Rejoice

Within this past year I came back into contact with a friend of mine from college via Facebook. Over the course of the past few months he and his wife lost their child in the 9th month of the pregnancy. The uterus burst and the baby's umbilical cord was sucked out, pinching off oxygen to their baby boy. The devastation and pain suffered is unimaginable to me and still brings me great sadness to simply contemplate their loss. My friend blogged very openly about their experience and to say I was amazed by his perspective is an understatement.

Long story short, they began to toss around the idea of adoption. Things happened very quickly and within this past week they met a birth mother, got her approval, and found out she was schedule for a c-section today. During that time they needed to raise 27k for the adoption fees, legal fees, hospital fees, and travel fees. Amazingly in five days over 27k was donated to them from friends, family, members of their church, and people they didn't even know. This was nothing short of incredible.

Today they became parents for the second time. Only this time they will get to rejoice in the birth and look forward to taking this precious gift home with them to love, nurture, and raise. I can't imagine the range of emotions they must be experiencing from joy to sadness to redemption and any and all in between. Today was a good day. Better than good actually. An amazing day. I'm sure the birth of their second son will never take away the pain associated with the loss of their first, but hopefully he will be a beacon of joy and a source of comfort for them. He will be to them what our children our to us: the best of us.