*This is part two of our adoption story, if you missed part one, you can read it here.
A few days after I decided to move forward, we decided we would put in an application at WACAP in hopes to get matched with a boy a few months after we complete our home study. There was a discount of $100 off an application, but we wouldn't have our application complete in time, so we prepaid the application fee to get the discount and then began working on our application.
Two days later, I was looking in the China Child Advocacy group and this little boy popped up in the group. His face was stunning. When I saw him I immediately felt drawn to him. My exact comment
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One of the first pictures
we saw of him. |
on his picture on Facebook was “Oh my goodness!!! Love!!!” He was so precious and at that moment I no longer felt deep sorrow from the loss of "Will," the boy we were supposed to host this past summer. A part of me felt guilty, like I was replacing "Will," but the other part of me felt grateful that God would bring me healing so quickly and would show me there were so many beautiful children out there that needed adopting. I couldn’t stop thinking of this boy's precious face, so I quickly contacted the agency, which was not WACAP, and requested his file.
After a few back and forth emails, I received his file just hours before the July 4th holiday weekend began. This timing was perfect, as it gave my husband and me a chance to discuss his file all weekend. We were concerned about his special need (which I am keeping private), as it seemed scary and it was related to the brain. Every other child I’ve ever seen with this need, I quickly dismissed because I was scared, but the pull I felt toward this child made me want to research his special need a little more. I thought, “well, maybe it’s not too bad; maybe it’s manageable.” I connected with some moms on Facebook who have children with the same need and they reassured me that it was very manageable.
As we studied his file (which included a medical history) over the weekend, we were starting to see that his growth and development didn’t seem to match his diagnosis. He was developing on par, which is not typically the case with the diagnosis he was given. After we prayed and discussed, my husband I decided we would put his file on official “hold” with the agency in order to get a medical review of his file. Placing a child on “hold” gives potential adoptive parents exclusive access to the child’s file for one week, preventing someone else from being able to step up and adopt him.
On Monday, I sent an email and called to make sure we could put his file on hold. The new agency, Lifeline, called me back and discussed the process of putting him on hold. As soon as I got off the phone with the agency, I began to call neurosurgeons in hopes to find one that would look at his file and give us a review. I also prayed we could find one who would do it for free. Within 30 minutes, I found a neurosurgeon at a prominent research hospital where we live who willingly looked at the file and got back to me promptly. His findings were positive; he believed that there may be a misdiagnosis, or a translation issue, as he did not believe, based on the child’s developmental milestones, that the special need was as severe as indicated. He concluded what he thought the diagnosis might actually be with the understanding we really wouldn’t know for sure until he could see the child in person. In addition, they sent his file to the child development department and the doctors in development said his file looked great. This was all positive news. We asked the neurosurgeon what type of questions we should ask the orphanage regarding his file to get a follow up before making a decision and that evening we compiled our list of questions. We submitted our questions and our representative at Lifeline told us she hoped to hear something before our week deadline was up for our “hold,” but there was a chance we wouldn’t hear back in time, at which point we would have to make a decision regarding adoption without answers to the follow-up questions.
On Wednesday, I started thinking, “Maybe we should get a pediatrician to review the file, just to get a second set of medical eyes to look.” I knew it would be a stretch to see if a pediatrician could review it, as it was so late in the week already, but I contacted our pediatrician’s office first thing on Thursday morning. They said they would have the nurse call us back. On Friday morning, we received a call back from the nurse telling us that we could email the file over and that the doctor would look at it after work. What a blessing! Talk about last minute. Our pediatrician is pretty amazing anyway, but for her to take Friday night to look at the file for us is incredible.
Late Friday night, I got an email from our pediatrician also confirming that she thought overall the child looked healthy and developmentally on target. I kept thinking, “Wow, this is incredible!” We talked back and forth via email and one of the things she brought up was that we should talk to the local doctor who specializes in International Adoption. I knew it wouldn’t be possible to talk to the International Adoption doctor before Monday, given that it was 11pm on a Friday night, so I figured we’d just talk to her next week sometime just to touch base with her because at this point, we were really leaning toward saying yes to adopting him.
On Saturday night around 1am—well really it was Sunday morning around 1am—I just decided, “You know, I’ll just send the International Adoption doctor an email and see what happens.” So at 1am, I typed up an email explaining that our pediatrician said we should touch base with her and that I knew it was a long shot at having her review the file but thought maybe she could review it later after we’ve already said yes to adopting him.
Would you guess that at 7:30am I received an email from her saying that she was on vacation and would love to review the file for us? She asked me to send it over to her and she would look it over and get back to us later in the day. Of course I’m thanking her over and over and apologizing for bothering her on vacation and also holding back tears at the blessing of having her respond.
At 5:45pm on Sunday, night the doctor called and confirmed everything the other two doctors had previously said. That sealed it for us. We knew we needed to say yes, so late Sunday night, I emailed Lifeline and told them “YES!” I keep thinking, “Wow, God has totally blessed us in this process.” It is really unheard of that three doctors, one being a neurosurgeon, would all review our file within hours of our request and not even charge us a fee. God’s hand was clearly in that process. I feel so undeserving of his blessings and so privileged that he would allow such goodness for us.
At this time we were working on finishing up our home study paperwork. Our agent emailed us and asked us if we could have all of our paperwork completed by July 31st. “Umm…. sure, I guess.”
That’s insane, that was only two weeks away, we were running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to get everything. In addition, we were still finishing our application with Lifeline and trying to get ourselves together to submit a Letter of Intent to China to ask for permission to adopt him. It was a lot!
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