Introducing.....Mary Alan Colbert!!!

 

 On June 22, 2011, I was in the car with Annabeth and Ivy. We were about to place an order in the McDonald's drive-through line. We were excited because we had finally gotten a McDonald's with a double drive-through. Whoopie!! In the big town of Dothan, you get very excited about these things. Well, right as we pulled up and the lady said, "May I interest you in the.....", my phone rang and it was a call from CCAI (our agency). I knew it was THE CALL. Poor lady at McDonald's. I said, "Ma'am, I'll be right back"....as she was going "Excuse me? Ma'am?, Ma'am?" I pulled over and took the call, as I put it on speaker phone. The lady on the other line said, "I have a little princess you may be interested in." OH MY GOODNESS!!!! I about fell out!!! I got a huge knot in my throat and could barely say the words, "Yes, I would love to hear about her." She began to tell us all about her. She was a year old as of June 6, 2010. This was a guess since they had found her in a bed of flowers under a bridge when she was possibly a month old (I love the bed of flowers part). She has a minor heart condition, but the doctors do not think she will need surgery. She is in New Day Foster Home in Beijing. She said she would send pictures and all of the information to my email and we could let her know if we wanted to adopt her within a week. As you can guess, I flew home, called Kelly on the way, and forwarded the email to him all while driving. NOT a good example to my daughters, but I felt like this would be an exception.  We videoed and talked to Kelly while we all pulled up the email together. I KNEW this was going to be my baby!! As we pulled her information up, we gasped!! She was the most beautiful baby! AB SO lutely adorable!!

          We studied over her information and had our pediatrician look over all of her information. We prayed that if this little one was the baby God had picked for us, that our doctor would have a peace about it too. When she called me back the next day, she said, "I really have a good feeling about this one." As soon as I hung up, I called Kelly and we decided right then to call our agency and make it official. WOW!! It was kind of weird though..... I felt like I was on one of those house hunting shows where they say, "Well, I guess you just bought a house." I think I was in shock. Within minutes, I had gone from a mom of 4 and really feeling like I was pretending to be adopting, to becoming a mom of 5. This was another crazy WOW moment. I had "officially" been catapulted into my tunnel-vision time of thinking non-stop of my baby in far away China. I couldn't think of anything better though. Thank you Lord for your unbelievable answers to my prayers. 
          One of the neatest parts of the whole thing is how I have been praying for our baby since we began our process over a year and a half ago. We have prayed with our children that she would be in a safe place where they were loving on her and taking great care of her. In the back of my mind, I had doubts that she was in a place where they were doing this. I felt she was probably in an orphanage where she was one of about 6 babies being taken care of by a nanny. I felt she was probably spending most of her days in her crib or in a walker, in one room of the orphanage with a cold tile floor. To my absolute amazement, this child has been in the most wonderful place God could have put her. The orphanage she is in is incredible and is paving the way for other orphanages in China. She is actually living with a foster mother and father and she is their only baby. They also have an older daughter who lives with them. It sounds like she is getting lots of love and attention. I think she goes to the orphanage every few days when they go on special outings. She has been very socialized and been in many different environments. She has also seen animals which is a big plus for us. They even have a dog! 
           I don't know why I am so amazed. God amazes me all the time. He just went over and beyond this time. "Now all glory to God, who is able, through His mighty power at work within us, to accomplish more than we might ask or think." Ephesians 3:20