Journey to Baby Hope

I had a good friend, who is considering adoption, email me the other day and she wrote this: "Just wondering how you decided it was time for y'all to adopt, why you chose China, how you picked Lifeline. Any and all info you could share would be appreciated. Truth be told I'm very overwhelmed. The $, the loonngg wait, medical issues, etc etc."

I considered picking up the phone and just having that conversation. I likely will do just that, but it occurred to me that this would be great information to keep for posterity. So I want to respond to all of the above here in the adoption blog. Some of my answers are going to be unsatisfying I believe, because much of our response to God was just that...a response to God. Eric and I have long talked about adoption, before we were married in fact. We both wanted biological children but also felt a call to adoption. I know I have considered it since my high school years. As a married couple we were first challenged to the call of adoption during a mission trip to Lithuania. We spent two days in local orphanages and our hearts were completely turned toward this call. It was 5 months later when I returned to Lithuania with a team of 4 women to stay for 5.5 weeks ministering to youth that we made more progress towards this goal. We had not yet had biological children, and while I was in Lithuania I actually got an appointment with the government liaison for adoption and began to discuss the process. I remember sitting in this small office as the representative stacked several photo albums in front of me and had me flip through them. When they found out I was a sign language interpreter she grabbed all the books from me and then shoved several pictures of a little boy who was deaf that she wanted me to apply for. It was really overwhelming. I returned home to the States and Eric and I began sorting out what we needed to do. It was shortly thereafter that we discovered I was pregnant with our first child, Noah. So we tabled the issue. We decided to wait till Noah was older so that we could adopt and older child and not an infant.

When Noah was about 2 years old, Eric and I went to a Stephen Curtis Chapman concert and little did I know it was his tour to promote adoption. The Chapman's eventually adopted 3 girls from China.(However, I think they only had Shoahannah and Stevey Joy at the time. I'm not totally sure about that though.) A dear friend of mine was working that concert as security staff and he got me in to meet SCC after the show. I was elated! SCC is my all time favorite singer. When I met him, I told him we were researching adoption from Lithuania and he just looked at me and said, "Get your home study done, it is so important, just get that done first." So of course when I got back to Eric, I was all like, "OMG Stephen Curtis Chapman just told me to get a home study! We must do that immediately!" The next day I went online to find out that Lithuania had just closed all adoptions to the United States and only would adopt to France. What's up with that?! Dismayed I just gave up the idea. I didn't feel a leading to adopt from any other country at the time.

When Noah was 3 years old, God called us to ministry in Kenya. I was like, "Africa?! Are you serious?!" God's response was. "Yes, yes I AM." So off to Kenya we went, 3 times in 2 years in fact. During the second trip we began researching adoption from Kenya. We quickly found out they make it next to impossible to adopt. But this time we weren't deterred from the idea. In February 2009, we knew that we wouldn't be going back to Kenya in 2010 because 2010 would likely be our year to adopt. Finally! In April of 2009 we discovered that we were pregnant with our second child, Eden Marie. (Can you hear the brakes screeching to a halt?) To say we were totally shocked at being pregnant again would be an understatement. So once again, we put our thoughts of adoption on hold.

In November 2010, "A Night with the Chapman's" tour came to Alabama. As a back story, they had a little girl named Maria that they had adopted from China, who was tragically was killed by her older brother in a horrible car accident. Maria was 5 years old when she went home to be with Jesus and her precious brother Will, was 17 at the time of the accident. Maria was the third child they had adopted from China. Well needless to say, God is faithful and he had inspired the Chapman's to go on the road and tell their story. Mary Beth Chapman, was the speaker while Stephen and their two older boys (Caleb and Will) played music. It was an incredible night. Their testimony was humbling and amazing. They were promoting their organization called Show Hope (previously Shoahannah's Hope), they now support special needs orphans in China, in addition to helping families trying to adopt by providing grants. Since Maria's death they organized and built a special needs hospital in the poorest region of China, called Maria's Big House of Hope (MBHOH). At the concert they were asking for sponsors for Show Hope, and the sponsorship was not like a Compassion sponsorship where you are partnered with a child and write letters and such. It is just a monthly contribution to sponsor MBHOH and other special needs children's wards in China. Eric signed us up immediately. With our sponsorship that night we got a free copy of Mary Beth's book, "Choosing to See." It is fantastic, I highly recommend it. Well I devoured that book. It is the story of her life. It details all three adoptions and of course her most recent tragedy, dealing with Maria's death. While that event is moving and devastating, the whole book isn't focused on it.

It was after reading this book and processing her three adoption stories, I knew it was time to really start the process. I asked Eric to read the book and like a good man, he read it. After having him read the book I was hoping to engage in a meaningful dialogue about beginning the process for real. When I approached Eric about this his response was this, "Did you want me to read that book to convince me now is the time? Because we could have just started this process two months ago if you'd only told me. I've been ready, I was just waiting on you." I love that man.

So here we are in 2010, Eden had just turned one and we are thinking of bringing in another baby. Eden did not have an easy first year and my back was all out of whack (later we would find out that I had a ruptured disc in my lower back and I would have surgery.) Now did not seem the best time to be doing this, and I felt quite crazy for beginning this process now. But here is why we pressed forward:

There is never going to be a "good" time. You are never going to be "ready" to add to your family. It is never going to be easy. You will never have an extra $30,000.00 lying around.

This was God's clear message to me. He even went so far as to say, "I've prompted you twice before to start this process and you didn't. I mean, I even sent you Stephen Curtis Chapman, woman! Now is the time!" So we jumped in! I remembered that a good friend, DeEtte, had adopted two girls from China through an agency called, Lifeline Children's Services. They were so good to her and she loved them. So, I called them. I got hooked up with our current social worker, Amy, and the rest rolled along. I did look at a couple other agencies before settling on Lifeline, but I just had a good feeling about them. They had all their stuff organized and out on the web. You could see clearly how much money was going where and when, what the process was, all that you would want to know you could find on that website. They were in the process of moving locations the week we submitted our online application, and as the Spirit would provide, they were moving from Mountain Brook to Hoover! Yay! Much closer to us. We have been nothing but pleased with Lifeline and have met so many people who sing their praises. It is a good fit for us.

How we landed on China is sorta random. We seriously considered Ethiopia, since we have such a strong Africa connection, but Ethiopia had just changed its process to be now a two trip requirement and a huge amount of time spent there. Uganda was another option but the time required to stay in country was just too much. So Africa got ruled out. Eric has always had an attraction to the Asian cultures and histories. China is a very popular place to adopt from and as we researched the process we found that it is mainly because they make it so easy. The are called the well-oiled machine of adoption. It is one trip, 10 days total (4 of that are in a plane). They get you in and out quick. Because they are a part of the Hague convention everything is pretty much above the table, with not surprises. Lifeline has an agent who is Chinese herself, that works for them in China. So she makes things smooth like buttah when you arrive and before you arrive. It just clicked for us, China was the place.

With regards to the long wait to adopt a child out of China, we knew that we wanted a special needs child and that the wait wouldn't be terribly long because of that fact. This is true for many countries around the world that adopt out their children. China is almost going to an exclusively special needs adoption plan. They won't even give a timeline on how long a "healthy" child will take. But special needs children can be adopted between 12 -16 months. In dealing with special needs out of China, they mostly adopt out what they call, minor medical correctable children. You can get children with more severe disabilities but most of the children have issues that can be easily corrected or managed in the United States. We also have an incredible international adoption clinic right her in Birmingham, AL. One of the best in the country. They are very helpful and looking at pictures and videos of children to determine the severity of their disabilities before you even commit to choosing that child. Then when you get back home with your child they are invaluable to be able to assess every aspect of your child, physical, psycho-social, motor skills, developments issues, everything. That is such a blessing for us.

Going with a Hague convention country requires a lot of "homework". But it is good homework. Some of it is mind-numbing but it is good information. For us it was an 8-hour online training program that we did at our leisure over a couple weeks, as well as reading two really good books and some government websites about China. It is 10 hours of credit essentially. While it seemed arduous initially, it was really great information to have.

The money honey. Whew! This was initially the one thing that made me want to sorta throw up in my mouth a little when I thought about it. It is unbelievably expensive and while we don't live pay check to pay check normally...some times we still do, plus, we send out son to private school. Lifeline is really great in this respect because they breakdown their fee into 4 major payments. So far we have met all our deadlines and likely will for all of them. The issue for us will likely be the travel expenses. They cost more than the adoption. But here is where we landed on the money...

If God orders something...He'll pay for it.

I fall back on Him here. He is the one who told us to do this, so he is gonna make sure that money keeps rolling in. And he has. It has been a series of amazing blessings, dare I say miracles up to this point. We received an unexpected bonus from Eric's job and a huge tax return we didn't count on. I was given 3 summer conferences to interpret and some friends did a garage sale for us with donated items. We changed Noah's school and got a huge price break and we refinanced our home and lessened out payment and didn't have to pay an August mortgage payment! People keep stuffing money in our pockets randomly and we haven't officially started fund raising or applying for grants! So if you aren't going to adopt because of the money...then you probably weren't meant to adopt in the first place. The money will come if your faith is in the one who owns it all anyway. Having said that, I do wonder how the rest of the money will come, but it is more out of curiosity than fear of it not coming. I'm just excited to see how God is going to do it, he so cool like that. We are going to send out personal letters because we believe in including others on the blessing and the journey. We are also going to apply for different grants. So we are going to be trying to raise some of the money. I will say it becomes tricky because people can't write off their donations for tax purposes, unless you have a church or something that will let you run the money through an existing adoption/orphans ministry. Lifeline has a seminar coming up that is called, Adoption without Debt. We will be attending that it is September 10th, 9:30 to 12:00. I'll hopefully have more ideas after that. Plus, there is the federal tax credit for international adoption, it is usually at least over 10K. I also have this great friend who is going to put "boxes" or jars about in gas stations for me to collect money or perhaps we will have candy bars to give away for a donation that we may put in some teacher's lounges in local schools. I will make the boxes and maintain them, but she is gonna be the "front man" to get them "in" the schools. She has no fear or shame...I have both...hee hee.

So here we are on the journey...it is a step by step, day by day process. It is exciting and terrifying. I have wavered some days but Eric has never wavered and he is my rock. I know we are doing what God is calling us to do. I can't wait to meet my new child.