How It All Began

We are so excited to introduce Lucy Rachal Comer to the world.  But first, lets start at the beginning…

We are the Comers.  Heith Comer, Aimee Comer, Rod Reedy, Jasmine Reedy,  Madison Comer and soon to join the family – Lucy Rachal Comer.

Our adoption journey to Lucy started in the summer of 2013.  Heith and I had kicked around the idea of adoption, but keep pushing it aside for different reasons.  We attend Church of the Highlands and one Sunday morning that summer Pastor Chris did a brief introduction to a local agency, Lifeline Children Services, that assisted families with foster care and adoption.  Pastor Chris challenged the audience to consider foster care or adoption, if their heart was lead to do so.  After the service, we had a much more serious conversation about adoption and decided to schedule an appointment to further the discussion with Lifeline.

After we met with Lifeline, we knew we were in.  We had some decisions to make – domestic or international adoption.  We wanted a child over the age of 3, so the best option was international adoption.  (all of you who know me know why the age of 3 was important….. WT&P by themselves!)  So then the next big decision was what country.  Lifeline had a list of countries they serve and encouraged us to take our time making this important decision.

Within a week we contacted Lifeline and informed them we were selecting Haiti.  We were extremely excited about the decision and the process starting.  It was now October 2013 and we started reviewing the timeline to adopt from Haiti.  We were determined to beat all the stats and have our home study, US Immigration paperwork and dossier sent to Haiti in record time – and we did.  I probably drove our sweet social worker crazy over those months because we were determined to get our file sent on to Haiti so we could be matched.  Our file did go and our social worker told us we had completed that phase of the process faster than any other family she had assisted previously.  We just knew that everything was falling in place.  Then we waited, and waited, and waited, and waited…….

Eight months went by and nothing with our file in Haiti.  It was then December 2014 and the Prime Minister of Haiti resigned over rumors that the President was going to cancel elections.  (which he did in January)  Things started looking even worse for files moving forward with some regularity.  We were heart broken.  To be completely honest, I question the entire decision to adopt.  Maybe we weren’t supposed to adopt.  Maybe that wasn’t God’s plan.   Where we just driving and not following His plan for our family?  We started praying.

In January 2015, we made the decision to change our country to China.  We had to redo the home study process and the US Immigration process.  So it took until May 2015 to get our dossier sent to China so we could be matched.  We had previously completed a form for the agency that listed what, if any, special needs we would be willing to accept in a child.  I will be honest, it was one of the most difficult things I have ever done.  How do you decide what special need, if any, you may or may not be ok with.  They told us to be very honest on the form.   We were and selected that we would only be ok with minor correctable needs.

Then it happened.  On June 2nd we received what is called a Log In Date.  This is the date China acknowledges our file is active and the agency could present to us eligible children that met our profile.  I was on Facebook and saw a child who came to camp with Lifeline in March 2015.  I asked our social worker about her.  Her name was Lanie.  The agency told us that Lanie was already “on hold” by another family but we could see her file.  We received it and started reviewing immediately.  While reviewing Lanie’s file I saw a photo of another girl who attended camp with Lanie and asked our social worker about her.  She pulled up the photo and immediately said – THAT IS LUCY!  She was so excited we were asking about Lucy.  She told us Lucy was available and we could review her file.  We received her file on June 3rd and put her “on hold”.  Lucy’s photos were contagious.  She had a smile that made us smile just looking at her photo.  It was like we already knew her.  There was just one thing – she was not on the minor correctable list.  She did have some medical conditions we were unfamiliar with and to be honest, after Master Google told us about it – it scared us.

I wish I could tell you we did the right thing and started praying about it, but we didn’t.  We were absorbed by what all Google was showing and all other locations I could find information.  Our fears did take over and on the evening on June 5th we emailed our social worker and took Lucy’s file off hold.

We went into the weekend thinking so much about Lucy but confident we made the right decision for our family.  That was until we were at church on Sunday, June 8th.  Pastor Dino was preaching and I don’t know what the other 1000+ people in the audience where doing during the service because he was just talking to me and Heith.  Seriously – what were you people doing?  It was like Dino had been in our home for the past week and understood all our fears and most of all told us to stop worrying about what we can’t control – GOD HAS THIS!  As we left the auditorium, we were not saying anything to each other and then right before we made it to pick up Madison, I asked Heith “Did you think he was talking to us?”  Heith said yes and we didn’t make it out of the Highlands parking lot before I hit send on the email to our social worker that we wanted Lucy to join our family.

Thankfully, no other family had requested her file and on Monday, June 9th we sent our official Letter of Intent to adopt Lucy to China.

Check out our next post to hear what happened next….

 

Thank you to everyone reading our blog.   We appreciate your interest and support to bring Lucy home!

 

I couldn’t end my first ever Blog Post (I would have sworn to you this would never had happened) without saying that my dear friend Helen Gilliland would be so proud.  She always encouraged me to journal or blog, but I just laughed.  She gave me a journal every year and offered to create me a blog and I still just laughed.  I am sure she is getting a huge kick out of this now.  We love and miss you Helen!!