I recently shared with a friend that lately I feel like smoke is pouring out of my ears as my brain stays in overdrive! All of my anticipated plans for the next two years have been drastically changed with the news of our adoption likely to happen very soon. See, I'm a "J" on the Myers-Briggs--you know, a planner. Now, I can be as flexible as the next person as long as I plan for flexibility. This is actually what got me through the adoption process for so long. But something happened over the last year or so and I got comfortable in my planning again. I expeted Micah to be about 3 when we got Brenna, so he would most likely be potty-trained and out of his crib; I expected our house to be sold and that we'd be settled into a new house; I expected to be in better shape; I expected to be, more ready, I guess; I expected to have traveled overseas this year for missions; I expected to have more of an interim time before baby-dom began again.... I expected, and I was wrong!
Frankly, that's a bit hard for me to handle on some days. So I make lists and more lists on notepads all over the house. I email anyone I know that has adopted from China or knows someone who has and ask them all sorts of questions. I wake up at 2 am as if it were 7, my mind racing with thoughts of Micah's passport and shots and what he will eat in his picky toddler stage in China. I wonder where we will put the overflowing furniture that we now need to move to make room for Brenna's bed. I wonder if I am ready to be a mom again. I wonder if my son is ready to be a big brother....I could go on and on but that might make smoke come out of your ears!
With all of that said, when I allow myself to stop and pause and to think about some major truths in the midst of all of this, a strange peace falls upon me. God knows the personality He gave me. He knows my need for order and that we were going to be surprised by how soon our daughter would be coming home. So, He watched as we got our house ready to put on the market, realizing that we were getting ready for something else. He listened to me tell Him that I was ready for some sort of challenge in my life and knew the answer was coming. He listened as I prayed, for the first time in a year, wondering if my daughter had been born or not and asking Him to whisper to her heart that we love her, want her, and are coming to get her--ONE WEEK BEFORE we found out she was coming so soon, and that yes, she's most certainly been born!
God is good. He takes care of us with a delicate balance of teaching us to love who He has made us to be while surrendering ourselves completely to His transformation.
The next time I feel like smoke is coming out of my ears, I will choose to laugh or cry as I remember that He knows the plans He has for me--plans for a hope and a future!
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Monday, April 26, 2010
Our Looong Adoption Journey So Far...
I'll begin by introducing our adoption journey to bring our daughter Brenna home, by saying that our son just turned two yesterday! If that sounds like a strange way to introduce our adoption, then you're on the right track because our path to becoming parents has been anything but normal or expected. But, we have finally realized that it is the right path for us.
In the summer of '02, my husband and I traveled to China for 2 weeks. We had only been married 4 years and were still thinking of parenthood as something wonderful but somewhat distant. We had always known that adoption would be a part of our family in some way, but had no idea how. On this trip to China, we learned of the many girls in orphanages awaiting international adoption. We learned that China's one-child policy had created an overwhelming social crises in which baby girls were being abandoned in order to have a boy for that one-child quota issued by the government. (I'll write more on this later.) Chris and I were shocked and very drawn to the girls we saw. On the plane ride home, we felt strongly that we had a Chinese daughter in our future--and we BOTH felt this way.
One year later, we began the paperwork, taking one year to complete it as we waited to turn 30 years old, a requirement by China in order to adopt. In 2006, our paperwork was sent to China (DTC Feb '06) and we were logged-into the waiting line, so to speak, on March 7, 2006 (LID). At the time, we were excited and ready to become parents, and expected it to happen quickly. The wait times after being logged-in at that time were estimated at 5-7 months for a referral (when you are matched with your child). Well, that was not what we got to experience. Along with so many other hopeful parents-to-be, we got caught up in a period of wait times being doubled and even tripled. As the time dragged on and on, our desire to become parents of this special child grew to be a deep, painful burden to become parents.
As we waited, God was gracious to bring other children into our lives to pour into and we are forever grateful for their kind parents who shared them with us! But we remained attached to our Chinese daughter, even though we hadn't even been matched with a specific child! We even named her Brenna, after a dear lifelong friend of mine, and have been calling her this for years. We read and read about adoption and China. We made friends with other adoptive families and with Chinese here in town. Our lives were very full and yet we were completely heart-broken. We had a lot of love in our marriage that needed to expand to love for a child.
So, in the summer of 2007, with wait times projected to once again double, we went to God in prayer. Over the course of one weekend, three different people/groups prayed for us. We got a surprising answer....God told us to ask Him for a child for now. For NOW??? What did that mean? We were so committed to bringing our Chinese daughter home, to that specific child of our hearts; it felt disloyal to pursue another child in the meantime. But as we prayed, God revealed to us that we had never really asked him for a child to help heal this brokenness caused by an unfulfilled desire to parent. We had just assumed that we must dutifully wait for our Brenna.
So we tried to follow God's calling and asked Him for a child for NOW... We looked into fostering and other situations, but nothing seemed right. Finally, we did some research and found out that the medication I was on for an auto-immune disorder had been re-classified as safe during pregnancy. We were shocked, thrilled, and terrified. We had never held onto the idea of having a biologial child (nor had we tried for one) and it was quite strange to re-think that we might have one. So, we humbly and honestly poured out our deepest hurts and longings before the Lord for a child to love. And....we were pregnant the next month! We feel that God did this for us because He knew we needed to know this was a gift from HIM so that we wouldn't feel disloyal to our Brenna. Our son, Micah, was born April 25, 2008. He has been a complete joy and we look at him everyday, in awe that he is ours.
In light of the unexpected gift of our son, we had to put our dossier on hold to adopt our daughter. In January 2009, the place we were in line for adoption seemed to suggest that we would be matched with a daughter in April '09. We agreed with our adoption agency that birth order would be affected if we continued with our original log-in date, so we wrote a letter to China asking to be given a later log-in date. Well, we have been tracking that date and assumed that we would be given a match anywhere from 12-18 months from now. That assumption was blown out of the water two weeks ago!
Back to the beginning of this blog when I said that our son turned two...My husband got an email from our adoption agency telling us that now that our son was turning two, we could write that letter asking China for a match....we had NO idea what they were talking about! After talking with our case worker, we found out that they had not told us that when we wrote China a letter asking to be moved back in the line, they declined and just said to write them when our son turned two!! Chris was speechless for two days and I cried for 3 or 4. We are thrilled beyond words and hope to see our daughter's face soon! We are busily preparing for her and can't wait to travel to China to bring her home.
In the summer of '02, my husband and I traveled to China for 2 weeks. We had only been married 4 years and were still thinking of parenthood as something wonderful but somewhat distant. We had always known that adoption would be a part of our family in some way, but had no idea how. On this trip to China, we learned of the many girls in orphanages awaiting international adoption. We learned that China's one-child policy had created an overwhelming social crises in which baby girls were being abandoned in order to have a boy for that one-child quota issued by the government. (I'll write more on this later.) Chris and I were shocked and very drawn to the girls we saw. On the plane ride home, we felt strongly that we had a Chinese daughter in our future--and we BOTH felt this way.
One year later, we began the paperwork, taking one year to complete it as we waited to turn 30 years old, a requirement by China in order to adopt. In 2006, our paperwork was sent to China (DTC Feb '06) and we were logged-into the waiting line, so to speak, on March 7, 2006 (LID). At the time, we were excited and ready to become parents, and expected it to happen quickly. The wait times after being logged-in at that time were estimated at 5-7 months for a referral (when you are matched with your child). Well, that was not what we got to experience. Along with so many other hopeful parents-to-be, we got caught up in a period of wait times being doubled and even tripled. As the time dragged on and on, our desire to become parents of this special child grew to be a deep, painful burden to become parents.
As we waited, God was gracious to bring other children into our lives to pour into and we are forever grateful for their kind parents who shared them with us! But we remained attached to our Chinese daughter, even though we hadn't even been matched with a specific child! We even named her Brenna, after a dear lifelong friend of mine, and have been calling her this for years. We read and read about adoption and China. We made friends with other adoptive families and with Chinese here in town. Our lives were very full and yet we were completely heart-broken. We had a lot of love in our marriage that needed to expand to love for a child.
So, in the summer of 2007, with wait times projected to once again double, we went to God in prayer. Over the course of one weekend, three different people/groups prayed for us. We got a surprising answer....God told us to ask Him for a child for now. For NOW??? What did that mean? We were so committed to bringing our Chinese daughter home, to that specific child of our hearts; it felt disloyal to pursue another child in the meantime. But as we prayed, God revealed to us that we had never really asked him for a child to help heal this brokenness caused by an unfulfilled desire to parent. We had just assumed that we must dutifully wait for our Brenna.
So we tried to follow God's calling and asked Him for a child for NOW... We looked into fostering and other situations, but nothing seemed right. Finally, we did some research and found out that the medication I was on for an auto-immune disorder had been re-classified as safe during pregnancy. We were shocked, thrilled, and terrified. We had never held onto the idea of having a biologial child (nor had we tried for one) and it was quite strange to re-think that we might have one. So, we humbly and honestly poured out our deepest hurts and longings before the Lord for a child to love. And....we were pregnant the next month! We feel that God did this for us because He knew we needed to know this was a gift from HIM so that we wouldn't feel disloyal to our Brenna. Our son, Micah, was born April 25, 2008. He has been a complete joy and we look at him everyday, in awe that he is ours.
In light of the unexpected gift of our son, we had to put our dossier on hold to adopt our daughter. In January 2009, the place we were in line for adoption seemed to suggest that we would be matched with a daughter in April '09. We agreed with our adoption agency that birth order would be affected if we continued with our original log-in date, so we wrote a letter to China asking to be given a later log-in date. Well, we have been tracking that date and assumed that we would be given a match anywhere from 12-18 months from now. That assumption was blown out of the water two weeks ago!
Back to the beginning of this blog when I said that our son turned two...My husband got an email from our adoption agency telling us that now that our son was turning two, we could write that letter asking China for a match....we had NO idea what they were talking about! After talking with our case worker, we found out that they had not told us that when we wrote China a letter asking to be moved back in the line, they declined and just said to write them when our son turned two!! Chris was speechless for two days and I cried for 3 or 4. We are thrilled beyond words and hope to see our daughter's face soon! We are busily preparing for her and can't wait to travel to China to bring her home.
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