Our Adoption Story

I finally wrote down "our story." It's rather long, but if you want to read it... here it is...

Our Roller Coaster Ride to Our Daughter

In October 2005, we found out we were pregnant with our third child. This was a complete surprise to us, and we were thrilled. We already had two boys and wondered if this child was to be our daughter! A month later, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, I had a miscarriage. I have never experienced such loss before… an emptiness that I couldn’t explain. I knew that God was with me and that He had a plan, but I had no clue what it might be.

After the miscarriage I decided that I didn’t want to “try” again for another child… but I still had a desire in my heart for another child, a daughter. A few months passed and a special came on TV about foster care. I began talking with my husband about the possibility of fostering or adopting a child. At the time we realized that our boys were probably too young to understand the foster process, but that I would continue to do some research into adoption, both domestic and International.

Speed ahead several more months and we’re sitting at a meeting for parents interested in adopting from China. That next Thanksgiving, a year after our miscarriage, we were accepted into our agency’s program and began the journey to adopt. Ah ha! God’s plan is starting to make sense now!

Shortly into the adoption process (a process that includes TONS of paperwork), the timeline for waiting for a match (when is when a child is matched with a family) started to increase dramatically. By the time our paperwork had been accepted by China (on March 19, 2007), many people were predicting the wait would extend from the current wait of 18 months to a very long three to five years. From early on I just felt like we would have our daughter before the 2008 Olympics, which were to be held in China. So now what was I to think? Once again, I knew the Lord had to have a reason for all of this… so it was time for me to just sit back and enjoy the ride, or at least try to!

Within a couple of months I began to feel like I was missing something… I just knew our daughter had already been born, and that we’d be traveling to get her in the summer of 2008, but how could that be? I also started to read more information about our agency’s Waiting Child Program, which finds homes for children with special needs. At first, this program intimidated me… but then, after doing more research, I realized that “special needs” could be something as simple as a birthmark. Both of our boys would be considered special needs, one due to a heart murmur and the other for a skin tag on his ear.

After much prayer and many long talks, my husband and I submitted the necessary paperwork to apply for the Waiting Child Program. We were accepted into that program on June 19, 2007. Once again it was time to sit back and wait while they tried to match us with a child (which was roughly taking about 10-12 months). The next 8 months were full of twists and turns. Many times I saw a child on our agency’s website that had yet to find a family because his or her needs did not match with a particular family. I prayed and asked if this was our child… but each time it just didn’t feel “right.” Shortly after thinking about these children, he or she would soon find a forever family, and I knew that I had my answer. No, this was not our child.

Then, on February 18, 2008, I saw her… a sweet child with plump cheeks. A child whose special needs did not match with any family’s file that was currently waiting. This child was diagnosed with myelomeningocele (a form of Spina Bifida). She was already two years old and had very sad eyes. We had never even discussed the possibility of adopting a child with Spina Bifida… why was I so drawn to this child? It was already after office hours, so I emailed our agency and left voice mails asking to review this child’s file. I had never requested a file before, but I just knew I had to learn more about this girl. Then I went to bed and prayed…

The next morning I had to go to a Steering Team meeting… I asked one of the staff members at the church if I could please check my email to see if I had gotten a response about reviewing the file. Sure enough I did… I was told that her file was not completely translated (from Chinese to English), but that we would be added to the list of families waiting to review her file. It would probably be at least a week till we heard anything, if we heard anything at all. Much to my surprise, I got a call later that afternoon asking if we were still interested in reviewing the file. Of course we were!!!! The file had just been translated and we were the first family to review it. We were told to look over everything and call back in the morning to let them know what we thought.

We looked over the file that night and decided we needed to contact some specialists to find out what we were really dealing with… I poured over all the pictures that were sent to us and began to fall in love with this child. Could we really be her parents? Could we handle her needs and provide the best possible care for her? I tried to prepare myself for bad news from the specialists, but instead heard nothing but positive things. God opened even more doors when we found out that one of our friends works directly with children with Spina Bifida at the local children’s hospital… and the children’s hospital even has a special program specifically for children with Spina Bifida. God gave us a clear answer. Yes, this is the child that is meant to be our daughter.

On June 10, 2008, we met our daughter for the first time. She cried and screamed, and we cried and screamed (on the inside) with her. This sweet child was about to be taken away from everything she knew and everyone she ever knew. No, an orphanage setting is not the best, but it’s all she knew, and now she was grieving for the people that had cared for her over the past 27 months. We struggled through the next few days as she got to know us, but two and a half weeks after we left home to go to China (and a fifteen hour plane ride home), we returned with our daughter... well before the start of the Olympic Games! She has already had many tests (blood tests, ultrasounds, MRIs, etc) and will have many more doctor appointments in the near future, but we know that God has chosen us to be her family, and through all the ups and downs and twists and turns, He will be with us and guide us.