certainly no one asked me.  We started praying for her as a family.  We told the kids of how much she needed a family and they kept saying that we should just adopt her.  But Mark and I of course, were not so sure.

I emailed Andrea to see if there were any other pictures I could use to continue to facebook and blog about her. She sent them, and when I saw the pictures, I really did not want to share them. They were so adorable, and it was then that I realized that I wanted her. I was falling in love with her and I didn't want to share her pictures because I was sure after seeing them, someone would commit to her right away.

Can you see why?  :))  SO precious!

But I did it. This little girl needed a family and who was I to withold sharing pictures of her out of selfishness!  You can see my post about Hailey here.

But as time went by, there just seemed to be something speaking to my heart and it kept getting louder and louder.  So I decided to research it a little bit.  Adopting from China is way different than adopting from Ukraine.  I found that out real quick.  They have some pretty strict requirements and I wasn't so sure that our family would even qualify to adopt from China.  That could've taken us out of the running real quick. But as it turns out, we did meet the requirements!!

Alright, now what? We may meet the requirements, but how could we do this and can we afford to do this?  Is this even right?  We had to know for sure before we could move forward at all! And there were just so many questions.

I think we were trying every way we could to get out of it. NOT because we didn't want Hailey!!!  But because we just really wanted to make sure that this was something that God was asking of our family.  That this was the child He wanted for us and that this was truly His will.  Well, I will tell you this...  God made it abundantly clear to us that this was from Him.  I have never been more sure of something in my life!  There have been some pretty amazing answers to prayer and doors opened in the last several weeks!  Really!  You just gotta trust me on this I guess.  And there have been so many little things that have happened to confirm this for us!  So so many!  Someday, I will be able to share them.  But not yet...

Anyway, here is our little girl!  We are trying hard to get the paperwork done and the funds raised!  This process is not going to go as quickly as the last one did, which I don't like. But we do have faith that God is in control and it will all come together in His time! We are going to try to move as fast as we can.  But we are exactly where we are supposed to be and trusting Him.  We have already seen amazing blessings since we obeyed Him and committed to adopting this precious Chinese blessing! Little miss Hailey is 5.  She needs to come home already!