“The peace and joy that we’re feeling is absolute evidence of hundreds of people… that are praying for us tonight,” Carita shared with The Austin Stone.
And everyone they met along the way as soon as they entered the hospital was also evidence of that prayer.
They were all excited to see the Chen’s finally arrive.
And when the nurse who escorted them asked if they’re excited to meet their son, Dennis and Carita said yes.
“Yes, our son! We are excited beyond words. There is a child – a boy – somewhere in this hospital who needs a family and parents to love and protect him. We are determined to be his parents,” Dennis wrote on their blog.
And when Dennis and Carita finally met their son and they were flooded with emotions.
“I [found] myself weeping uncontrollably at the intensity of seeing my son for the first time. At some point in those tears, I notice Carita clinging to my arm, hand over her mouth, crying along with me,” Dennis recalled.
And when the nurse lifted their son to give to them, she asked Dennis and Carita what they were going to name him.
They both replied, at the same time, “Jacob.”
“At that moment, instantaneously, he belonged to us, he had a name and he was known,” Carita said.
The nurses at the hospital were sensitive to the Chen family’s needs and they provided two rocking chairs and a private room so they could spend a few moments alone as a new family.
“All those prayers and all those waiting was for him, for Jacob, for our son,” Dennis shared his realizations.
“We would have never, on our own, have written the script for us to be here…What a privilege it is, in a smaller way, in a human way, to live out some of the truths of the gospel.”
