God's story, part 3

I didn’t intend for these posts to be “poor me” posts... I hope they don’t sound so. Rather I wanted to remember the details so we can remember the blessings behind the trials. There were so many.

So our names were first on the standby list for the overbooked 4:20 flight. At 3:30, Mr. Kenney called to say the papers had arrived in Topeka and that we’d been approved to come home!! After regular boarding, the agent started making the “last call… if you don’t board now your seats will be given to standby customers…” He made this call about 3 times, telling us there were 2 seats available; as long as these people remained “missing” we would be aboard.

Madison and I started praying… the agent made one last call… then a business passenger, who has precedence over standby customers, ran up and took one of the seats. Madison looked at me and said, “Do we have to stay in Texas again tonight, Mom?” To which I couldn’t even answer.

At that point, I heard the ticket agent announce: “Would the passenger who spoke about giving up his seat please come see me?” Apparently this guy was waiting to board the plane so he could see if we got on. When the flight got down to only one open seat, he gave up his to let us get on.

I can’t even tell you how overwhelmed I was. To say I was speechless is putting it mildly.

This good Samaritan refused to give me his name – even told the ticketing agent not to tell me – because he didn’t want any thanks. He said, “I heard you on the phone with your husband. You need to get home to your mom. I can easily catch a later flight.”

We got on that flight and were home a little over an hour later!! Ohmygosh, seeing Tuck’s face was the best sight we’d seen in a long, long time.

Our friends had all signed up to bring dinners to us – we had food delivered for over two weeks, beginning with 2 that were delivered for my sweet husband while we girls were still in TX. The first month at home with Cora was pretty typical of a home with a newborn and preschooler. Tiring, yes, but also full of new discoveries, joy and unexplainable love.

Mom had her quadruple bypass surgery March 20 and was out of the hospital on March 24! She has healed remarkably from that – both in her chest and her leg where they removed the arteries. However, the blood clot that was in her other leg is still there. Prior to her surgery, the surgeons put a “cage” into the artery with that clot to prevent it from moving to her heart/lungs and killing her.

Turns out, the cage did its job – the clot moved out of its original place in her leg and into the cage. Problem is, it backed up the entire artery in her leg. She has had a full-leg blood clot since then. It has slowed her down immensely, but her attitude is incredible. She’ll go in mid-August to see if the blood thinners have been working and what the next course of action should be.

Since Cora’s birthfather, JT, hadn’t signed papers to terminate his rights, and because we were finalizing our adoption in KS, it was up to us to do “everything humanly possible” to notify him of the adoption. In early April, our lawyer told us that his private detective had tracked JT down and would be serving him papers any day.

On April 8, Tiffany called and said JT had gotten served and was ANGRY. He told her he intends to come to the hearing (May 12) to fight this. He also called our lawyer and said a LOT of other things, denies raping Tiffany and is accusing her of terrible things that she denies. Both our lawyer and Tiffany's lawyer told us that 99% of situations like this end up being the birth father trying to look tough but never following through.

Our verse for April 8 was a very familiar one: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. (Psalm 23:4)