Thank you everyone for all of your kind words. So many people have offered up celebratory tears, whoops and hollers, and well wishes. I have kept my laptop close and have soaked up each one, still slightly amazed that they're all for US.
It's our turn.
My inbox has also been flooded with questions. So, I thought I would back up a little and give the rest of the story (does anyone else hear
Paul Harvey in their head with that phrase?). Well, consider this The Rest of the Story Part One. There is a lot to tell when things turn out so completely different than you imagine, and I'll break it into a few posts.
Today I'll discuss how we came to find our daughter.
It's no secret that there isn't a "fast track" in international adoption. It also isn't a secret that the Taiwan program is slower than most of us were told it would be. Obviously, this depends on the agency you signed with and the facility they work with in Taiwan. For us, though, the program was much slower than our agency had predicted. I use the word "stalled". Referrals were coming through at such a crawl, that I truly felt like no prediction was going to be accurate- our timeline estimate was changed 4 times because it became so hard to predict.
As the wait to referral with Taiwan grew and grew, something also was stirring in our hearts. We started this adoption process wanting the youngest child possible, and the healthiest child possible. Last summer/early fall, we got more excited about a slightly older child, and then finally our hearts busted open and we began considering some medical conditions and special circumstances.
For me, I know that
Owen and
Susannah's stories really solidified these callings. God was urging me to be more open. Soon, enough, I registered with
Rainbow Kids to investigate waiting children with special needs or medical issues. Many of the kids had more severe needs than we might be able to handle, or they were in countries that we couldn't adopt from (China because of age, or Russia because of cost).
But then, in October, it clicked with me- I'm going to be 30 soon. This is significant for two reasons. 1. When we began talking about international adoption in June 2006, I felt a pull toward China, but we would have had to wait until I was 30. That's nearly 3 years from now, just before we can *apply*, and then there is sure to be a wait for referral. Nope, that is too long. Ha! Isn't that funny now? It has taken that long anyway. And 2. because I would be 30, the countries with 30 as their age minimum would now be open to us.
We remained on the list with our Taiwan agency, but I did call a few agencies to find out how close to 30 I had to be to view some of the waiting children/special needs children in China. "Three months out from my 30th birthday" was the answer I was given and in November, Eric and I gained access to a few agency lists for China. A few other countries seemed like possibilities, so I e-mailed agencies that worked with those countries asking if they had waiting child listings, providing a summary of needs and ages we were open to. Korea, Taiwan, China, India. Yep, India.
One agency (International Family Services- IFS) said that they didn't have any waiting children at the time, but that they would be happy to put us on their mailing list if anything came across. "Sure, put us on your mailing list" I said, not putting much weight in it. (are you seeing where this is going?)
In the middle of December, we got an e-mail from them, with a picture attached. The e-mail was more of a heads-up. They didn't have her full file yet, but were expecting more soon- would we be interested? Well, this cute little Indian girl is fine and all, but I'm not going to be able to do anything with just a picture and the promise of more information so I responded with something like, "sure- keep us posted", and deleted the e-mail.
About another week went by, and I got an e-mail from IFS again with pictures and information about 3 girls in our age range. One contracted family of theirs said they would consider the these children also, but even if they decided to move forward, two of the girls would need to be placed. Hmmmm... maybe I shouldn't delete this e-mail. I finally told Eric about the e-mail and we began talking more seriously. In the end, the contracted family did choose one of the three girls, but two little girls remained. One of the girls was (you guessed it), the child I deleted the week previously. I told Eric I couldn't put my finger on it, but I just felt so drawn to her. The only problem was that they didn't have the official child Study Report (CSR) on her yet, only the other girl. And there was nothing terribly wrong with the other little girl, I just felt a pull like I'd never experienced toward N* (still unsure of how much we can disclose... for now, that is the first initial of her Indian name). Which, at the time, felt so silly and risky because we didn't know anything about her. For all we knew at the time, she could have had a condition that was more severe than we could handle hiding behind that seemingly normal picture. But the Lord had been preparing us to be more open, so I remained hopeful.
So, we waited for the CSR to come from their in-country coordinator. Days felt like weeks. I experienced a lot of heartburn (the likes of which I hadn't seen since third trimester pregnancy) and couldn't stop thinking about N*.
On Christmas Eve, the CSR still had not come, but we got an e-mail from IFS stating that some of her labs had come across and that she had beta thalassemia minor. In a somewhat apologetic tone, they told us it was okay if we didn't want to proceed. But beta thalassemia minor isn't a big deal! "We're still interested! Keep us posted!" She felt like our Christmas miracle. Eric e-mailed the picture to his mom and dad and asked them to pray. We told a few others and asked them to pray, also.
Finally, on January 5th, we got her CSR and it gave a minimal amount of medical information. It stated that she underwent blood transfusion and listed a rather small current weight. Her full medical file wasn't attached, so we had to wait again for more information from India. I still don't understand why the whole record doesn't come all at once from India rather than bit by bit. Very frustrating.
While we waited for the full medical record, I contacted our pediatrician, my dad's fiance (a family doctor), and a pediatric hematologist at Vanderbilt. We had such favor with everyone willing to help out and consult with us that I know the Lord went ahead of us and softened these people's hearts. Especially the pediatric hematologist at Vandy- she doesn't know us from Adam, didn't charge us a thing, and was a tremendous help with the limited information we had.
That was part of the problem- we didn't have much to go on. We knew that beta thalassemia shouldn't result in blood transfusions and that was certainly a point of concern. But, all three doctors gave us a list of questions to ask, and told us what labs or records would be helpful in gaining a better understanding of what was going on with this little girl. One of my gifts (curses?) is the ability to research things to death and I am now an EXPERT on beta thalassemia minor, major, and intermedia. In conversations with the doctors, I smiled as they explained things to me because I knew exactly what they were talking about- I had uncovered it myself! The conclusion was that either her diagnosis was wrong, or she had something else going on. (Side note: before I quite college to be a stay-at-home mom, I had planned on being in medicine- either getting my BSN or majoring in Biology to go on to med. school. Especially in moments like these, I think I may still want to do that. Gosh I love all of that stuff!)
The full medical file wouldn't come until January 19th. During that wait, I think we hit a point when we just knew she was our daughter. The results weren't back yet, but we felt like even if they were more severe than hoped, that we wanted to be the ones to help her thrive. So, when the file did come through, and it said things that we were comfortable with, we felt confirmation. In fact, Eric contacted the director at the agency and said "yes" even before the doctors were able to get back to us to discuss the new records. When they did call, it just solidified our response.
So, here we are, one week later. We're waiting on the Child Acceptance Agreement to come in the mail, and we'll sign that and send it off with our dossier and enter the second phase of the wait.
When this little girl looked like a strong possibility on Christmas Eve, we went ahead and got the list of dossier documents from IFS and got to work. We figured that things like physicals, police clearances, updated family photos, homestudy updates, and financial records all needed re-doing even if we didn't switch countries so none of it would be wasted. At best, it would mean that if things worked out with N*, that we wouldn't be holding the process up if we should be able to say "yes". The Indian dossier is similar to what Taiwan requires, so we count our blessings that we've been able to get it just about done in a few weeks' time! Hooray!
Please ask questions in the comments. I do plan to highlight the Indian Adoption process in one of my next posts.
