Mountains For Maggie: Part 3 Coming Home Mountains

I returned home on a Sunday and wondered how many days it would take for me to get this baby out of my mind but every time I closed my eyes, all I could see was her dimply cheeks smiling and those little fat legs kicking when I turned the corner and approached her.   I just couldn't shake it.

Trent and I decided we should present the possibility of pursuing her to our kids and see what they said.  Jack, my oldest, is pretty sure the world would have been perfect had he just been an only child.  To our surprise, Jack quickly said, "Let's go get her.  She needs a home and we have one.  What are we waiting on?"  That was coming home mountain #1- moved.

Her Chinese name has Mei in it like Ruthie's Chinese name did.  Trent and I felt like God gave us the name Maggie several years ago.  So Maggie Mei would be perfect.  She and Ruthie could share a Chinese heritage and a middle name that they had both been given while in China.  Ruthie Mei and Maggie Mei.  The thought of it was both exciting and a little encouraging to take the next step.

So I did it.  I emailed my old family coordinator at our agency with the "what's the chance" inquiry.  Her response was less than encouraging but completely understandable.  She basically said it was impossible.  There were people ahead of us open to a child with a heart defect and her paperwork was due any day.  Also, her paperwork would likely be "log in date only" and we weren't even in the China program so we wouldn't even qualify until we completed our dossier which would take about 6 months.  This is all even if her paperwork came to our agency.  While they have a partnership with this orphanage, not all kids go through them so they might not ever even see this file.

I was confused and disappointed.  I told Trent and then turned on the TV to the Hallmark Channel to clear my mind.  This is going to sound crazy weird but the show that was on was a movie about a girl named Maggie May.  I yelled for Trent to come in and all we could do was laugh.  God is that you telling us not to give up yet?   That night we completed our application for the waiting child program in faith.

Hmm should I stop here or tell you what happened next?

Okay so the next day she called me.  My old family coordinator is now the assistant director of our agency and she called me because she had been reviewing some initial paperwork our team leader brought home on the kids in the orphanage.  What she found was that Maggie's heart condition was more serious than she realized and they actually didn't have any families in the program willing to take her!  It occurred to me that I had never even inquired as to her diagnosis.  Honestly, I didn't care.  I just loved her so nothing else really mattered.   She warned me that nothing was guaranteed but encouraged me to start my paperwork if I was serious.  Little did she know, we had already done that.  :)

Coming home mountain #2- moved.