Introducing Brenner Xavier Hunt

We wanted to let everyone know that God has answered our prayers and brought us a beautiful baby boy, Brenner Xavier Hunt.  We are doing well adjusting and working on bonding with our three week old son.
Last Monday at 6:00 p.m., I got a call from our case worker telling us that we had been matched.  We had no idea if our child was even born at that time.  The next day at 10:00 a.m., we had a telephone conference with our case worker and our child's birth mother's case worker.  We got to hear about the incredible birth mother who had made the most difficult decision with so much love and care for her child.  Then, we got to hear about our son who was born on July 8 and had been living with an incredible family during his first three weeks of life.  Then, we learned that we would meet his birth mother on Thursday.  I then asked when we would get to pick up our little guy.  Imagine my shock when they said the same day we met the birth mother.

In the midst of trying to inform our family, we had two days to get everything ready to bring a newborn home.  Thanks to some incredibly generous friends and family members, we were able to gather items together.  My parents came up on Wednesday evening to help wash laundry.  In fact, they sent us to bed at 11:30 Wednesday night while they finished doing laundry for our baby boy.

Thursday morning, Jeff and I got up and prayed as we drove to pick up our baby boy.  We were so overwhelmed with God's faithfulness to us over so many years.  So many have prayed and encouraged us over the years.  God had met with us in the hardest times when we doubted that He had good things for us.  He loved us with such a faithful love.  Even on Monday morning, as I prayed for God to give me hope when the waiting was getting tiring, God as a sweet Father, gave me comfort even though He knew we would be getting a call just hours later.  We had several hours to reflect on God's wonderful care for us.

So we finally got to the church where we would meet our child's birth mother, foster mother, and child.  We walked in and got to meet his foster mother and foster father.  What an amazing family!  Then we filled out paperwork while the birth mother, birth grandmother and birth sister got to spend some time loving on our child.  After that, we got to meet one of the most amazing young woman I have ever met.  She asked what we were naming our son and told her Brenner Xavier.  She looked puzzled and I told her that Brenner was my maiden name that we had always loved for a first name.  Then, she asked about Xavier and I told her that was because that was the name she had chosen for him at the hospital. We wanted to honor her. She smiled and was very happy with that choice. The foster family then came in and all three families spent some time talking.  The birth mother then gave Brenner her gift.  It was so very sweet.  Then the foster mother gave us a book she had created of Brenner's first three weeks and all of his firsts.  It was the sweetest book I have ever seen.

Then, the three different families gathered together and we prayed for Brenner.  It was the sweetest moment I have ever had the privilege of being a part of.

Finally everyone left and we made the trek home with a boy who doesn't like his car seat too much.  We finally made it to the church where Jeff had to complete some insurance paperwork for Brenner.  The grandparents rushed in to meet their new grand baby and were so in love.  What a wonderful weekend of loving on our baby boy and being loved on by our family who rejoiced with us.

We are so in love with our son.  We pray great things for him - to love the Lord with all his heart, soul and mind, and to love others.  We lack words to express our gratitude to our friends, family members and even strangers who have loved us, prayed for us and supported us along this journey.  We know that Brenner's story is way bigger than just Jeff and I.  Our hearts are full.  Thank you is the biggest understatement for how much our hearts are filled with gratitude to you.

As full of thanks we are for you, our hearts can't even begin to grasp our thanks to God.  Right now, this is as good as I can express a tiny bit of my thanks to God.

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.

Approved!

Approved!  That is where we are at.  For those of you who walked with us after our hearts broke when things fell through, we wanted to bring you up to date with where we are at in the whole adoption arena.  The quick answer is that we are officially approved to adopt and are simply waiting to be picked by a birthmother.  

As much as I would love to wait to update this blog with a picture of us glowing while holding our baby, I feel as though I would be doing a disservice to the journey God is carrying us through if I simply wait to share the news we have all been longing to hear.  I want to share with you about this journey, partly because it is helping my heart, but mostly because I pray that maybe one person out there could find some encouragement for their particular situation through my feeble attempt to articulate this. 

To bring you up to date, in February 2010, Jeff and I were asked to consider adopting a little girl.  We prayed and walked out in faith to pursue adopting that girl.  In August 2010, that adoption fell through. Then, in February 2011, my sister passed away.

So we spent a few years mourning.  Mourning the loss of a girl we thought would be in our family and the loss of my sister.  God provided comfort in a way that I could never find the words to express.  There were days where getting out of bed seemed impossible but He was there.  He sat with me in my grief, frustration, longings, jealousy, and pain.  He never once left me or gave up on me.

Then in the fall of 2011, the Lord spoke through one of my favorite people.  She gave me permission to seek the child I was longing for.  Maybe it’s just me, but after so many things going wrong, I started to wonder if God would even have good things for me.  I had begun to believe that the only good things God had for me would be on the other side of eternity.  The words my friend spoke were like a stream in my heart that had become a desert. 

So as Christmas approached, we were encouraged to give a gift to God that year.  I gave God my hope – I told God that I would allow hope to grow in my heart.  Hope that He had a plan for my life, hope that He had a child for me, and hope that He had good things for me on this side of eternity.

While God was working on my heart, He was also working on Jeff’s heart.  We slowly started researching adoption agencies and in July 2012, we attended an orientation at Christian Homes in Abilene, Texas.  We fell in love with the agency while we spent several days hearing about the process and the details regarding an infant adoption.   We also got to spend the night at the home of one of my favorite families – a family who mentored me while I was in college and has loved and encourage me, and now Jeff, for the past ten years. 

We left the orientation knowing that we were going to pursue an adoption through that agency but not knowing the timing or really all that God had in store for us.  God has definitely used this process to heal my heart and grow me so much closer to Him.  I get teary eyed just reflecting on God’s faithfulness to us over the past few years.

We began the paperwork process and I froze.  I could not complete it.  Every time I would stare at the form on my computer, I would begin to wonder how in the world anyone would ever pick us and how we were never going to get a child.  Jeff stepped up to the plate, though.  He worked diligently on all of the forms.  He completed every form he could until he got to my autobiography.  He said that was the only part that he couldn’t complete.  So I struggled through it, but as my autobiography unfolded I saw how God had been so gracious to me over the years and I saw that He had surrounded me with an incredible family and friends who love me and encourage me.  I saw how God had provided me with everything I had ever needed and how God had never walked away from me, even when I was so selfish and consumed with myself.

Then, in February 2013, we turned in our paperwork.  We completed our homestudy in April and this week, we got the official letter for our agency stating that we are approved and now they will present our profile to a birthmother. 

Honestly, I have no idea how the rest of our story is going to unfold.  I wonder how long before we are picked.  I wonder how in the world a woman can be so selfless to decide to carry her baby only to place that child with Jeff and I.  I wonder whether our child will be a boy or girl.  I wonder if our child will grow to love the Lord.  I wonder a lot, but here’s what I don’t wonder and know for sure:  I know God is good, not because of anything He has given us, but because He simply is good.  I know we are blessed, not because we have a child (we don’t by the way), but because He has given us His presence through the Holy Spirit and He has not left us one single moment over the past several years. 

So here we are.  On the ride of our lives as we wait for the child God has just for us.  Thank you for your support, encouragement and love for us.  We are super excited and praise God for the role you are playing in His story of our family.  I keep getting teary eyed as I read the various texts, emails, and messages where people are showering us with love and support. 

We know one day we will share with you the rest of the story, but today we are enjoying this journey.  We are reveling in every moment where God reveals more of who He is to us and how much He loves us.  Thank you for walking along side us in this journey.