What a difference a year makes...

A year ago this week was an amazing roller coaster week.

D and I sent in our paperwork to accept E's referral the Friday before Mother's day. We were so excited and scared at the same time, but really looking forward to getting over to meet our new son and bring him home.

Then we got the news. He had been taken to the hospital with some of the other kids because of impetigo. This seemed weird to us because it's just a skin condition but because there was also measles traveling around and E still had the compromised immune system we were told it was precaution. Ok, we thought, that's good, he's being cared for and it's just a skin condition. All is well.

Then we got the next email. Things aren't so good. He ended up in a probable coma, had possible meningitis, and had other really scary diagnosis. I sent the medical information we had received to our PCP here in the states and she wasn't hopeful. She basically said that we should not expect him to live. Even if he did live, because of some of the things the Dr in ET said, he would probably have some pretty significant issues both mentally and physically.

Can I just tell you that it felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. We had been praying about this for a couple of months. I was sure he was our son before D was so I had already begun the process of falling in love. When you send in the paper work to accept a child there's something that happens to you. You take 'ownership' not that we own any of our kids or course... but he was ours. And here he was in the hospital half way around the world, suffering who knows what and we could do nothing about it.

We also heard that a couple of the precious children in his orphanage that had gone into the hospital with him didn't live.

We gathered the kids in the living room that night and prayed. We asked God to heal little E. Even if it meant his healing took him home to heaven, we wanted the suffering he was enduring to end. We sure wanted God to spare him though, and let us bring him home to love on here and watch him grow and get strong.

God heard us, and after a long week of driving Erin bonkers asking about updates, he started to heal and get better.

After several long weeks in the hospital he was able to go back to the orphanage, although we heard through his nanny that he wasn't liking that idea much. Poor little guy. ;o(

It took a couple of months to actually get over there, but I know it was God working. He knew how hard the trip would be on us and him and he needed to heal a bit and we needed to prepare.

After spending the first 12 days home in the U.S. at our Children's Hospital it's still a wonder to me that he survived those weeks in Addis.

Yesterday he was running around the back yard, jumping and kicking balls. Collecting bugs and eating ice cream cake, not at the same time. ;o)

God has big plans for little E. He should not have lived. I can't wait to see what he does with the life he was given.