For the past nine months, the adoption process has been creeping along. Once you get past the applications, home study phase, and your dossier is locked in (in the system in country of adoption); it is pretty much just a waiting game for a referral. Sure, there are a few things you have to do here and there, but nothing like the paperwork in the beginning. So, once our dossier was completed and sent, we have just been waiting on our adoption worker to call us with the news of a referral. Quite honestly, even though the process has crept by, these nine months have flown by because we have been busy.
Prior to December, we received two referrals and have looked at the files of two other children in China. Something most people don’t know about the adoption process is that you do not have to accept a referral. In fact, most adopters do not accept their first referral and some go through several referrals before saying yes. I know it sounds like you are wading through files in search of the “perfect” child, but that is not the case. You are merely looking for YOUR child and it is a very taxing and emotional process at times. Since we are open to special needs children, referrals came at fairly quick intervals because there is great need to find families for such children. (As of December 23rd, our agency’s China program listed 29 families waiting on a non- special needs child and 2 families waiting to be matched with a child with known special needs.) And don’t let the term special needs fool you; simple things like birthmarks, port wine stains, and Mongolian spots are all considered special needs. There are also many fairly simple, correctable issues like cleft lip, cleft palate, webbed fingers, webbed toes, microtia, atresia, and on and on that are listed. We have to trust that God will give us full peace about the child(ren) He has for us and we have to know what we can handle.
I won’t go into all the details of our referrals today, but I will say that we have prayed our way through the whole process and have had others pray with us. Knowing God is guiding us is a huge comfort and I don’t know how people do it without Him. Here is a simple breakdown of the files/referrals received: (And to clarify, all of these children have files…a referral, however, is when the agency specifically pairs the files of a child to you and asks, “Is this your child?”). We first asked to look at the files of an older boy who is still listed on our agencies waiting child list. We would scoop this boy up in a heartbeat, but we truly feel like his God-given family is still out there and we would be depriving them of each other. Next, we received a referral of a boy who had several medical issues. Alone, none of the medical issues would have been a big deal, but it was the 4-5 issues compounded that made us nervous. We had a doctor (who specializes in international adoption) look over his medical files and we knew that his medical needs were more than we were truly capable of handling. We knew he was not our child, and we returned his files to the agency. The following day, we received a call from our adoption worker informing us that he had found his forever family. Praise the Lord! That call brought us such relief because there can be such tremendous guilt for saying no even when you know they aren’t your child. On another occasion, I had stopped by our agencies office and our adoption worker showed me the files of a little boy who was about to be added to the waiting child list. He is an adorable little boy, but I knew he was not my child. He was added to the waiting child list and his current status says “family pending.” The second referral we received is one I still carry a lot of guilt about. We received a call about this referral while we were out of state and it was a very overwhelming time for us to be looking at a referral. Jess was ready to say yes because he was so tired of the process, but I never had a peace in my heart about this child. Honestly, if the referral had been for a bar of soap, I think Jess would have accepted it. So, my no turned into Jess’ no and we returned the files back to our agency. We never received a call or email about this child to let us know their status so I still wonder about this child. Has this child been matched with a family? I will probably never know, but I cannot dwell on it. God will take care of this child and He will take care of the first boy we looked at as well. I have to have faith that these special children will find their forever-families!!! God will provide for them as He loves them more than he loves the sparrows of the air and flowers of the field…yet God provides for them daily!
And He has provided for us! On December 6th, we received a referral for a child and we had two weeks (normally it is 3-4 days so we had a long time by adoption standards) to give a yes or a no. Jess and I both had overwhelming peace about this one. We still had to talk to the doctor about the medical files, but we both knew it would be a yes either way. Our agency would not let us move forward until we heard from the doctor so we just had to wait on her to give us a call. This was back during the crazy, icy weather so she was out of her office for days. Anyway, we finally talked with her and she gave her medical overview of the files and we were finally able to proceed from there. Our agency let us start the “Letter of Intent” to adopt this child and we received the official referral from China on December 31st. We have several more steps, but the process is moving at lightning speed at this point. The lady who is in charge of the China program for our agency has said to us a few times, “That was REALLY fast!” Things are happening for us in a matter of days, when they normally take weeks…so we are scrambling, and yes, having mild moments of panic because we have so much to do.
But, if all continues to go well, we will be bringing home our new DAUGHTER in a matter of a couple months. While I legally cannot post a picture of her on the internet, I can tell you a bit of her info. And Jess and I will purposefully guard some of her information because that is a part of HER story to tell if she ever desires. We do not want her to be defined by her past!!!
She (we have referred to this child as Po (the adopted panda on Kung Fu Panda) through the whole process not knowing if it will be a girl or boy and have yet to fully decide on a name) turned two in November and is a tiny little thing. From her last medical measurements, she is probably smaller than an 18 month old currently. Po was born with some cleft lip and cleft palate issues and has already had one surgery to begin the repair process. She was also born with several webbed/fused fingers on one of her hands and has had one surgery on it as well. She will probably require a minimum of two more surgeries (one more on palate/lip and one on hand) as well as speech therapy and probably occupational & physical therapy. We hope and pray her hearing is good because it can be affected by the lack of development of the palate.
All in all, these are truly minor physical issues, but all will take time to heal/repair and we will spend a fair amount of time in the doctor’s office in the first several years. We know that God will provide all that we need: emotionally, spiritually, physically, mentally, and monetarily. We still have a fair amount of money to raise before we can travel to China to bring home our “Po” home so we are speaking (typing) in faith that all of our needs will be met.
Please circle us in prayers and if you feel called to help, the best way you can do so currently is a monetary donation of any amount. Please see my prior blog post about ways to donate. We will also update in a few days about other ways to help as well as a breakdown of where the money has gone/will go. Thanks in advance!
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