God is Gracious - Hannah's Story, Part 5

For Part One of this post, please click here; for Part Two, click here, for Part Three click here, and, finally, for part Four, click here.



We were running on pure adrenaline at this point. We were beyond tired but so ready to see this perfect girl that God had blessed us with so unexpectedly.

Tim had not yet held her so he was the first to get to his hands on her. Then grandma and aunt had to get in some time. We loved on her until we were so exhausted we had to attempt to get some rest. I think we finally attempted to go to sleep about 6:00am. At this point, we’d been awake for more than 24 hours and were still in shock!!

Everyone kept asking, “What is her name?” We had no idea. We hadn’t exactly had time to come up with a name. We had discussed a few names in the days prior to her birth, but we thought we had three more weeks. While we were in the waiting room right after she was born we were actually flipping through the magazines there, hoping the perfect name would jump out at us. My mom and sister made some suggestions as well. When we finally got settled into the room we made a list of about five names that we liked. We had settled on Rosemary for her middle name. My first name is Mary, after my mom and her grandmother. Tim’s grandmother’s name was Rosie. We combined the two in order to incorporate both families in her name. The first name came down to two names that we liked. Tim chose Hannah. Since then we’ve learned that Hannah means, “God is gracious.” Perfect.

The next day we hit the ground running with the attorney’s office and the social worker. Thankfully, although our attorney was out of town, his assistant began the long legal process. The agency began the process of updating our home study. We had a mountain of paperwork to fill out and we were quite stressed about the entire process. Our greatest fear was that this sweet girl would have to go into foster care during this process. Thankfully, that was not the case.

After another night in the hospital we finally got the word that we were being released. Because we still didn’t have legal custody of Hannah, we all, meaning the three of us and Hannah’s biological mother, had to walk out of the hospital together. Sharon had kept us up to date on how the mom was doing and I’d gone to her room down the hall and spoken with her a couple of times. She hadn’t seen Hannah since the birth, though so we were a little nervous. However, it worked out perfectly. She looked at Hannah one last time and I took her and Sharon back home while Tim took Hannah to our house.

We got home on Saturday and Tim’s parents, his niece and her husband and son all came to visit. The grandparents couldn’t get enough of her. She was already being spoiled!!

The next few weeks passed through a haze of legal stuff. We went to court for the mom’s official surrender of her rights. We had to deal with some issues with the biological father. We had things to complete for the home study as well as visits with our social worker. All of those details, while significant to us and stressful as we were going through them, are really way too much to include here.

My purpose for sharing this story is to share a little bit of my joy with you and to impress upon you the power of prayer.

On February 13th, we went to court one last time to finalize our adoption. We had been through a whirlwind of activity in the previous 6 months. This was the moment we had waited for and it was a precious moment.

For so many years I prayed that God would bless Tim and me with a child. I’m not surprised that he answered that prayer because God is faithful. I am, however, overwhelmed with thanksgiving and gratitude that I can’t even express in words, that He answered our prayers with this sweet natured girl. Isn’t God wonderful??

What I thought was a “No” was actually a “Wait.” I don’t claim to understand all the hows and whys, but what I do understand is that we serve an awesome God. He loves us and if we delight ourselves in Him, He will give us the desires of our heart.

He has given us the sweetest blessing and we will forever be humbled by that fact. We can’t wait for Hannah to be old enough to understand her story and how God worked in our lives to bring us all together.

I look forward to sharing more about sweet Hannah here in the future.

If you’ve reached this point in this story, I appreciate your patience in reading it all. I love telling it. It’s a perfect opportunity for me to honor and glorify God.

What has God done in your life? Are you sharing that with others? Are you taking the opportunity to talk about Him through the things He’s done for you?

"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. ~~Jeremiah 29:11

-by Jennifer
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