The following day I went for a nice long walk to sort out my thoughts. You see, I was quite comfortable with the fact that this adoption was going to be a no-brainer. At the time I was working for the adoption agency. The fact that I had met the attorneys and many of the foster mothers working with the agency brought a sense of control. There was comfort in knowing the attorney handling our case and knowing the foster mother as well.
Fears associated with the unknown were about to test me once again. The director of our agency informed me that Ana Lucia’s adoption was being handled by an attorney that the agency had not worked with before. The agency staff in Guatemala had been trying to bring the agency and this particular attorney together for months. If we decided to proceed with Ana Lucia’s adoption our case would be the test case for this attorney. We would be the guinea pigs. Hold on, what happened to my confidence in knowing the attorney? What about the possibility of me knowing the foster mother? As I walked down the sidewalk in Guatemala City I was having a good long conversation with God. I was questioning the circumstances. I was so sure this adoption was going to proceed with fewer unknowns since I was now working for an adoption agency. If we moved forward with this adoption we would be giving up the peace of known facts. There was no previous experience with this attorney. I did not know the foster mother she was living with. So many details were out of my control. All of the sudden I felt a strong conviction. The question “how dare you?” was impressed upon my mind. God was speaking to me. How dare I be upset that I had no control over which attorney this baby was placed with, or which foster family was caring for her, or whether or not our agency had experience with this attorney. What choices did this precious baby have? She didn’t choose to be born into poverty. She had no control over which attorney was handling her case or which foster mother was caring for her. How dare I question the whole adoption simply because I wasn’t in control of the circumstances. God was reminding me from the beginning that He is in control. Wasn't I supposed to learn that in the previous two adoptions? Yeah, short memory Aimee. From that moment on I was at total peace about moving forward with the adoption of the sweet little baby I had met the previous day. Now I just had to wait on the paperwork and her medical reports…oh, and tell Mark about her…
“So honey, I met this sweet little baby girl on my trip”…
Honestly, I don’t remember the exact conversation but I do remember I did not bring it up with Mark on the first evening home from Guatemala. I do remember that all of the paperwork was submitted with no problems and all of the initial medical reports were great. We decided to accept the referral and move forward with the adoption. I secretly hoped that this attorney would use this case as his proving ground and dazzle us with abilities.
It was so much fun introducing the kids to Ana Lucia via her photo. When Katie looked at the photo she immediately replied “I know this baby! I held her.” Too cool.
In our first two adoptions we chose to keep the children’s given birth names – Marco Vinicio and Gustavo Adolfo. The new baby’s name was Lucia Alejandra. Hmmmm. We figured if we kept her name she would quickly become Lucy. We already have an Alex in the family so decided not to go with Alejandra as her first name. So the decision was made to keep her name and add her mother’s first name. This is how she became Ana Lucia Alejandra Davis.
Christmas Day 2005 – In Guatemala
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