officially official

Today it became officially official, Mikayla Jo is now, forever a McLeland! We have been waiting for this day for several months and today was the day. Mikayla has been our daughter since the day our social worker called to say we had been chosen to be Mikayla's parents. Today for us was about getting the paperwork done so that even now on paper she is ours. For the past several months we have had to explain why Mikayla's last name is different and that yes we are indeed her parents. It has been a long journey to get to this day and now our journey has come to an end. The sweet thing is that really the journey of our lives with sweet Mikayla is really just beginning!

As I lay in bed this morning thinking about the day ahead, I had tears welling up in my eyes. I was thinking about the significance of this day. Today is May 26th, in case you didn't know. This day has significant meaning, yes because today is the day that Mikayla becomes officially ours. However it is very significant for more than just that. You see, five years ago yesterday, on May 25th, we sat in a doctor's with our first born daughter and were told that she had Down syndrome. The next day, May 26th, we sat in our living room processing this news. We talked about the love we had for our daughter, no matter what the world would tell us about her, we loved her with every ounce of our being. We began to discuss how many babies with Down syndrome don't ever get to see the light of day because they are aborted when their mothers are told the news. We then began to discuss that someday we would adopt a baby that needed a home, we would adopt a baby that needed to be loved for exactly who they were, to be loved exactly as God had created them. You see today brings tears to my tears because it was five years today that the word adoption was spoken in our home. It was five years ago today that we decided we would someday adopt. The day that we returned home last April without our son, there was a storm. It was a quick storm, with some rain and lots of thunder and lighting, there was even a little hail. After the storm had passed we were looking out our sliding glass door and we saw a rainbow. I have never seen a rainbow as bright as that rainbow, you could literally see every single color so clearly, it was amazing. As we looked at that rainbow a sweet friend sent me a text message. She said that God had put that rainbow in the sky just for us, to remind us that He fulfills his promises. The sweet thing about that story too, is that the next day when I was talking with some other friends and I mentioned that amazing rainbow they looked at me and said they did not see a rainbow after the storm. God placed that rainbow in the sky to remind us that he keeps his promises to his children. Five years ago today God placed a baby on our hearts that would need a home and today He fulfilled his promise to us.