When I met Jess, he was not against adoption, however he did not have the call to adopt on his heart. Instead of nagging, I prayed. I prayed that if my call to adopt was real and true, then God would eventually put that call on Jess' heart and if it wasn't for me to adopt, then He would take that desire away. Eventually, God did what was needed; He placed that call on Jess' heart.
We formulated "our plan" of having two biological children, then moving towards adoption to bring in 2-3 more. I think God laughs at our plans sometimes. And sometimes, I wonder why we even try to plan. In 2008, I became pregnant and still thought everything would just go smoothly and our plan would unfold nicely and neatly. I was due January 22nd 2009 and things were good...until one Tuesday early in November. I went in for a routine check-up with the expectation of everything being great.
My doctor ended up admitting me into the hospital for overnight observation that ended up being eighteen days long. I was diagnosed with preeclampsia. If you are unfamiliar, it is a condition that only occurs during pregnancy (what causes it is unknown) and the only way to treat it is to give birth. It can be life threatening and is extremely serious and must be monitored. If it is not caught or monitored, it can lead to seizure, a coma, and death. It causes rapid and excessive weight gain, high blood pressure, and high amounts of protein in urine. I was only let out of the hospital for "good behavior." My protein levels had dropped and I was willing to monitor my blood pressure at home, see my doctor twice a week until delivery, have blood work done at every doctor's visit, and everything else they required. I was supposed to stay at home on house/bed arrest until delivery. I did everything required except always stay home. I was stir crazy. I attended my friend's wedding an hour away (I was supposed to be a bridesmaid, but drew the line at merely attending for several reasons...still sorry Kayla :-/), made a few trips to Target (with Jess), and went out to eat a few times (with Jess). I was always careful, but hindsight, I was stupid.
After having preeclampsia, you have a 1/3 chance of having it with each subsequent pregnancy. We decided to give my body time off and allow it to heal so we put off having another child. I mean, after spending almost two months in a bed, (minus my few outings) my muscles had atrophied quite a bit and walking half a block was a great amount of work.
Flash forward a few years to November 2011. Jess and I had begun talking more seriously about starting the adoption process, but we weren't quite there. I was getting ready to head to Haiti for the first time and had been joking with Jess about bringing a Haitian child home with me. Yes, I am well aware this is not how it works! I did, however, know there were hundreds of thousands of orphans in Haiti following the horrific earthquake they experienced January of 2010. I remember Jess making a comment to me that let me know he was almost 100% ready to move forward. He said, "Go get our kid" and I looked at him like he hung the moon. He was there! He was there and I was there, but we hadn't heard God say "go" yet and we weren't even sure which country. Anyway, as I was heading out the door, I fleeced Jess with "So what's our kid's name?" I had a random name floating in my head and was just seeing what he would say. He looked at me oddly, then blurted out "Javier." It was the same exact name I had rolling around in my head. Weird! Javier is not a Haitian name so I did not expect to meet a kiddo with that name.
I grabbed my bags and left for Haiti with a new excitement about the possibility of adoption. Haiti - the land, the people, the culture mesmerized me. It is a beautiful country and her people are amazing. They are a people of great resilience and have endured many hardships over the years. I have many wonderful and also gut-wrenching stories but those are for other days. On this particular trip, we arrived on a Saturday and were given a tour of the facilities at which we were staying the following day before church services. We were told to sit where ever we liked and mix in among the locals. I barely knew any of the women I was traveling with so I had no one to keep me "comfortable" if you will. I could either chose to sit with one of the women I didn't know or sit with Haitians I didn't know. But in the end, I didn't have a choice. A young, elementary aged boy had locked eyes on me and he was going to make sure he spent at much time with me as possible. He sat with me, held my hand, and ate up as much attention as he could. He didn't want me to leave! His name, while I'm probably not spelling it correctly, is Savier (since Haitian Creole is French based, the 'r' would be soft). I have looked for the correct spelling of this name and the closest I've found is Sauveur which means Savior! Before I even knew his name, I wanted to scoop that little guy up and bring him home with me. I wanted to tell him I loved him (language barrier) God loved him and make sure his needs were met.
That was the only time I saw him that trip, but my little time with him made a huge impact on my life. A few days after meeting the little guy, I was standing out on the balcony of the building we were bunking in. I was overlooking the Haitian country side and marveling at how amazing God is. If you ever want to see a sunset so beautiful it is beyond words or description, go to Haiti. Every night you are there, you will stand facing the west and just marvel at how good and creative God is. Anyway, while standing there one evening, I heard God's still-small voice whisper "You have a child here." Those words wrecked me! They wrecked me in a good way, but they wrecked me nonetheless. I remember calling Jess to tell him about God's words and I remember being so emotional when telling the women I was with. As a mother, it is hard to hear you have a child somewhere and not being able to get to them. But I trusted God and knew He would get me to my kid.
When I arrived back in the states, I began researching Haitian adoptions and my research was a complete blow to the gut. At the time, married couples were required to both be 35 years of age and have been married for 10 years. These rules excluded many people from being able to adopt from Haiti...including us. I was 29 at the time (Jess was 32) and we had only been married almost 5 years. Couples could seek a Presidential Waiver to waive one of the requirements if they didn't meet all three, but they could not get all three waived. I was a bit bummed and confused, but I still trusted.
Fast forward to the summer of 2012 and God was telling us it was finally time to begin the process to adopt. We were a little confused, but we still trusted and were obedient. In that same summer, Jess and I both went to Haiti and he got to experience the beauty of the island of Hispaniola for the first time. I did not see Sauveur that trip, but I did show his picture to a kid who knew him and knew which village he lived in. He was still around and hopefully doing well. And yes, I have carried his picture around in my bible for almost four and a half years now and think of him from time to time.
In late July of 2012, we submitted our first adoption application and ended up choosing the China program since there was nothing we could do to pursue a Haitian child at the present time. Two months later, I found out I was pregnant. And several days later, I experienced the beginning of a miscarriage. The pregnancy ended up being an ectopic pregnancy (growing in my fallopian tube) and if one does not miscarry this type of pregnancy, it could end up being fatal because the fallopian tube would eventually rupture. The physical healing process for this was over two months, but the emotion healing process took so much longer. We put the next step of our adoption on hold for several months so we could focus on healing. We eventually got back to the adoption process and jumped through all the hoops and hurdles necessary. We were within arms reach of being matched with a kiddo from China when Haiti decided to drop their age/marriage requirements. ***sigh*** We toyed with the notion of jumping ship and going for the Haiti program but it just didn't feel right. Thankfully, we didn't. We were matched with Mei shortly after and traveled to pick her up just a few months after.
And somewhere in there, the Haitian program shut its doors...not forever, but long enough to implement a Hague Accreditation program that works to provide the kids with better protection against traffickers. Haiti allowed a few families to trickle in over the last few years, but they weren't fully open...and most of those families are probably still waiting. On January 13th, Haiti officially opened its doors to allow new families to begin the process of adopting from there. On January 15th, I randomly found out this great news and passed it on to Jess the following morning. Other than telling him the country program was back open, we spoke nothing else of it.
Since my miscarriage in 2012, I haven't been able to get pregnant. There have been many, many times I have longed for another biological child, but I know it is out of my control. On Saturday evening, Jan 23rd, I was lying in bed praying; just talking to the Lord. I was very emotional at the moment as I was thinking about the child I have in Heaven whom I never held in my arms. I was thinking about how it seems I may never have another biological child and I felt a strong urge come over me to do something I had never done. In that moment, I fully surrendered that desire to have another biological child over to God. It is His! And I am at peace! Peace! That is all in His hands! Jess was already asleep so I didn't tell him about it at the time.
The following day, while we were sitting in church, I saw Jess write "Haiti" in the corner of his bulletin. I scribbled a note asking what he meant by that, but he just ignored me. I knew that meant he wasn't ready to talk about it yet. Later that evening, after the kids went to bed, Jess decided to tell me about his notation of Haiti. He basically just said, "God said "your 'sons' are in Haiti."" He thought I would think it odd or strange, but I didn't. A part of my heart has been in Haiti since 2011 and now we get to work towards bringing that part of my heart home. I teared up a little, then I thought of what I had done the night before. I opened up and shared with Jess how I had surrendered my desire for another biological child just the night before. Coincidental? I'm not sure, but I don't think so.
So this makes me wonder many things. Was one of the kiddos already alive or at least conceived when I was there in 2011? Was the other kiddo born sometime after? Are they brothers? Only time will tell all of the other crazy details. God already knows them, we just get to stand back and allow the creator of all things show us all of the crazy-glorious details as He completes this good work. Little by little, the bird builds its nest!
