This is part two of our referral story. This may be a bit long! Sorry!
I left off with our initial “Yes” about the girls. We had seen their faces, learned their names and we were willing to move forward and see where God would lead us.
As I mentioned in part one, we were on a trip to Texas. We were attending a conference in Fort Worth. It was two days after we had said “Yes” and Lance and I were sitting in an arena full of thousands of people waiting for the second day of our conference to begin. As a normal spoiled, iphone bearing American, I spent my time waiting checking FB and email and looking at sweet little faces.
I was scrolling through my inbox and saw an email from our agency titled “Sad News.” My heart immediately sank because I knew this was going to be a door closing on the girls. Sure enough our agency shared that the home where these girls were had expressed concern that we might have trouble in the court process because we already had two biological children at home. The agency said that it was perfectly legal for us to adopt these girls but they were suggesting that we pass and wait for another referral.
I tried to be strong. It made no sense for me to be upset. I had prepared myself for this. I even somewhat expected this. Why was this news so hard to take in? I tried. I truly did, but, as I looked out at the mass of people blissfully unaware of my pain, the view faded into a blur of light and tears. Lance, who had just read the email for himself, allowed me to hide my face in his chest and let it go.
It is so hard to explain, but that day I grieved over children I had not met... the children birthed by another woman on the other side of the world... children that I had absolutely no right to grieve over. I felt stupid. I felt selfish. I felt lost. I wanted to find a deep, dark cave and just sit alone with this absurd sense of loss.
As I sat there, I reminisced of another time I had gone to Texas. It was actually for another conference (what’s the deal with TX and conferences?) and I was having all the classic symptoms of early pregnancy. Like ALL of them! Lance was back at home with Brayden and he didn’t want me to take a test until I got back to Columbus. For those of you who know me well, you know waiting is not one of my strengths. No matter though, because I was certain I was pregnant. It was unplanned but I was okay with it. We were going to have another baby!
When I got home I took a test... it was negative. The next day I followed the directions a little better and took another test... negative. The day after that I realized I really wasn’t ever pregnant. That day I grieved the loss of child I had not conceived... a child that never existed... a child I had not realized I wanted and therefore a child I had no reason to grieve over. I felt stupid and lost then, too. It was strange to feel like I was reliving the same scenario yet one so totally different. It was strange how they hurt so similarly.
As the weekend went on and we started to make our journey back home, Lance and I had a lot of time to talk alone. Maybe that’s why God sent this referral the day we were leaving. He knew we needed to be away from the normal demands of everyday life so we could deal with this. We had said in the beginning, “If God closes the door we are okay with it. We trust that his will is perfect!” and yet our conversations after the email on that Saturday sounded more like, “It does seem that God has closed the door, but something just doesn’t seem right here. I just can’t let this go for some reason. We need more answers.” The unsettled feeling was mutual which made me feel somewhat better knowing that I was chock full of hormones and my feelings were not very reliable at the moment.
When we got home, the unsettled feeling grew. We had an idea of how to proceed and decided we would check with our agency to see what they thought. We suggested that we continue with our adoption process as if we had never gotten the referral and then, once we got to the point where we would normally wait for a referral, we would see if the girls were still waiting. If they had been matched with another family, then that was our answer. If they had not been matched then we would pray and see if God was leading us toward them. If another referral came along we would consider it as well. In the meantime, we asked for her to check into what the home had said and see if it really was an issue we needed to be concerned with. We asked her if this was even in the realm of possibility... or if we were crazy for thinking this way.
The agency’s response was, “It’s funny that you write this because I have not felt comfortable about it ever since we got the email from the home. Yes, proceed in the normal fashion and I will look into it. We will see where God takes this.”
So, that’s what we did. We moved forward as normal. Of course K, K and R’s faces were already burned into our brains so we continued to pray for them. We even began to present them to other waiting families to see if they might be willing to consider them. We knew God had brought them into our lives for a reason... even if we were only to pray for them. We were open with the boys about the girls and they prayed every night for them. On his own accord, Brayden would pray, “God, I pray for K, K and R. If they are our sisters, please keep them safe and bring them home soon. If they are not the girls you have for us then please give them a good home and help us find our girls.” It was a beautiful thing to hear night after night.
We went on for weeks with no news. A lot took place during this time. I can’t really go into detail about all of it, but we felt like we were under spiritual attack. I went through weeks of severe discouragement and anxiety. When we began to walk in a direction that would take us away from the girls, God would always point us back toward them in some way. This period was a HUGE lesson for us in discerning the will of God. I constantly had to remind myself of what the Bible says of God’s character. We had to look at each individual circumstance and ask ourselves, “Does God give us anxiety, fear, confusion? No, God gives us peace and hope... follow that.”
A month after the first email about the girls, we got the following from our agency:
“I just wanted you to know that we have started the advocating for your family to adopt the sibling girls. We have made your case with the attorney and he will take it up with a judge to get his opinion. As soon as I hear I will let you know the plan.”
Not exactly what I expected when we asked for them to “look into things” but it was just another sign that this was not in our control.
To pass some time, I began to do some digging online. I discovered a website that lists all the orphanages in Delh*. I found the one these girls are in and I found their online listings along with some of listings of my friends’ children! The listing had a very brief description. I discovered that they were brought to the home because their mother had been in a car accident. I discovered that they had a last name and that their religion was actually Muslim and not Hindu. The listing came with two pictures.
A week or so later, our friends traveled to [country in Asia] to pick up their daughter from the very same orphanage that these girls are in. They took a couple of pictures for us while they were there. I was so surprised at how different they looked from the original pictures we had seen. I was not a fan of K & K's haircuts or their ugly brown school uniforms but I was glad to have a recent picture.
After the email about the attorney, it was another two weeks or so before we heard anything else. I’ll pick up here in part three.
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Until next time! -K
