The Referral Process

It took about 3 more months after we finished our home study to finish putting together our dossier and have it submitted to China. As of March of 2016 we were officially waiting to be matched with a child from China.  Actually, we were officially waiting to be matched with a girl from China.  When you fill out an application at the beginning, you have to check boy, girl, or both.  This was another one of those fun decisions.

Our first discussion settled on checking "both" and allowing everything to unfold as it should.  But as time went on, I began having dreams about a little girl.  Every time I imagined our future, it was with our two little girls playing together.  I was very hesitant to bring this up to The Duke, as we had both always planned on having boys.  So the night we actually sat down to fill out our official application, I paused when I got to the gender section.  I took a deep breath and looked at my husband.  "Don't get mad," (Always a good lead-in.)  "but I have been thinking about checking the box for a girl."  Heavy pause.  As it turned out, he did too!  And so it was done.  It felt divinely led.  And I still think it was.  Most of you know by now we have been matched with a boy... I'll get there soon.  I purposely picked the picture from our family photo shoot that says "I can't wait to meet my sister!" because it pretty much sums up this entire adoption experience for us.  But I digress...

Back to the story.  As of March, we were officially waiting for our child.  In May, we received the phone call we had been eagerly awaiting.  They had found a little girl for us.  Now the way this works is the agency calls you with a child.  They send you her file which includes medical information, pictures, background information, a video if you're lucky, etc.  Sometimes the file is one page, sometimes it's eight. You never really know what you're going to get. Then you have 48 hours to decide whether this child is right for your family.  It's a pretty nasty situation to be in, to be completely honest.  We had already connected with a doctor who specializes in international adoptions who was ready to review our child's file to give us a her medical perspective. (This has proven incredibly valuable!)

So we got the phone call and our 48 hour clock began.  That was the moment we thought our daughter had finally found her way to us!  But then I opened the email I read her diagnosis and began to research what it meant.  The main symptom of her disease: uncontrolled seizures.  Epilepsy.  Seriously?   For those of you who don't know, Ladybug has had some major medical issues, one of which being some pretty severe epilepsy.  When we were filling out our special needs checklist for the adoption, we checked "yes" or "maybe" for most things.  One of the few "no's" we checked was epilepsy.  In fact, I may have even highlighted that no, and put a few circles around it.  And this little one's epilepsy was characterized as uncontrollable.

Then I began to reason.  We knew everything about the epilepsy world.  We already had a relationship with the doctors, the scheduler in the clinic, all the therapists.  We knew all about the treatments, as we had tried almost all of them.  We knew how to modify our lives to accommodate epilepsy.  We knew it all.  Maybe it really was the perfect match?

But as The Duke and I discussed it and prayed about it, the answer seemed to be a clear no.  We were so disappointed, and I think we felt a little betrayed by our agency.  But as I have said before, we wouldn't be doing anyone any favors by taking on more than we can handle.  It is important that Ladybug also continues to receive the attention she needs to stay safe and healthy - if both girls were seizing at the same time, what would I do?  I'm not saying it isn't possible.  I'm betting there are moms out there who deal with this scenario and rock it.  But we had to make the tough decision that this was not in the best interest of our family.  We called the agency the next day to release her back into the system for another family to hopefully pick up soon.

When we began the adoption process, I don't think we ever thought we would have to say no to a child.  I'm sad to say there were 3 more referrals over the next 9 months that we had to turn down for similar reasons.  It has been an incredibly painful road filled with a lot of guilt and heartbreak.  We had one child in particular that pretty much crushed us.  We were expecting her to become a part of our family and had prepared accordingly, but it didn't end up working out.  She is still prayed for daily in our house. (Ladybug still includes her in all her prayers too.)  That was by far the biggest of all the heartbreaks, and there will always be a place in my heart for her.  It was after that whole situation that the agency called and asked us, are you sure about us only searching for a girl?  There are so many boys available that are young.  If you would open up the search for either, we would have a referral for you much sooner.

It took us a good month to recover from losing little Jade, and a lot of prayer and consulting with family and friends.  Doors seemed to be slamming shut on our search for a girl.  But we felt so clearly in the beginning it was going to be a girl!  Should we change it?  This was one of those times when we felt like God was silent. We prayed for two whole months and nothing.  The Duke was all for switching to either gender, but I was hesitant.  Finally, we called the agency and made the switch.  Either boy or girl.  It was another one of those moments where God was guiding us even though we didn't feel it at the time.  Within a week of the call, we got a referral.

Now get this - this little boy had only just come available in the system.  Had we been open to either gender from the beginning, we would have had a million boy referrals a year earlier and probably would have accepted one.  But our little Panda wouldn't have been available yet.  If we hadn't waited two months to say yes after they suggested we switch, he wouldn't have been in the system then either.  The Lord's timing is perfect.  I do think He led us to choose girl in the beginning, not because He necessarily was leading us to a daughter, but because He knew we needed to be delayed on our journey to get to our son.  And I very much believe that the other path was the one we had to take to learn the things God wanted us to learn, as painful as it was.

And so here we are!  We have been matched with our son and are going through extensive paperwork and waiting on governments to process that paperwork to bring him home.  HOPEFULLY we will be traveling to China within the next few months.  I have learned to be a skeptic.  They originally told us August, but here we sit with  no trip in sight.

Please join us in praying for the process to speed up, bringing him home from the orphanage ASAP!  The longer the wait, the more painful it is knowing he is without a family to love and care for him the way I would want my child loved and cared for!  I have been learning a lot about trusting in God's sovereignty as we wait and pray.

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