Our Abigail

I thought I would share more in depth about each one of our children. So Abigail our oldest sweet girl. She is 9 1/2 and reminds us almost daily that she will turn 10 later this year! She is very kind, honest, loves being the oldest & is a great help to us - daily! She rarely complains and has such a sweet spirit. She loves to lead the other kids in activities, and I just love her companionship. She has a memorization skill that is incredible and if you forget where you put something- she can find it!!!!

She came to us actually through a friend of a friend. We were camp directors in Iowa at the time, and had just finished a foster/adoption class (This was in Feb 2001). Our fellow camp directors knew this and had taken in 4 children all at once through the foster system. Their friend who was fostering Abigail at the time...asked them if they were interested. Because of other things happening at that time, they said no, but they knew of another family that would be- US!!! Praise God for these amazing friends that connected us to our sweet baby!!! So I remember the first time we met her. She came walking down the stairs at our now friends home that were fostering her at the time. She was so cute, and acted like she didn't want to have anything to do with us. She was 14 months old at the time. We had her in our home for a over a year before the adoption was final. In the meantime we had court dates to keep up with...visits 2 times a week in a town 45 minutes away for an hour and a half each. I promise we put so many miles on our car just for visits we could have driven around the world.

But who could resist that face!!!! We couldn't. There were several crazy times in our adoption story. One of which happened within a few weeks of knowing our little angel. The court date came up for termination of parental rights. All possible fathers were notified, and one told his parents...and they petitioned to have blood tests- the day before court!!! Now Abigail had been in foster care for over a year at this point...but you know wait until the last second! So we ended up waiting and waiting and waiting...it seemed like at least forever! It was actually about 6 weeks!!!!

I remember it like it was yesterday - our friend kept saying on the phone- He's not the dad! He's not the dad!!!! Wow my heart flew out of me and my breath was taken away!!! We of course called everyone we knew and celebrated!! What a relief...she was ours forever...or so we thought. We also had an interview to go through. The interview was to see if we were really the best choice of placement. It was horrible we were both soo nervous. Our social worker at the time (even though at that time it was against the law!!!) told us they would look for a couple that had the same skin color.

SKIN COLOR!!! What you mean skin color determines who is a better parent??? Come on do we not live in the same century???? Thank God that in the end all things were good, and our little angel stayed with us. As of finally!!!! June 17th, 2002 Sheenique became- Abigail Marie Wright FOREVER!!!!

And with that came another surprise, and another, and so on.....but I will save that for later. We are just so happy to have our first of many blessings. We know that God has huge plans for her, and can't wait to see HIM work in her life even more!!!!