"Consecrated To God"

That's what Elsie means. Our desire is just that: we want each of our children to be fully dedicated to serving and glorifying God. And early on in this adoption process, we decided that God would choose how Elsie would best glorify Him. We knew the about the "risks" and "possibilities" that might be posed to her as a result of her birthmom's HIV, and we also trusted that God was in control of these very issues. So since birth, Elsie has had a dose of medication every 6 hours to keep her possible HIV in check (4 AM, 10 AM, 4 PM, 10 PM, etc.). The doctor informed us that there are 2 types of testing to find out if she is HIV positive. First is the 'antibody' test--this will test positive for a certain amount of time because Elsie will carry her birthmother's antibodies for up to 18 months. The second is to test for the virus itself. They require that she has 3 negative tests before they will consider her HIV negative (even if the antibody test is still positive, they feel this one is more reliable). Today we received the news that her first test came back NEGATIVE! We are very excited that she may not have to go through life with these medical issues. However, we are still praying because false positives and negatives occur frequently. We will have an update on her 2nd test in 1 to 2 weeks.