Solomon Robert.

Okay, so I promised to tell y'all about the extra name on our family tree. So here goes.

As you probably know, we were blind sided by the US adoption ban which was signed late December by Russian president Vladimir Putin. It is the reason that our Vitaliy is sleeping in an orphanage tonight instead of the bedroom with his brothers about 10 feet from where I sit. I'll get more into that in another post. But you can imagine our shock when the ban was signed after we had received our court date just a couple of weeks before.

We were traveling for Christmas break when it all went down. The day after Putin signed the ban Aaron and I were driving aimlessly around Tulsa, Oklahoma while visiting family. The babies were with their wonderful grandparents at their house. We were trying to gather our thoughts and just get some time together to talk, cry, pray, etc. I checked my e-mail while Aaron was driving and I actually gasped at what I saw. At this point to say we had been on an emotional roller coaster is an understatement, so Aaron was alarmed at my reaction to whatever it was in my inbox. He looked over at me and kept saying, "What? What is it?" while I held my hand over my gaping mouth. I couldn't even tell him. I just handed him the phone. I had just received an e-mail from the adoption agency we used to adopt our beloved JoJo. They were e-mailing to let us know that Jo-Ella's birth mom was expecting again and was due one day before Eli's 3rd birthday in March. She was going to have a boy and had contacted the agency to see if we would like to adopt him. We were honored, shocked, elated, confused, afraid, ecstatic, and so much more to consider adopting him while there were so many unknowns with Vitaliy's adoption. We prayed through a lot of the confusion and got some facts. Like finding out from our Russian facilitator if she thought it was feasible that Vitaliy would be home around the same time the baby was born. She said she didn't think it would be that fast. It didn't take long for us to be able to wholeheartedly say YES! We would adopt Jo-Ella's biological brother. Of course we would! What an unexpected gift we had been given in the midst of such enormous heartache. We celebrated and told family and very close friends. We told the kids and they were SO excited. We shared with our church family. We didn't tell absolutely everyone because our hearts were so raw from the situation with Vitaliy and we wanted to guard them. From what I'm not sure. But we just did.

So we named him Solomon Robert. We filled out applications, updated our home study, sent fees. We prayed fervently for his birth mom whom we already loved so dearly. His Aunt Lauren and Uncle Brice bought him a crib that we set up in Jo-Ella's room. I bought him his coming home outfit and we prepared for a trip to go pick him up when it was time. My precious girlfriends even threw me a surprise shower and others from afar sent gifts. It was such a sweet time of joy in the midst of sorrow. The shower happened the week he was due. I was on pins and needles waiting for the phone call saying he'd been born. The day after the shower sometime after 8 pm my phone rang. It was the birth mom counselor who had been working with Jo-Ella and Solomon's birth mom. My heart skipped a beat as I answered, thinking surely this was the call letting me know she was in labor and that he would be born soon. I answered and she somberly asked if Aaron was also home. I said yes and put him on the phone with me. She started weeping. I couldn't even look at Aaron. I couldn't say anything. I just sat there numb while she explained that birth mom had called her out of the blue and said she had changed her mind. She would parent Solomon. The counselor said she was absolutely shocked because out of all of the birth moms she had worked with, JoJo and Solomon's birth mom was one she was most sure of that would place the baby once he was born. She said she wakes up panicky in the night sometimes wondering about others but never had an ounce of worry or anxiety about her. It was a short conversation since I couldn't speak. Aaron asked a couple of questions and we got off the phone. I called my Dad and quickly told him what had happened and Aaron called his parents and did the same. I e-mailed the girls who had thrown me the shower and friends who had sent gifts and told them what had happened and told them to let me know what to do with the gifts. It was all so surreal.

I had just mustered up the strength to put away a huge box of Vitaliy's clothes we had sitting out in our bedroom a couple of weeks before. That box was now replaced with a portable crib and a box of Solomon's clothes. Our room was becoming a storehouse for lost children's things. I had been taking a prescription medication and pumping every other hour in order to be able to nurse Solomon. All of that ended abruptly. It was too much.

After our January court date in Russia and now after the loss of Solomon, Romans 8:26 became very painfully alive for me:

"Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words."

My only comfort in those next few weeks and months and even now was knowing when all I could do was break down and weep and groan that Jesus himself was sitting at the right hand of God interceding on my behalf. That blows my mind. I still struggle with how to pray for Vitaliy and Solomon. Aaron and I have two sons in rough situations and we are depending on the promises of God through His word now more than ever for them and for our family. These little boys are still alive out there beyond our reach and we have no choice but to depend on our Heavenly father to be their Daddy. The funny thing is He has been all along, whether they are in our home or elsewhere. Aaron and I aren't their savior, the uncreated God of the universe is. And His plan for them far exceeds anything we could conjure up. Thanks to faithful friends and family like y'all, Vitaliy is one of the most prayed for little boys I know. And now that you know about Solomon I hope he will be too. Isaiah has always been one of my favorite books but it's now my go to when I need to be filled with truth about God's love of justice and His magnificent grace and mercy.

“Thus says the Lord to His anointed,
To Cyrus, whose right hand I have held—
To subdue nations before him
And loose the armor of kings,
To open before him the double doors,
So that the gates will not be shut:
2 ‘I will go before you
And make the crooked places[a] straight;
I will break in pieces the gates of bronze
And cut the bars of iron.
3 I will give you the treasures of darkness
And hidden riches of secret places,
That you may know that I, the Lord,
Who call you by your name,
Am the God of Israel.
4 For Jacob My servant’s sake,
And Israel My elect,
I have even called you by your name;
I have named you, though you have not known Me.
5 I am the Lord, and there is no other;
There is no God besides Me.
I will gird you, though you have not known Me,
6 That they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting
That there is none besides Me.
I am the Lord, and there is no other;
7 I form the light and create darkness,
I make peace and create calamity;
I, the Lord, do all these things.’

8 “Rain down, you heavens, from above,
And let the skies pour down righteousness;
Let the earth open, let them bring forth salvation,
And let righteousness spring up together.
I, the Lord, have created it.

9 “Woe to him who strives with his Maker!
Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth!
Shall the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’
Or shall your handiwork say, ‘He has no hands’?
10 Woe to him who says to his father, ‘What are you begetting?’
Or to the woman, ‘What have you brought forth?’”

11 Thus says the Lord,
The Holy One of Israel, and his Maker:
“Ask Me of things to come concerning My sons;
And concerning the work of My hands, you command Me.
12 I have made the earth,
And created man on it.
I—My hands—stretched out the heavens,
And all their host I have commanded.
13 I have raised him up in righteousness,
And I will direct all his ways;
He shall build My city
And let My exiles go free,
Not for price nor reward,”
Says the Lord of hosts.

Isaiah 45:1-13