My Adoption Story

I was asked  to share my adoption story by a friend posting a family story everyday on facebook for National Adoption Awareness Month.  Here it is...  :)

I always knew that I wanted to adopt someday.  I have two cousins that were adopted as newborns and it was such a miracle when each of them joined our family.  I was inspired by other families in my church and community, including several families with children from Korea.  My mom remembers me spending a long time looking at the arrivals page in Lifelines, a publication of Bethany Christian Services.  I wanted to be a part of that.   I also always felt what Tony Dungy expressed in an interview recently, that “adoption is the second phase of being pro-life.”

 By the time I reached 30, my life was not where I expected it to be.  I had left my job and apartment to come home after the sudden death of my dad and was trying to figure out what to do with my life.  I honestly never thought I’d still be single in my 30’s and I was okay with that, but I still wanted to be a mom.   I had definitely never envisioned being a single mom!  Adopting as a single woman in your 30’s is pretty unusual and “young.”  I decided if I wasn’t married by the time I was 35, then I would adopt a child on my own.  It didn’t take long for me to realize that while that seemed like a nice plan, that I would be denying God’s will if I continue to ignore what I felt like I was supposed to be doing then.  In my heart I knew that regardless of what happened with the rest of my future, there was a child waiting out there.  I searched through several options and prayed for direction and everything led me to China.

On Christmas 2005, I told my family at the Terborg Christmas party that I wanted to adopt a baby girl from China and they were excited.  China only accepted a certain percentage of single women so I had to be on a waiting list.  I had been waiting almost a year on the list when China announced that they were closing adoptions to singles.  I was heartbroken, thinking that I’d probably lost my dream of a daughter from China. That decision I’d made to start the process a year earlier, however, had put me at the top of Bethany’s national list and on a week before Christmas 2006, I received the call that I would be allowed to proceed if I could get my dossier to China by May 1^st, 2007.  It was a stressful race but it was there just 15 days before the doors closed!  I was one of the last single women in the world to have a dossier accepted in China for the standard program.

China adoptions began to change in 2006 and the wait times drastically increased.  As the wait increased, I felt led to adopt a child with special needs.  Special needs adoptions in China are expedited to bring children home much sooner.  As an RN and a NICU nurse at the time, I felt able to handle many different medical needs.  The long wait continued, however, because many others were in the same situation and also adopting children with special placement needs.  Adoption is not for the faint of heart and I experienced that through the ups and downs in a wait that seemed it would never end.  On December 1^st, 2008, I received “the call” about a little 2 year old girl named Dang Yi Qin with “limited movement of left arm.” The following April, almost 3 ½ years into the journey, I met my daughter, Ella Grace Yiqin, in a civil affairs office in Taiyuan, Shanxi.

Years ago when I decided on adopting from China, I liked the stability and predictability of their program.  I liked that I had the option of returning for a sibling for Ella.  When I made the decision to adopt, I also knew that if she might grow up with just a mom then I didn’t want her to grow up an only child too.  Our community is not very diverse and I wanted her to grow up with someone that looked like her and shared the same heritage if possible.  I wanted her to have a sibling from China someday. I was disappointed by the rule change but mostly just thankful that I had the opportunity to bring Ella home.  I knew God had a plan.

Then I went to China.  I saw the difference a few days and weeks made in my daughter and the other children in our travel group.  My mom and I witnessed what I believe was the abandonment of a little girl at the steps of a government building while walking with Ella near our hotel and that was heartbreaking.  I met different families with their children waiting to go home to lives filled with hope and promise.  On the flight home from China I prayed and I told God that if He allowed, that I would come back for another child.  It seemed crazy at the time, with Ella at 2 ½ being endlessly busy, and with rules that the China was never expected to change.

“For nothing is impossible with God.”  Luke 1:37.  Over the next couple years life went on for me and Ella.  I was happier than ever before, yet the restlessness continued.  With Ella I was waiting, but this time I felt like I was searching.  I prayed that God would make it go away, or that if Ella was supposed to have a sibling that I would find her anywhere He wanted me to go.  I could not let go of the feeling that I had another daughter somewhere in China.  I looked at lists of waiting children but it seemed hopeless.  God is bigger than the Chinese government and on March 15, 2011, China surprised the adoption world by opening special needs adoptions to single women once again.  I couldn’t stop crying that morning.  The new announcement included strict requirements including that the youngest child be at least 6 and Ella was only 4 ½.  I was so happy that she would be able to have a sister from China in the future.  It was already a dream come true!

For months I watched a little girl on an advocacy website wait without a family to be found for her.  Her medical issues probably sounded scary to some, but seemed pretty minor to me.  It made sense to wait until I actually qualified and to save money for adoption expenses…  but why should she continue to wait?  So, in July, with the help of my agency I wrote a “letter of intent” asking the Chinese officials to waive the requirements and let me bring her home.  I was prepared for a “no” or to wait for months for an answer.  I received a “yes” just 8 days later!  My home study is almost complete and if all goes well, Lexie Joy will be coming home in the spring.  She is 3 years old and living in Northern China.  She and Ella are from bordering provinces and at one point in their lives they were about 200 miles apart.

I like to tell others that the world became smaller and my view of God became bigger when I became the mom to a little girl born on the other side of the world.  I’ll never forget one morning I was sitting at breakfast with Ella and my mom at our hotel near the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou.  I was watching Ella making silly faces at my mom and smiling at people around us.  The tears began to roll down my face…  the overwhelming awareness of how God works everything together for good.  The years, the unanswered prayers, and disappointments had led me to this amazing little girl.  She was actually born about 9 months after that Christmas night with my family.  How amazing is that?  Her diagnosis had become a little unclear after meeting her and I really didn’t care.  I thanked God for knowing better than I what it was that I could handle and for giving me more than I’d imagined.  What if my life had been different?  What if I’d missed out on all of this?

“I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, who summons you by name.”  Isaiah 45:3.  In each of my home studies I’ve been asked how I’ve experienced loss and how I can relate to my daughters’ losses.  That’s an easy one for me, having had multiple devastating losses in my life and family.  Those experiences have without a doubt influenced my decisions in bringing these girls home.  Ella has been a blessing to me and my family in so many ways.  She’s definitely been a source of joy and laughter on many dark and sad days.  It turns out that we needed her as much as she needed us.  Who knew?  I pray that as my daughters process their stories that they will “grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.”  They are His and He has never left their sides.  He knows all our days.

The wait for a healthy baby in China has grown to over 5 years.  Yes, had I not found Ella through the special needs program, I would STILL be waiting right now!  A China special needs adoption can be completed in less than a year which is what I’m doing now.  Married couples can adopt two children at the same time.   The greater majority of the children adopted from China today have medical needs, anywhere from minor and correctable to more severe.  Children with medical issues are abandoned because parents can’t afford their medical care and there isn’t a place in their culture for those with disabilities or differences.  There’s a great need for the adoption of older children and BOYS with special needs.  Behind any diagnosis of any of these children is a child that has a greater need for someone to love them.

Ella’s special need is a brachial plexus injury, a nerve injury from birth that affects her left arm.  She’s had surgery that has improved the function of her arm and if you didn’t know you wouldn’t know.  She has some decreased sensation and may require another surgery in her teens but has no restrictions.  She had an undisclosed issue with her leg that doctors weren’t able to explain, but it miraculously healed on its own, most likely just from the change in her diet and activity here.  Praise the Lord!  Lexie has a couple issues that involve the brain and spine but appear to be resolved.  She is very likely a healthy little girl that doesn’t require any treatment.  If there are some issues that are found when I bring her home then they need to be treated, so why not here with us? 

If you are interested in bringing a child into your life through adoption, please pray and follow through with where it will lead you.  It just may change you as much as the child at the other end if you answer the call.  I don’t believe that adoption is for everyone…  and maybe that’s not what God intended for you or your family…  have you asked Him lately?

“An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet regardless of time, place or circumstance.  The thread may stretch or tangle but it will never break.”  ~Chinese Proverb

“The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.”  Psalm 126:3.