Big News!

Our next family adventure is a big one we would like to share.  We are on the path to adopt a child from China!   This whole idea started for me back in May.  I had never really thought too much about adopting, but then a family from our church was going through the process and seeing them growing their family in this way really opened up my eyes to adoption.  I started doing some more research, seeing faces of sweet orphans, researching countries and it really turned my heart in this direction.    Sam and I have always toyed with the idea of having 4 children and this seemed like a perfect way to grow our family.  

It was actually on my birthday this year that I brought this up to Sam.  He, of course, thought I was crazy.  We had never talked about it before, and here I was feeling like it was so right and he had not even had time to digest the idea.  I requested to read the file of one of the little boys I felt so connected to and to do this the agency required me to fill out a checklist about our family and medical needs we would consider.  

Sam and I continued discussing adoption over the next several months off and on, but we were just not in the same place with the decision to move forward.   Adopting was never far from my mind over the next several months.  It’s so hard to have faith that this is what God was calling us to do.  There are just so many unknowns with this….Can we afford it?  What if our other children don’t get along with him?  What if he resents us when he gets older for taking him away from his home country?  Can we leave our children for 2 weeks to travel to China?    I continued to pray about this daily and praying that if this was God’s plan for our family that Sam’s heart would be softened to this idea.

Then two weeks ago I got a call from that same agency I had been talking to over the summer.  They had a child for us!  I was pretty shocked to get the phone call since I didn’t realize they had kept our information this whole time and were still seeking a little one for us to add to our family.   His file was emailed to us and the clock started ticking with a week for us to decide it we wanted to pursue adopting him.  Sam and I reviewed the file and spent the next week talking and praying about this.  He was a really cute little guy, a few months younger than Ben, with a pretty minor medical need.    I won’t disclose his real name, but we called him “Ducky” as a nickname because of his fuzzy hair.  A week is such a short time to make such a major decision, but understandable since they don’t want the little guy to wait too long.  Sam and I were getting to a much closer place with this whole idea of adoption but we were still not in 100% agreement that this was what God had planned for us.  We continued to prayerfully ask God to give us wisdom and lead us in the right direction.  We spent the next few days discussing this with family and friends and shedding a few tears.  The Saturday after Thanksgiving, Sam told me that he was ready to commit to little “Ducky.”  God had made his plan to grow our family in this way clear to Sam as well as me and we quickly emailed the adoption agency and told them we were ready to move forward with adopting the little guy.   

Unfortunately, they had already shared his file with another family (as we were outside of our 1-week time limit) and the other family had decided to adopt him.  I am so happy the little guy found his forever family but sad for us as we thought he was going to be our son.   Obviously, God has other plans for a different child for us.  But “Ducky” helped bring Sam and I to the same page about adoption and for that I am grateful.  

So now the process continues!  We have formally applied to the adoption agency, CCAI.  We have given our family histories, medical information, financial information, and are working on getting our references in and waiting for another phone call with a child that matches with us.  This is going to be a long journey, but can’t wait to bring another little child into our family!