https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN-1O_nVZzY
(Video above: The adoption surprise that changed one Alabama family forever)

For Allison and Josh of Birmingham, Alabama, the old Yiddish proverb, “We plan, God laughs,” rings especially true.

“We can remember when we were engaged or early married and we said, ‘We’ll have two, maybe three kids,’” Allison laughs. “Maybe, maybe!” Josh chimes in.

“But here we are, seven kids later — four biological, three adopted,” said Allison. “The Lord had a different plan for us.”

Part of that “different” plan unfolded as the couple was on their way to North Carolina for the birth of a baby boy they were preparing to adopt.

Their adoption attorney called with a stunning surprise. The mother of the baby boy was not having just one baby, she was having two.

And while the shock was still setting in, they received a second phone call that turned their nervous excitement into concern.

The doctor informed them that the second baby — a little girl — would be born with “gross abnormalities in her brain, and they didn’t know if she would survive.”

“She said, ‘What makes a person a person is not there,’” Allison recalls.

The couple was determined to adopt both babies, and the littler girl, Ava, not only survived birth, she and her little brother Sam are both back home in Birmingham now with their new family.

“Medically I understand what she was saying, but (Ava) totally has a personality,” says Allison. “The Lord created her life and the fact that she wasn’t born the way we would have chosen or what we would have wanted in an ideal world didn’t change that she needed a family.”

“For me the hardest part was the first two-and-a-half weeks… when it was a day-by-day ‘is she going to be here tomorrow? Is she going to be here through the night?,’” she continued. “We talk openly with the kids. They know Ava’s life will probably be far shorter than what any of us would want for her, but they know we’ve got a lot of love to pack into a short period of time.”

Even though Ava’s life is expected to be short, Allison says she is incredibly thankful that the babies’ biological mother made the choice to give them life.

“The biggest joy out of this whole thing was getting to sit across from their birth mom the morning after they were born… and thank her for preserving their lives,” she says. “She walked through a lot to be able to give them life… We’re just overwhelmed with thankfulness for her and just honored that the Lord would let us be the choice that she made. She did make a choice and we’re just so thankful that bringing these guys into our family was the choice that she made.”

Check out the video above for the full story.