Our prayers have been answered and we are matched with a child!! (To be fair, the process is not completed yet but barring the unforeseen, he'll be ours.) Praise God!!
As you might imagine, selecting a child to be part of your family forever is an emotionally charged process. True to form, it was definitely emotional for us and at the end it was just downright bizarre. Looking back over the process it's easy to see God's hand at work. Here's the story in case you want to relive it a little... If not, you can skip down to the ******* and see the conclusion.
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5/9 - We got an email from our agency announcing they had 2 new children in their system. These emails come about once a month or so as new children become available for adoption. Anyways, both children looked like candidates for us so we requested their files later that day.
5/12 - We received the requested files. I (Micah) read them first. Based on their medical conditions I figured one of them would be a really good candidate for us. After reading his file, I just wasn't that interested. Meh... I read the second file. He has a heart problem but I didn't understand what it was. I was drawn to him, so much so that I even mentioned to Heather later that morning that I just felt drawn to one and not the other.
Heather reviewed his file later that day, we did a little casual internet research about his heart condition and decided we would like to take a closer look. In the meantime we put a hold on his file. This is something the agency lets us do. It effectively takes him "off the market" for a week while we consider him. The hold would end on 5/19 - time is ticking.
In the meantime, we sent his file to the kids' pediatrician (she's an adoptive mom as well, she's very helpful). The Dr. gave us a little info about his condition but couldn't answer all our questions. We decided we were interested enough to make an appointment with Texas Childrens (they have an international adoption department in their retrovirology group, not a word I use every day).
We prayed and fasted hoping to hear from God whether this child was for us or not. We went through many cycles of saying "yes we want him", to saying "I'm scared", to saying "this is crazy, we can't take care of him", to saying "we're just being emotional", etc... ad nauseam. Perhaps meeting the Dr's would help us decided...
What we really wanted was to hear from God. We knew then and we know now that if God calls us to adopt this child God will make it work, even if it's hard. Where is our answer to prayer???
5/16 - We met with Texas Childrens. The Dr. had consulted a pediatric cardiologist and was very helpful in explaining his condition, the risks, etc... She also helped us draft some questions for the orphanage. His file left some questions unanswered about his present condition which could affect his ability to travel home.
We left the Dr. with many questions answered but also with many new questions, unanswered. More praying, more cycles of want him, scared, emotional, etc...
In the meantime we were requesting many more files to look at. This boy stayed on our hearts though.
5/19 - Our "hold" on his file would expire today. However, our social worker extended the hold to 5/22 in the hopes that we might get a response from the orphanage by then.
tick, tock, tick tock... More praying, more cycles.
5/22 - No response from the orphanage. We wanted to adopt this boy but we felt like we needed to make sure we knew what we were getting in to. We let the hold go (which means other families can now put him on hold or choose him). This made us a little nervous about loosing him but at the same time we weren't totally sure he was for us. We offered to share what we learned from the doctors with anyone else that might be looking at him. The social worker told us that nobody else was looking at his file, we felt OK about that. Either way, we wanted him to have a home so if someone chose him that would be OK.
5/28 - Still no response from the orphanage. Can't get this kid off our minds though. We got an email from the agency saying someone else was looking at him and wanted to know if we were still willing to share the information we had from our doctors. I contacted the family immediately, they said they would love to have the information. They had an appointment with their doctors the next day.
I came home and told Heather about all this. We started getting second thoughts about helping someone else adopt this boy...that means someone else might choose him... We decided to honor our offer but be as forthright as possible with this other family about the fact that we were still trying to decide if we wanted him or not.
5/29 - I emailed the information to the other family first thing in the morning. I included an explanation that we still wanted him but were waiting on more information to make sure. We encouraged then to go ahead and meet with their doctors. If they chose him then that was our answer to our prayers - he's not for us. They were not aware that we were still interested.
They emailed us back and said (paraphrased) "Oh wow! Are you saying you want to adopt him? Definitely?" How were we going to answer that?
Heather and I talked at length about how to respond. In short, we couldn't stand the idea of someone else adopting him. Without realizing it, God had already started knitting our heart to his. We already loved him. This was our answer to prayer!!!!
I returned to my computer to respond to them. In the meantime they had sent another email. It said (paraphrasing again) "We want this child to have a home. If you want him, we will release our hold and you can have him. We would be excited to do this so that we can be a blessing to this boy and your family. We will pray for you as you make this hard decision and celebrate with you if you choose him." WHAT!??!?!?? I didn't know they had a hold on him.!.!!.. And who says stuff like that at a time like this? Is anyone really that spiritually mature, I guess so. We were humbled, excited, crying, and relieved.
I replied (summarized) "We want him."
The replied later that day "We've officially released the hold on him, he's yours."
Shortly after, the agency emailed and said "He's yours."
******************************************
So that's that. We have a son on the way! We're excited, to put it mildly.
Hindsight being what it is it's pretty evident that he was for us all along. Here's what I mean:
5/12 - We received the requested files. I (Micah) read them first. Based on their medical conditions I figured one of them would be a really good candidate for us. After reading his file, I just wasn't that interested. Meh... I read the second file. He has a heart problem but I didn't understand what it was. I was drawn to him, so much so that I even mentioned to Heather later that morning that I just felt drawn to one and not the other.
Heather reviewed his file later that day, we did a little casual internet research about his heart condition and decided we would like to take a closer look. In the meantime we put a hold on his file. This is something the agency lets us do. It effectively takes him "off the market" for a week while we consider him. The hold would end on 5/19 - time is ticking.
In the meantime, we sent his file to the kids' pediatrician (she's an adoptive mom as well, she's very helpful). The Dr. gave us a little info about his condition but couldn't answer all our questions. We decided we were interested enough to make an appointment with Texas Childrens (they have an international adoption department in their retrovirology group, not a word I use every day).
We prayed and fasted hoping to hear from God whether this child was for us or not. We went through many cycles of saying "yes we want him", to saying "I'm scared", to saying "this is crazy, we can't take care of him", to saying "we're just being emotional", etc... ad nauseam. Perhaps meeting the Dr's would help us decided...
What we really wanted was to hear from God. We knew then and we know now that if God calls us to adopt this child God will make it work, even if it's hard. Where is our answer to prayer???
5/16 - We met with Texas Childrens. The Dr. had consulted a pediatric cardiologist and was very helpful in explaining his condition, the risks, etc... She also helped us draft some questions for the orphanage. His file left some questions unanswered about his present condition which could affect his ability to travel home.
We left the Dr. with many questions answered but also with many new questions, unanswered. More praying, more cycles of want him, scared, emotional, etc...
In the meantime we were requesting many more files to look at. This boy stayed on our hearts though.
5/19 - Our "hold" on his file would expire today. However, our social worker extended the hold to 5/22 in the hopes that we might get a response from the orphanage by then.
tick, tock, tick tock... More praying, more cycles.
5/22 - No response from the orphanage. We wanted to adopt this boy but we felt like we needed to make sure we knew what we were getting in to. We let the hold go (which means other families can now put him on hold or choose him). This made us a little nervous about loosing him but at the same time we weren't totally sure he was for us. We offered to share what we learned from the doctors with anyone else that might be looking at him. The social worker told us that nobody else was looking at his file, we felt OK about that. Either way, we wanted him to have a home so if someone chose him that would be OK.
5/28 - Still no response from the orphanage. Can't get this kid off our minds though. We got an email from the agency saying someone else was looking at him and wanted to know if we were still willing to share the information we had from our doctors. I contacted the family immediately, they said they would love to have the information. They had an appointment with their doctors the next day.
I came home and told Heather about all this. We started getting second thoughts about helping someone else adopt this boy...that means someone else might choose him... We decided to honor our offer but be as forthright as possible with this other family about the fact that we were still trying to decide if we wanted him or not.
5/29 - I emailed the information to the other family first thing in the morning. I included an explanation that we still wanted him but were waiting on more information to make sure. We encouraged then to go ahead and meet with their doctors. If they chose him then that was our answer to our prayers - he's not for us. They were not aware that we were still interested.
They emailed us back and said (paraphrased) "Oh wow! Are you saying you want to adopt him? Definitely?" How were we going to answer that?
Heather and I talked at length about how to respond. In short, we couldn't stand the idea of someone else adopting him. Without realizing it, God had already started knitting our heart to his. We already loved him. This was our answer to prayer!!!!
I returned to my computer to respond to them. In the meantime they had sent another email. It said (paraphrasing again) "We want this child to have a home. If you want him, we will release our hold and you can have him. We would be excited to do this so that we can be a blessing to this boy and your family. We will pray for you as you make this hard decision and celebrate with you if you choose him." WHAT!??!?!?? I didn't know they had a hold on him.!.!!.. And who says stuff like that at a time like this? Is anyone really that spiritually mature, I guess so. We were humbled, excited, crying, and relieved.
I replied (summarized) "We want him."
The replied later that day "We've officially released the hold on him, he's yours."
Shortly after, the agency emailed and said "He's yours."
******************************************
So that's that. We have a son on the way! We're excited, to put it mildly.
Hindsight being what it is it's pretty evident that he was for us all along. Here's what I mean:
- As noted already, we were drawn to him from day one even though we saw several kids with lesser or more familiar medical needs.
- He has a heart condition requiring surgery. We happen to live in the Mecca of heart surgeons, much less pediatric heart surgeons.
- Heather's good friend (who is also an adoptive mom via China) is the Nurse that schedules the heart surgeons at Texas Children's. She can personally ensure we get the best there is when it comes to pediatric cardiac surgeons.
- His birthday is on the 14th of the month. Lora's birthday is on the 14th of the month. Joshua's birthday is on the 14th of the month. Scott's birthday is on the 14th of the month. Apparently we're only gonna have children with birthdays on the 14th...
- He's in Chongqing, the same city that Sonia is from (Sonia is our exchange student). We never even heard of Chongqing until we met her. When we go pick him up we'll get to see her, her parents and grandma, her home, her city, her favorite places, etc... She's actually tried to volunteer at his orphanage in the past (before she came here).
- Sonia's birthday is not on the 14th. But the day that he became ours (5/29) is Sonia's birthday.
So we have another son and we met some very nice people that said exactly the right thing at just the right time. God is sovereign!
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