Paul Harvey coined a phrase, “The rest of the story”, and indeed with my son’s adoption story there is more to it.  I was too ecstatic with the thought of bringing my son home from the hospital and getting the adoption finalized to give too much thought at the time how God had brought this all about.  And it is only a story God could so masterfully have put together, so here’s ‘the rest of the story’.

While my husband and I were lining up an adoption agency and going through the home studies etc., our next door neighbour, Dana* was going through her second bout with cancer.  A beautiful young woman, she had two children already and Laurelle (my daughter) would babysit the little girl.  My neighbour discovered to her dismay that with the cancer treatments she was too exhausted to give the children the care and attention they needed, so she hired a day nanny to come in on a part-time basis and help with some of the household chores and look after the children.  After my neighbour went into remission and was recovering nicely, she still had the nanny come to help periodically.  I would often chat with my neighbour; I knew her struggles with cancer and she also knew of our dream of having more children and wanting to adopt.

My friend, Colleen, who was my Bible Study leader at church, had a cousin who acted as a birthing coach to young unwed teenaged mothers who were facing crisis pregnancies.  At the time, Margo* was counselling and meeting with a young soon-to-be Mom who had already decided she wanted to place her child up for adoption after the child’s birth.

One day three women met together over coffee to make Christmas crafts together.  Colleen (my Bible Study leader), her cousin Margo, my neighbour Dana, and her nanny.  (“Wait a minute”, you’re saying…”that’s four women…not three…do the math!”)  Well, the cousin and the nanny were one and the same person.

As the three are chatting, Margo, who had invited Dana to join her that day to make some Christmas crafts and to meet her cousin, gets to talking about what she does when she’s not playing nanny to Dana’s children.  She talks about a young Mom who is about ready to deliver her baby and is looking for a couple to adopt her baby.  Colleen, thinking about us, mentions that she knows of a family at her church who is looking to adopt.  She starts to share a little bit more about us but does not mention our names.  Then Dana pipes up and says that she has some neighbours living right next door to her who are also looking to adopt.   When she shares that her neighbours have a little girl who sometimes babysits for her children, Colleen and Dana look wide-eyed at each other, and realize they are talking about the same family…us!

Without knowing it, we have just received our first and second “endorsements” for approval as prospective adoptive parents, and the next time Margo meets with the young expectant Mom, she excitedly tells her about us.

Now, we are blissfully unaware of this conversation until we receive that phone call from Colleen a couple of weeks later saying “A baby boy has been born in Calgary, the family is looking for an adoptive family, are you interested?”

You can read what happens next: https://lynndove.com/2013/11/22/for-such-a-time-as-this/

And that’s the rest of the story!

*names are changed