Fun Times with Old Friends

Yesterday, we got together with the old football crew to celebrate the upcoming arrival of Baby Spradlen. These are all guys that Jeff coached with at some point at South Doyle. It was a great time of catching up and reminiscing. The Riley's graciously opened their home to us all. The only downer of the party was when we watched our beloved Vols fall to the Gators. We shared a yummy meal of chicken manicotti, salad and garlic bread, followed by chocolate cake, strawberry squares and berry trifle. Eddie and Lea Anne got some really cool baby gifts and the "guys" surprised Eddie with his very own Power T Diaper bag! We can't wait to meet baby Kase and welcome him to this crazy life of football!

Eddie and Lea Anne showing off some cute gifts!

Jeff and Rocky hanging out...

Natalea and I catching up...

Eddie and Lane (and Anna) watching some football...

Andra, Tate, and I...

Karin, Tate, Lea Anne, and Lynde...

General Update...

Sorry for my lack of posts the past couple of weeks. Things have been very busy around the Bryant house. Here is a rundown of what has been going on lately with us...

Jeff's Teaching- Every year, Jeff's students do projects to enter at the Tennessee Valley Fair. This year, as usual, they won! His students won 1st place with their Mechanical drawing and 2nd place with their Architectural drawing!

Football- Jeff is as busy as usual with his normal football schedule. The Cherokees are 0-4 so far this season, but hopefully the next few games will produce different results. The players and coaches are still working very hard and anxious to get a game in the Win column.

Nursing School- Whew! The first 3 weeks of school have been so busy for me! I am literally suffering from information overload! I am in MedSurg this semester, which is a general nursing process course. So far this semester we have covered Fluid and Electrolytes, Hematology, and Cardiovascular. I am doing clinicals at UT Hospital on the Cardiac Surgery floor. We have been there three times so far, but just doing orientation and computer training. This Wednesday will be our first actual week on the patient floor. I have my first test next Monday, and plan on starting to study for it tonight or tomorrow. How am I supposed to remember everything??

Adoption- No new news on the adoption front. We are still unofficially #17 on the list. We are trying to wait very patiently. All of those months that we struggled with infertility, we would say IF we have a child. Even though the movement is slow, we can confidently and excitedly say WHEN we have a child. That makes it all better!

Hakeem- As you read in a previous post, Hakeem started out the school year at Hargrave Military Academy. Well, he had a change of heart, and Hakeem is now a student at Carson Newman College. He was miserable at Hargrave and loves Carson Newman. He is doing well in his classes and is redshiritng this year , but still practicing with the football team.

I will try my best to do better at posting!

Game #2

This past Friday, the South Doyle Cherokees took on the Heritage Mountaineers. We didn't win the game, but our guys never gave up. After trailing at halftime 16-0, they came out in the second half and scored 19 points (thanks to a touchdown on a kickoff return and a 40 yard run on a fake punt... both big plays on special teams... and Jeff is the Special Team's Coordinator), but eventually lost the game 26-19. This is a very young team and even though the first two games have been losses, I know that they are learning from each mistake as well as every great play that is made! Coach Bryant had quite the cheering squad on Friday night as Amanda, Chris, and Anna Claire (my sister, brother-in-law, & niece), and our friends the Mizes and the Scoonovers all came to watch the Kees play. It was a great night for football and a fun night with family and friends. Here are a couple of pictures from the evening....

This sweet little princess was experiencing her very first football game. She was adopted from Ethiopia this time last year. She was so funny! She was very inquisitive and didn't want to miss a thing. I'm thinking we might have a future coaches' wife on our hands!

Anna Claire was the perfect cheerleader for Uncle Jeff, aka DoDo. She would randomly stand up with her red shaker in hand and yell at the top of her lungs... "Go DoDo, the beeeesball game!" We would then proceed to remind her that it was a football game, in which she would yell... "Go DoDo, the beeeesball team!" So sweet and so cute!

Sweet Caroline sat with me for a while during the game. I think I scared her to death. This precious, mild mannered child, was being held by this obnoxious, loud coaches' wife. All in all, though, she seemed quite interested in the game and was so concerned when a player got a "boo-boo" and had to be helped off the field!

Here is Coach Bryant, aka DoDo, aka Mr. Jeff, with some of his biggest supporters from the night! They could have cared less if it was a win or loss, they loved Jeff just the same!

And last but not least, Coach with his biggest fan, Mrs. Coach (me).

1 Down ??? To Go

Well, today marks the 1 month anniversary since we have "officially" been waiting for our daughter to come home. It has actually gone by rather fast. We have been busy around here getting ready for school to start and for football season. We have moved up one place on the list and hope more referrals come fast! We cannot wait to become parents and know that every day that passes is a day closer to holding our sweet baby girl in our arms!


Lil' Baby B, we love you and pray for you every day! Know that Mommy and Daddy dream of the day we can bring you home to love!

Football Time is Here!

Friday night was the first football game of the season for the South Doyle Cherokees. It was a beautiful night for football, a cool 75 degrees for the third week in August. Although the game didn't turn out as we had hoped (we lost 31-0), it was a very fun night! Here are some pictures from the evening....

Hakeem... We're Gonna Miss You Around Here!

Jeff and I had never given Hakeem his Graduation Gift from us, so last week I cooked his favorite meal, Pot Roast, and he came over to dinner. Jeff and I wanted to do something really special for him, since he has been such a big part of our lives the past couple of years. We decided that we would frame his jersey for him. His reaction was above and beyond what we could have ever hoped for! He loved it! Here he is admiring his gift...

Hakeem signed football scholarship papers with Carson Newman College back on National Signing Day. However, things did not work out as we had planned. He was 1 point shy on his ACT of qualifying academically to play football this fall at Carson Newman. He and his family decided that it would be best for him to attend Hargrave Military School. Hargrave is a Prep School that is basically an extension of high school. Players can go there for one year after high school to improve their core GPA and ACT/SAT scores. It doesn't even cut into his eligibility in college. If is improves his grades and scores, he will ave to opportunity to be re-recruited by other schools, even Division 1 schools. Jeff and I feel that this experience will be a wonderful one for Hakeem. Of course, we want him to have the opportunity to play college football, but more than that, we want him to learn some skills and character traits that will help him in life, like responsibility and discipline. He will have to get up at 6am every morning, clean his room and have room inspection, wear a uniform, go to class, football practice, chapel, and study hall every day. This past Monday was move in day for the Post Grad Football team. Hargrave is in Chatham, VA, which is about 5 hours from Knoxville. Jeff and I were invited to travel with Hakeem to move in. Jeff was unable to go, due to it falling on the first day of school, but I was fortunate enough to go with Hakeem, his aunt, and some family friends. We actually flew on a private plane belonging to some friends of Hakeem's family. It was a neat experience and I got to meet some of the college staff along with the coaches he will be playing for this fall. I was very impressed by the love that the staff has for the kids. You can just tell that they want every child to succeed. Jeff has talked to Hakeem 3 times this week. He is not really enjoying the military aspect of it, but Jeff just encouraged him to remember the BIG picture and take advantage of this opportunity. Funny story... I had baked him some cookies to leave with him on Monday. On Tuesday, he called Jeff and told him to send more cookies, they were almost gone, and guys were offering to buy them from him. So, needless to say, I baked 4 more dozen cookies and they were in the mail on Wednesday morning. We are planning to go his first game on Labor Day weekend in Mobile, Al. It will be a fun road trip! And, I know he will be so glad to see some familiar faces. If you have a chance, say a prayer for Hakeem that he will get settled and remember to focus on the big picture! here are a few pictures from the trip...

We sure are gonna miss Hakeem around our house this Fall. Jeff won't know what to do not having to pick him up for school every day and I'm not sure I remember how to cook for just the two of us! Although we will miss him, we know that God is working out His plan for Hakeem as we speak, and we cannot wait to see what the future holds!

We miss you and love you, Hakeem!

A Little Movement!

There is not much to report on the adoption front. It's moving a little slowly, lately. However, late last week there was a referral for a little girl through our agency. That means we have moved up a spot for the first time since we were placed on the waiting list. So, we are now "unofficially" number 17 on the waiting list. The family that just received the referral had been waiting for 16 months, so I guess that is the best guess at the time frame we are looking at. Please Lord, let it be sooner!

Happy Birthday, Jeff!

Today is Jeff's 34th birthday! And guess how he gets to celebrate... with the first day of school! He has had a day filled with in service and football. We did get the chance to celebrate on Saturday night with Jeff's parents and Hakeem as we ate a yummy meal at one of Jeff's favorite restaurants, The Butcher Shop. Tonight, I am cooking Jeff's favorite meal to celebrate... hamburger steaks, mashed potatoes, and broccoli and cheese. I can't wait until he gets home to eat and open his presents!

Jeff is a very special person and I am so lucky and blessed to be called his wife. Jeff is the most loving, loyal, dependable, honorable man that I have ever met. His love for God and others truly shines through in everything that he does. He is a very unselfish person who is always looking for ways to put others before himself. He is such a funny guy and has a gift of connecting with others and making them feel comfortable no matter what the circumstance. Jeff is a big guy, with a bigger heart, and I am so blessed that he is mine!

Happy Birthday, Baby! Thank you for sharing your life with me! Hope 34 is a year filled with many blessings!

I love you so much!

Amy

It's Official... We're Paper Pregnant!

I just read some of the most wonderful words I have ever read! They go like this...

Hello Jeff and Amy,
I wanted to let you know that we received 3 copies of your final, notarized home study here and have logged you in on our wait list as of 7/23/09. And I would like to confirm with you that your child desired is “healthy female infant with the potential for normal and healthy development" age birth to 12 months at time of referral.

Praise Jesus! We are gonna have a baby! That has been a known fact for a while now, but it seems so real now! We are officially in line to get to bring home a sweet baby girl! Our agency doesn't give you a "number" for several reasons, the most prevalent being that the birth mothers have an opportunity to set preferences for the couples that will adopt their child. So, there are opportunities to jump other families or be jumped by other families waiting for a baby. This doesn't happen very often, but that is the reason we don't have an official "number". However, I am a part of a Yahoo group that is run independently of the agency (it is run by families that have used or are using the same agency) that keeps a pretty accurate, unofficial list. Judging by this list, we are family #18. So, we get to watch ourselves move up that list and celebrate with the other waiting families as they bring their babies home! Now, every day that passes is a day closer to us finally being parents and having a precious blessing to love! Thank you Lord!!

July 4th Blessing

On the night of July 4th, we headed down to World's Fair Park to the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra's Patriotic Concert and Fireworks show. We had the privilege of attending with some of our very favorite people, the Scoonover family and the Mize family, as well as Nathan's cousin, Kate. It was a night filled with kettle corn and funnel cakes and glow sticks. We had so much fun! As I sat back and watched the fireworks, I became emotional watching Olivia (adopted from Ethiopia in August 2008) and Kate (adopted from Vietnam about 15 years ago). Olivia was waving her American flag and seemed just so excited to be there. My mind then changed to daydreaming about our daughter. I can't wait to bring her home to this land of freedom and opportunity. This July 4th, I think I realized for the first time just how blessed we are to live here. We can worship our God, be educated, speak our minds, and have endless possibilities and opportunities that citizens of other countries don't always have. Here are a couple of pictures from the night...

Fundraising Sale #2

Last weekend, we had another garage sale with the leftovers from the first sale that we had earlier in the summer. We decided to move all of the stuff over to Oak Ridge to Jeff's parents house in hopes of attracting a different crowd. We weren't sure how the sale would go since it was on July 4th weekend, and since we didn't have as much stuff as before, but it was great. We were steadily busy and made another $1,000 for our adoption fund! We got lots of well wishes and even met a lady that had worked at AIT (kind of like the American Embassy in Taiwan)! She schooled us on some Mandarin and told us about the culture and country. She was very informative. I got her name and email just in case we need her assistance in the future. It's really neat how God puts people in our path along the way to encourage us and spur us on! Here are a couple of pictures from our sale...

Waiting... The Name of Our Game

Just a quick adoption update...

I had a small panic attack yesterday when I realized that we were missing a small part of our home study. We were fingerprinted and cleared by the TBI, but apparently they can't share with the FBI, so we had to go get fingerprinted again today. We were able to send in those fingerprints today. I was so scared that this would prolong the time until we could be waitlisted, but I was assured by our agency that this small detail wouldn't keep us from being approved, as long as we could show them that we had submitted our things and are just waiting on our FBI clearance. I was able to email them and let them know that our FBI clearance should be coming to them in the next few weeks.

We are still waiting on our home study review to be completed. I was told by someone at our agency that we should hear something soon after July 4th. Once we get the approval of our home study, we will need to get it notarized and sent back to the agency. Once this is done, we will finally be on the waiting list. We are told that the wait is a year to just over a year right now. Will you join us in praying that it will be shorter? We have waited so long to be parents and would be elated if it could happen sooner rather than later. I know God's timing is perfect and rest in the fact that he already has our child picked for us!

Happy Birthday Anna Claire!!

Our precious niece, Anna Claire recently turned 2. This past weekend, we traveled to the Jones' house in Madison, AL to attend Anna Claire's birthday party. We had a great time. Anna Claire is growing so fast and is just so darn cute! I think she loves her Amy and DoDo (Jeff). We sure do love her! She had a Dora the Explorer birthday. It was 98 degrees on the party day, so the party was a water party! The kids had a great time playing on the slip-and-slide and in the blow up pool! And the adults had a better time watching! I cannot wait until Lil' Baby B is here to get to play with her cousins Anna Claire and Wilson. Here are a few pictures from the celebration...

Our Newest Addiction

Since Jeff and I are both off from school for the summer, we have been spending a lot of time fishing. We absolutely love it. Jeff got us both fishing poles, gear, and licenses for my birthday last year. It has turned out to be one of the most enjoyable presents he has ever given me! Growing up, my family had a boat and we lived near the lake, so we spent many days and nights fishing. I even won a boat in a fishing tournament when I was in the 4th grade! Jeff's family also had a boat and lived near the lake, but their boat was used for water sports like skiing, knee boarding and such. He did grow up going deep sea fishing a few times a year. So, we like to say that I am the freshwater fishing expert and he is the saltwater fishing expert. We don't have a boat, so we fish from the bank around Knoxville. However, this earlier this week, we traveled to my hometown of Winchester, TN to fish on Tims Ford Lake. My dad and Kay were gracious enough to let us use their boat for our stay! We were in heaven! We even did some skiing while we were there! Neither of us has skied in about 10 or more years. It took me like 5 tries to get up, but my super athletic hubby got up on his second try. We had a lot of fun, but were definitely sore for a couple of days afterward! We also got to go jug fishing. If you don't know what this is, I'll try to explain. You take plastic jugs (milk jugs, 2 liter bottles, etc.), tie a string around them, tie a hook to the string, and bait the hook. You put the jugs out right at dusk and come back right at dawn the next morning to check the jugs. Sometimes you have to chase the jugs down that have fish on them. We even lost a jug, it must have had a BIG fish on it. We caught 7 catfish weighing anywhere from 4-8 pounds, a dead 4 pound bass, and a HUGE snapping turtle!! We had a blast! We did some other fishing, but didn't catch much, just the bait for our jugs and I caught a small bass, not even big enough to keep. We had a great time together and hope that we can teach Lil' Baby B to love fishing as she grows! Here are a few pictures from our fishing trips...

Seventh Heaven

Jeff and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary on June 1. God has totally blessed us with a wonderful marriage. On our anniversary, we took time to reflect back on what life was like 7 years ago and how much has changed since then. If we have learned one thing in our 7 year marriage together, it is that sometimes God plans things a little differently than we do. All he asks is that we trust him and hold on for the ride! On June 1, 2002, we started our life together as husband and wife. At that point in our lives, Jeff was a Structural Engineer and I was still in college pursuing an Education degree. About 4 months after we married, Jeff started getting really unsettled in his job. He was extremely unhappy, not with his co-workers, but with the stress and responsibility that comes along with engineering. There were many nights early in our marriage that we would get out of bed at midnight and return to his office in order for him to check calculations and drawings. He was truly miserable! If you know Jeff, you know that a 8'x10' office with no window and only a calculator, computer, and drafting board was not going to cut it for the rest of his life. We started praying that God would lead him to a career that he could make a difference in the world, would suit his personality and he would enjoy. When he came to me with the idea of him being a high school teacher and football coach, I was very against it. I was very scared of the salary cut and the idea of football consuming his time. I agreed to pray about it, and God totally changed my heart! In January of 2003, God moved mountains, opened doors, and Jeff left his job as an engineer to become a AutoCad (Drafting) teacher and assistant football coach at South Doyle High School. And now, we couldn't imagine it any other way. Jeff absolutely loves his job, he is incredible at it, and he is making such a difference in the lives of the boys he teaches and coaches! And, it is our ministry together! When we got married, I was beginning my senior year at the University of Tennessee completing my degree in Early Childhood Education. I graduated in August 2003 with my BA degree. About this time, as a result of some medical issues related to birth control, we decided to stop preventing pregnancy and let God decide when we should be parents. We've always known that when we have kids that I will be a stay at home mom. We expected to get pregnant fairly quickly and just figured that I would stay at home. Well, obviously God had different plans. After college, I immediately went to work for a non-profit agency directing a program that educated parents on bonding and attachment with their children. That job turned out differently than I had thought it would be, and I ended up leaving after a few months. I substitute taught and kept a little girl in our home for a while after that. Then, in 2005, I got a job teaching Pre-K at a church here in Knoxville. I taught there for two years. I loved the job, the people I worked with, my kids in my class, but by this time we were in the thick of all of the infertility testing and procedures. Every month that I didn't have a child make it harder to get up and be with kids all day. So after 2 school years, I decided to quit that job and stay at home. Jeff and I decided that the money I was making didn't matter if the job was causing me emotional distress. I am so thankful for a husband that understands that money doesn't matter, that happiness matters! In early 2008, we started discussing the possibility of me returning to school for my Nursing degree. It is something that I have always been interested in doing, so we decided that I should jump on the opportunity now rather than look back 30 years from now and wish I would have done it. So, In Fall 2008, I started back to college. I was accepted to the Nursing program for Spring 2009. I should graduate in December 2010. I will still stay at home with our baby, but I will probably graduate right before we travel to get her and I will have my RN so I can work later on down the road! When we got married, we had a master plan that we would have 2 or 3 biological children and then look into the possibility of completing our family through international adoption. Well, obviously God had other plans. We were the first of out group of friends to start "trying" to start our family. Well, guess what, most of our friends are now on their second, third, or fourth child. And, we are currently still waiting for our first child! Infertility has been a long, hard, terrible road, but as we look back, we are so thankful that God allowed us to experience it. Our marriage is so strong as a result of the experiences we have been through the past 6 or so years. We are so grateful for each other's love, understanding, support and compassion as we've struggled through this together. We cannot wait to tell our daughter how much she was wanted and loved, LONG before she was ever born! We know that our long journey to become parents will make us better parents. We will never take a moment for granted! June 1, 2002, was a wonderful day, but the days have just gotten better as we have grown together and learned to accept the fact that God's plans are so much greater than we could ever imagine! He has been and continues to be so good to us as he leads us down the path he has for us. We have had a wonderful 7 years, different that what we had planned, but better than we had planned, too! We can't wait to see what the next 7, then the next 7, and the next 7, and so on hold in store!

Garage Sale Weekend

On Memorial Day weekend, we had a HUGE garage sale to raise money for our adoption! We were overwhelmed with the support we received. We were given donations of stuff from over 20 different family members, friends, neighbors, and co-workers. Our garage and house was packed with lots of treasures! We had lots of customers and were blown away with the encouragement we received from random people telling us their "adoption" stories. We even had a family stop by with their little girl who they just adopted from China. The said that they had seen our ad in the paper and wanted to come support our cause and encourage us! How amazing that God used complete strangers to urge us on in his plan! We feel so blessed that we have such supportive friends and family members around us to love us along our journey. We will be forever indebted to everyone who donated, shopped, helped, and prayed! If you are reading this and are included in any of those groups, all we can say is THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!! God is using you to make our dream of becoming parents a reality. We cannot wait till the day we can tell our little girl how much she was wanted, prayed for, and loved even before she was born!!! We were to send in $2,900 with our contract a couple of days after our sale and guess what... we made a grand total of $3,430. God totally covered our first payment! How amazing is our God? Unfortunately, we didn't take as many pictures as we had intended to, we were just so busy! Here are a few pictures that we did take...

A few of the items...

Jeff moving the dryer

Jeff's mom, Sandy, keeping us company

Brother-in-law, Chris, showing off the adoption magnets

Anna Claire cheesing because she is so excited she will have a girl cousin soon!

Jeff and I, two very blessed expectant parents

Graduation

This past Friday was Graduation for South Doyle High School. It was a wonderful celebration, but also a very bittersweet time. This group of kids are very special to us and we are definitely gonna miss them very much! They have grown and matured so much since the first time we met them 4 years ago! Here are a few pictures of the occasion...

Coach B and Alex

Thomas, Ally, and Chase

(I am so thankful that God protected these special kids as they

had a wreck two nights before Graduation)

Jeff and Chase

Ray, Jeff, and Billy



Jeff and Thomas



Jeff and Big Rog

These next few pictures are very special to Jeff and I. We are so proud of Hakeem. He is the kid that I wrote about earlier that we have taken under our wing. He lost his mom two years ago from Sickle Cell Anemia. When she passed, Jeff and I made a commitment to each other and Hakeem that we would do all we could to help him to graduate high school and get an opportunity to go to college. It has been a long hard road with many late night study sessions, early morning rides to school, much laughter and tears, but it was all worth it on Friday night when we got to see him walk across the stage to receive his diploma. I had to shed a few tears of sadness, joy, and thanksgiving as I saw him walk proudly across that stage. We are so thankful that God has let us be a part of this sweet kid's life! And so thankful that God used him as a part of our story. Through Hakeem, God taught us that we could love a child that is not of our blood more than we can ever express and that we can unconditionally love a child that looks completely different from us! What an incredible journey God has taken us on by allowing us to be a part of Hakeem's life! I hope that he realizes how much we love him and how proud we are of him and that everything we did for him, even if he didn't like it at the time, we did it because we thought it was what was best for him! He informed us that he is the first male from his family to ever graduate high school. What an accomplishment!

Waving to the crowd



Coach Breezy and Keem



Jeff, Hakeem, and Amy

What an Incredible Blessing...

Last night we got the shock of our lives. Jeff's team had their Spring scrimmage game to mark the end of spring practice. Just before halftime, one of the player's mom came up to me in the stands and said that they needed me on the field at halftime. I was a little curious, but just figured that since there were several new coaches that they might just be introducing all of the coaching staff and their families. Boy was I wrong. Just as the buzzer sounded to mark the end of the half, the announcer said, "Could Jeff and Amy Bryant please report to midfield?" I met Jeff on the 50 yard line. The announcer starts saying how much the parents and community appreciate the love and time we put into the football program and most importantly the lives of the kids at Jeff's school. He went on to announce that a fund had been set up at a local bank in our honor to help us raise funds to bring our sweet baby home. A mom and former player presented us with the paperwork and account information. Jeff and I were both crying and just could not believe their thoughtfulness. We are so grateful that this group of people would want to be a part of our miracle! Those kids and that football program are so special to us and we do what we do because we love them! We never expected anything in return! What a blessing! We are so thankful to God that he has put such loving and supportive people in our lives! And to top it all off, we won the scrimmage 7-0! Go Kees!

Hallelujah... Pre-approved!

"The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy!"

Psalm 126:3

We received the call on Tuesday that we have been waiting for! Our agency called to let us know that we are pre-approved to adopt from Taiwan and are free to move on with the other paperwork and details related to adopting a little baby girl from Taiwan. We are beside ourselves with excitement. The agency is sending out our contract for us to sign and the directions on how to start filing for our immigration paperwork. We have an appointment next Tuesday with our Home Study case worker that will tie up any loose ends there and hopefully give her all of the information she needs to complete our home study. Once this is finished, we can send in our home study and contract. Once this paperwork is approved, we will be added to the waiting list for our sweet baby girl! It all seems so surreal! After all of these years of struggling to have a baby... it is finally happening... We are gonna be parents! God is so good!

"You turned my mourning into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,
that my heart may sing to you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever."

Psalm 30:11-12

And the wait continues...

No new news on the adoption front, we are still awaiting our pre-approval from our agency. We had to submit some additional financial information a couple of weeks ago and are waiting to hear our news any day now! Some days the wait seems so unbearable and I can feel doubt and worry setting in. Last night was one of those times... until I was searching and reading some adoption blogs and came cross the following verse...

"If it seems slow, do not despair, for these things will surely come to pass. Just be patient! They will not be overdue a single day."

Habakkuk 2:3

Through this verse, I was reminded that there is a loving, omniscient God who has not forgotten about us. He knows just who our child will be and his plan and timing are always perfect! How comforting to know that the ruler of the universe cares about the details of our lives. Thank you Jesus!