Meeting Nora

*I started writing this post while I was pregnant and never got around to finishing it!*
I want to start keeping up with the blog again so I figured I'd start by finishing this one, because it's a good one!

Let me tell you a story...

When I was a kid all I wanted was to be a mommy. I wanted a big family, like 5 or 6 kids, and a dog and a cat. 
Then when I was a teenager I had a bizarre dream that stuck with me. It was one of those short but vivid dreams that you wake up from and it's so clear you never forget it. One of those dreams that you know came from God. In the dream I was walking down a sidewalk and a little girl was running ahead of me. I remember thinking she looked so much like me and was my daughter. I called out, "Nora!" to get her to slow down and come back to me, to keep her safe. And as she went to turn to look at me I woke up. It was strange to wake up as a young teenager and feel like I then knew what it felt like to have a child. It was also strange because I did not know anyone named Nora and that name was so random to me. 
Shortly after the dream, possibly before, I'm not sure, I met Tim. He knew I wanted a big family from the beginning and I guess was always on board. Once we were officially dating we were serious and intentional about dating to get married so we had the kids conversation early. By college we knew we wanted 4 or 5 kids and we even had conversations about names. So at some point I told Tim the story about my dream and he said, I like that name, we should use that!
Once we were married and decided to start having kids, like most people, it didn't go as planned. We were not getting pregnant right away and I was pretty upset about it. One day I met up with a friend for coffee that I hadn't seen in years. Without telling her much about what had been going on with me she offered to pray over me. After she prayed she said that God had given her a vision of a little girl in a field of flowers. The little girl was holding a four petal flower and she said that God was saying that the number four was significant. Of course I held onto that image and spent years trying to figure it out. 
Flash forward again, I had two boys. No girls, which was fine, I had actually wanted boys. But no Nora and no numbers 4... We liked our life with two boys but decided to keep adding to our family. Since the boys were so close in age we didn't want a large gap in ages so we started trying for the next and got pregnant quickly. Then comes the story of Meeting Maelyn. She was supposed to be Nora, but God told me this wasn't Nora, this was Maelyn. Through everything with Maelyn and Micah's diagnosis, Tim and I had decided that we needed to be done having kids. It felt like there was too much risk getting pregnant again and our plates were plenty full. It was hard for me to accept that we were done at three kids but I was ok with it. I knew it was the right decision. ...But still no Nora and no number 4...
When Maelyn was a year and a half I felt this stirring from the Lord that we were not done having kids. I tried to pray it away, justify it as my own thing and felt crazy for even thinking about it. I prayed about maybe a distant future foster or adoption since that is something we had talked about in the past. But didn't feel like that is what the Lord was saying. I eventually brought it up to Tim and he said, in the best way possible, nope! And I was ok with that, I didn't want to be pregnant and our hands were full. What was this!?
Three months later we had a little surprise. I mean, I wasn't that surprised, God warned me several times, but it also wasn't exactly planned... I knew immediately that it was Nora, the little girl from my dream was real. The pregnancy was considered high risk, at lot of tests and ultrasounds and worried doctors, but I knew she was fine. I was never worried. God had already promised this little girls life. Nora has been my biggest and healthiest baby. 
God promised four and here they are. God named her. God has shown me her as a three year old already. I trust God with my children, with my life, because he keeps his word. His plan is so much bigger than ours.