We Are Adopting!!

I am so excited to share our story with you!

God has grown our heart for adoption throughout the last few years dramatically. We have learned so much through our own journey and the journey of close friends. There are so many children in this world who NEED families. Our heart initially was just to have more children, but the Lord has also shown us the work that needs to be done, and the beautiful children He created who are in need of loving homes! After watching our dear friends adopt from China we began to talk about our next adoption...we dreamt about Haiti or Africa or China, but in the end we fell in love with our two little adopted friends and believed that China was the right place for our next adoption (they only require one trip, which worked well for our family).

In the Spring of 2016 we began to feel God leading us towards adoption again, and we began to pray about the timing. There are so many factors that play in to the timing of adoption, and often there is a very long wait! In May of last year we sent off for an information packet from a China adoption agency, filled out the forms, our friends filled out some reference questionnaires, and then we started our home study.

The home study took most of the summer and was completed in the fall. They ask you all sorts of questions, the social worker interviews you as a couple and then separately, the even "interview" your kids. We filled out a medical conditions checklist and specified what special needs we were willing to take, and also indicated the age range of the child we would like to adopt. We said 'boy or girl' 12-36 months at time of match'. We also checked small little box saying we would possibly be open to siblings or twins. We loved our social worker and had fun (for the most part) looking ahead to the future, examining our character and what adoption would mean for our family. I got to fill out a 10 page questionnaire about Joe, and our marriage and our parenting (Oh yes, super fun). Our home study was signed and complete by about November. We were approved! It was so exciting....and daunting.

And then the BIG PAPERWORK began. We began compiling all of our documents for our Dossier, which is just every piece of information about you that you could ever obtain...birth certificates, financial disclosures, medical forms and tests and results...all of it had to be signed and dated and notarized and sent to the secretary of state and then to the Chinese Consulate for authentication. It was a loooong process, and involved making lots of copies and visiting my best Notary Michelle often, and forking over a lot of money at Fed Ex : ) I tried to be very, very organized and kept everything in little tabbed folders with big clips and still at the end it was almost too much to handle. International adoption paperwork is literally a part time job!!

We had made some progress in the Winter, and went to a two-day training at our agency where we met several sweet families and began to get really excited about adoption. WHO would God give us? It was amazing to think about. I remember Joe telling me as we looked at a fiery red Maple in the agency parking lot that we would be home before the Fall, and I thought...no way! We went home and continued to work on paperwork, and life. Christmas went by and the paperwork felt long, and yet we were so busy with our kids--homeschooling, church, training and such--adoption felt very far off. We thought we had a very long wait ahead of us before being presented files and getting matched with our child.

Initially I thought that you could only get matched after your Dossier is mailed to China, however there are two categories of special needs orphans in China: Special Needs and Special Focus. Special Focus children have more significant needs or are harder to place in a family, therefore the agency gets these files and then calls families who are willing to accept these children as soon as possible.
So, one day in February we had an especially busy afternoon. Joe was working an evening shift, I was in the middle of changing a poopy diaper and the phone rang. It was our a gal from our adoption agency with the file of a little boy!

I was so terribly excited and shaking...could this be our little boy?  I can't even really describe the phone call...but it kindof feels like someone is calling to tell you that you may be pregnant. You feel hopeful and afraid and...butterflies.

His name was An Ying Hang, 22 months old, from the Henan province of China. He was TINY and cute as a button. He weighed only 18 lbs and we saw a few videos of him feeding himself, walking with help and rocking on a rocker.
He was precious. He turned his head to listen to a toy, and smiled at his nanny. He was bundled up like crazy as the orphanage he is in does not have heat in winter (and this is just a typical Chinese practice to dress in many layers).

His special needs, however, felt a bit daunting. He had atresia and microtia of both ears--malformed ears with no external auditory canal. He would need extensive hearing help, speech therapy and eventual reconstruction. We would probably have to learn sign language in order to help him communicate at first.

How kind God was, however, to allow us to get An Ying Hang's file! I grew up signing a bit with my family because my Dad is an ear doctor, an audiologist, with 30+ years of experience. He was able to tell us what accepting "Hang Hang" would truly mean for our family, the procedures and hearing aids he would most likely need, and he also was willing to get us the very expensive hearing aid devices for cost (this is a huge deal, as a BAHA is often $10,000 and not covered by insurance).

We decided we were pretty serious about An Ying Hang, started praying in earnest, and we and sent his file to Children's Hospital International Adoption Clinic to see what else they could see in his file.
All that week we sought counsel, prayed, hoped and dreamed. We had loooong conversations, talked to our kids about what it would mean to have a brother with special needs, and prayed some more.
I was listening to Sandra McCracken's God's Highway in earnest and I loved Song For Rachel:

Set up a sign or a post
To give us direction,
Lead us by good, clear paths,
Show us the way
Our tired and restless ways
Help and defend us, please
Stay by my side

Chorus
Your deliverance is coming
For us while we wait,
In the wilderness You walk before us,
Give us grace

I truly felt that God was leading us to our son. We began to dream of calling him ours, and saying 'Yes'. It all was happening so fast...I had not thoughts we would get a call until after our documents were in China...probably another 5 or so months.

Children's got back to us and told us what my Dad had said, and that though he was developmentally delayed, this is probably due to institutional care, and not having adequate hearing help, and that he would most likely catch up after he was home. We learned that many times children living in orphanages are 1/3 of their age developmentally, just because they often do not have the one on one contact of a family that they need. It is heart breaking, and sobering, to think of so many children living in these conditions. Often the orphanages in China are clean, the workers are caring...and yet it is not enough to have 1 Nanny to 15 or 20 children. And so little ones like An Ying Hang, who cannot hear well or communicate, often get left behind developmentally.

As soon as Children's got back to us with a positive report we breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that God was allowing us to move forward with Ying Hang's adoption and say YES.
I was, and am, so full of hope for this sweet little boy, our son. I cannot wait to meet him, and hold him, and tell him I will never leave him. That Jesus loves him and made him, and has good plans for him.

I felt so hopeful knowing that An Ying Hang was going to get to be in a family, our family, and that God would equip us to meet his needs and help him to hear. His Grandpa, my Dad, will be such an asset to us and to our sweet boy, helping us to meet his needs well and give him the care he needs.
Isn't that so neat? God is writing our story, An Ying Hang's story, and all of our stories. The Lord has delivered us, and will deliver us. He will come for us.

In the wilderness HE is walking before us, and will give us the grace we need.

And then a month later, we got another phone call....to be continued (Judah's story) : )