Why Adoption and Why China?

As a child I always dreamed about adopting when I grew up and my heart was in Asia. Mark and I met, married and began our family. Although Mark was adopted with a younger biological brother into a great family he wasn't as crazy about the adoption idea as I was. Our first years of marriage were busy with law school and raising three young kids. It wasn't until the summer of 05 that we started to seriously talk about adoption. We could come up with all kids of reasons why adoption would NOT fit into our life. The cost, the fact that our youngest was 8 and our oldest a teenager, the time and energy a little one takes and the fact that we were both approaching 40. Despite our many excuses we always came back to two things; 1. Adoption wasn't about us but about doing something that would have eternal purpose and 2. We didn't want to be 65 and have regret, wondering "what if". We had to at least try.

We began to research agencies and countries and chose America World Adoption Agency. We loved their heart for adoption based on Romans 8:15. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the spirt of adoption by whom we cry out, "Abba, Father." We looked at different countries including here in the US but felt called to China. We knew it was expensive and a long process but when you feel that strongly about something nothing will stand in your way. We applied with America World, were accepted and began the year long process of collecting paperwork for our dossier. This is basically our life on paper that gets sent to China and is as precious as gold. We were logged into China's system on February 9, 2007 (which is our LID, a significant thing in an adoption) and sat back for what we figured would be about a year long wait. Because of China's One Child Policy we knew we would receive a little girl somewhere between 6 months and two years old.

For many reasons the wait time for a healthy child began to increase every month. When we began our adoption journey the wait was about 8 months once you had your LID. By the time we sent our dossier to China it had increased to 12 months and right now the wait time is 23 months and still increasing. During our paper chase we began to learn about the Special Needs program. This is a program some agencies offer where you can apply to be considered for a child with minor to significant special needs. We also learned that although girls were readily abandoned in China, there were boys who were also abandoned due to a special need. This past spring, after lots of prayer we decided to update our paperwork to include a special needs male or female 0-2. The list included about 42 special needs and we could say yes to as few or as many as we wanted to. A special need in China can be as minor as a developmental delay (which almost all children in orphanages have) to cerebal palsy. We have been so blessed to have three healthy children and wanted to be open to whomever God had for us. Once again, this wasn't about us or what "fit" into our life. Unlike a healthy child when you know when you'll get a referral we had no idea when we would get a special need referral or even if we would get one. We could get a phone call at any time or in three years. So, the waiting continued........