Making a Decision

The next 24 hours told me without a doubt that I was meant to be this little boy's mama.

I had entered a contest from somebody's blog to win a Bible verse plaque. Amazingly, I won!! I never win anything and so I was so excited! My favorite Bible verse is Psalm 23 - The Lord is my Shepherd. This little boy has a name that is not so flattering in it's translation to English. I felt that if I were to adopt him I could not keep his Indian name. I was so bummed, because I love Regan's middle name: NanZiYun and was hoping to keep his Indian name as I had kept her Chinese name. When thinking about adopting from Vietnam, I thought I would name a little boy Gabriel. This little boy from India was not a Gabriel. I couldn't keep calling him little boy and I knew with winning this plaque that I was going to name him Shepherd. It just fit! I still couldn't decide on a middle name and I so wanted to keep something that had a connection to his Indian name. After alot of research, I found that his Indian name means "Joyful". After more research, I discovered that Asher meant "joyful, happy" and that was it, he was to be named Asher Shepherd. My happy shepherd.

I was flipping through blogs as I am prone to do when a blog caught my eye. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that she had two sons; one was named Shepherd and one was named Asher! It just felt like a sign!! I don't know why, but these two things falling into place just sealed my knowledge that this adoption was meant to be. In my heart, I just knew it.

I thought about little Shepherd all weekend. On Monday, I made an appointment to drop off the child study report to an orthopedic surgeon to discuss his special need. When I dropped off the paperwork, I felt that I might hear something later that week. Within forty minutes I received a phone call from the surgeon himself. I remember knowing that there were two surgical options for his special need and praying that one of the options not be necessary. The surgeon felt that the option I was so worried about was probably the route we would have to take. It's funny, but once I heard the worst case scenario, I just thought "no big deal, I can deal with that!". I just accepted it and it didn't become a big roadblock.

The only other concern I had was about a special need that was not previously mentioned to me, but showed up several times in his child study report. It is of a personal nature and so I won't be sharing it on the blog. It was actually a bigger roadblock to me in officially accepting his referral. Because of this need, he has a tremendous risk of cancer in his later life. Fortunately, it is one of the more treatable cancers. It was hinted in his report that this need had been addressed, but we had no official report on this. Katie tried to contact the orphanage for more information, but I knew he was my son and accepted his referral on March 16, 9 days after first seeing his picture!! And finally the pictures that stole my heart!!

So not happy to be photographed!!!
Look how tiny he looks!!

My absolute favorite picture. This was THE picture that did it for me!! He was tired of getting his picture taken and so he hid behind this toy and wouldn't come out!! What a little stinker!!! What a little personality!!