Saturday, May 18, 2013

Referral Part 2


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. 

While you wait for the next post, you can visit visit our YouCaring page HERE! Please help us out by sharing the link! 

Until next time! -K

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Referral Part 1


I have been waiting to write this for so long that I don’t even know how to get it all out. So, bear with me. I will post the whole story in a series of posts.





Back in February I posted a very vague, mysterious post about our “roller coaster” and I asked for your prayers. Today, I get to share with you about our roller coaster and where your prayers have gotten us! Here it goes...

On Valentines Day, I opened up my email as I usually do while the boys are eating breakfast and I found an email from our adoption agency titled “Would you?” I opened the email and as I read the words my mouth fell open and my heart began to race. This is what I read:

“Hi, God just send these precious little girls to me and I am wondering if you would be interested.”

With shaking fingers, I directed my computer mouse to the attachment and clicked to open it. Here is what I saw:


(pictures removed)

They are bio sisters and their names are K (5), K (4) and R (21 months)

Words cannot describe how I felt the first time I saw those sweet little faces. For a brief moment I let myself feel the affection that swelled inside my heart for these children whose existence I was not even aware of just minutes before. I quickly tried to put up a guard around my heart and speak some sense into myself. I didn’t want to get attached too quickly. That was very hard. It was as if I had always known them somehow... literally, it was love at first sight no matter how hard I fought it. 

I called Lance and told him to get his tail back to the house because we had just gotten a referral! Lance came home and we stared at these girls with short black hair and dark beautiful eyes. We zoomed in and zoomed out. We looked at each other searching for an answer as to why these faces were even before us and what we were supposed to do about it. What was God doing? This was crazy! We were in shock. I don’t think I took a breath for about 15 minutes. 

It’s a major understatement to say that we were not expecting this “referral”! We were still nowhere near the place where we would normally receive a referral. And once we did get to that stage of the process, we were expecting two, t-w-o not THREE. We had a lot to discuss and pray about. 

A bit later we got some more pictures...

Oh as if the first pictures were not heart melting enough. 

On this day, Lance and I were actually heading out on a road trip to the nation of Texas with our good friends David and Andrea (Because nothing says "Happy Valentines Day" like a 750 mile road trip). I had not packed or cleaned or done anything I needed to do. I would later figure out that I was also hormonal... enough said. Things were pretty wild.  I was just a mess of adrenaline and nerves. 

We did finally make it on the road that evening. Poor David and Andrea! They had no idea they had signed up for a 12 hour drive with a hormonal nut job. Thankfully, they are just so super awesome that they put up with us and this situation the whole time without a single complaint, sigh or eye roll (all of which would have been well deserved).

At the end of the day, after praying, talking, praying, going over all the practical/financial stuff, praying, having our case worker do the same, praying, seeking the advice of a lot of people we respect and then praying some more, we felt that we needed to move forward with these girls and at least see where God would lead us. We knew he would close the door if this was not his will and we were okay with that. We were nervous and excited all at the same time and, while we thought it was crazy, it just felt right. 

So late that night, we sent an email to our agency that said, “Yes, we are interested! What's next?” And so our roller coaster began. More of the story to come soon!

Until next time! -K