In the beginning....

"Let's start at the very beginning ..... that's a very good place to start." This is our 4th special need/waiting child adoption from China. On our last trip to China in December 2006 to bring Sarabeth into our family, we were fortunate enough to meet the Ellisons ... as they were adopting Ammon at the time. We chatted about adoption, yada, yada, and how they came to bring Ammon in to their family. I mentioned to Stefani to keep me in mind if they ever would have a hard to place child on their list of waiting children with CHI (Children's House Int'l) - Stefani gave me her "card" and I slipped it in my bag.

After arriving home to the states, I joined CHI yahoo group and gained access to their waiting child list. This was in February and when I saw dear Atticus' face my heart pounded and my face flushed warm. All you adoptive moms know what I'm talking about. I said to myself, geez we just got home!!! Of course, having done 3 adoptions in the last 3 years, this situation was nothing new to me! But we were rather, how shall I say, adoption poor by this time and I knew we would have to have a very large grant to even consider another child. I emailed Stefani and reintroduced myself - she immediately remembered me. I asked if anyone was showing interest in Atticus as of yet and she said no. I ventured to ask the unthinkable .... would CHI even consider us since we had just returned home two months before. Stefani said that stranger things have happened and if we were meant to be his family, it would happen. BUT she wanted us to wait a bit - 4-6 weeks to allow anyone else to come forward that wouldn't need a special exemption. She did agree to send me his full info sheet and medical. So I tucked Atticus in my heart, shared his info with John and prayed for God's will to be done.

Several weeks later, as is common for Stefani/CHI to do, an update is posted on the yahoo group about all the children who are still waiting and need a bit of advocacy for them. She listed several children, but Atticus' name was NOT on the list. My heart nearly pounded out of my chest!! Stefani said she would let me know if anyone else became seriously interested in Atticus. I promptly emailed her and fearly asked why was Atticus not on the list - had someone else become interested in him - and why hadn't she told me this!! Adoption mommas - you know how much of a "mother bear" you can become at times! Stefani emailed me back and in bold letters stated, the family that is interested in Atticus is "...YOU, SILLY!" I laughed and laughed - she really was taking our interest in him seriously.

A few weeks later, Atticus was given a $6000 Brittany's Hope Grant. Oh, my, this is exactly the kind of help we needed. I emailed Stefani again and asked how much longer we had to wait before CHI would allow us to proceed since there was still no one coming forward for him. Somehow, Stefani and I were miscommunicating I guess, because while I was, at this point, waiting for HER to give me the right of way, she was waiting for ME to say, yes we want to proceed. So in April we had the go ahead to proceed with the process for Atticus. John, however, was still somewhere in limbo even with the $6000 grant. He knew just how much another adoption would cost, and while $6000 is terrific, it's not even half of what is needed. It took John another 3 weeks to finally say, "so what do you want to name this little boy?" I spun around and stared at him and said very emphatically, "don't you play with my heart!" He replied he was not playing and yes, we could proceed with the adoption.

WHOOOEEEE was all my heart could scream! We still hadn't even mentioned this to our children, church family or anyone else. We would have another son! We sent in our LOI the first week of May and had to wait twice as long for our PA due to the need to get a family size waiver and the person who had to sign that waiver was on a 3 week tour of the good ole' US of A!! We had PA in July and I could rest assured that I could finish up the dossier that I had already been working hard on! I had the dossier sent directly to CHI after being authenticated, hoping to have it there by a Friday towards the end of July. Dossiers go out only on Friday and a week could mean alot of difference in regard to log in time, processing time and the time it took to receive the next paperwork from China (the CCAA).

Our dossier went out on July 28th and was in Beijing on August 2nd. Some of my friends had got their dossiers in just 3-7 days ahead of me and they had a LID (log in date) of July 30. We were hoping for a quick LID, too, but we waited and waited with no LID reported. On Oct 12, after thinking we were waiting with a potential LID of 9-10wks before, we were told that it took over a month to have our dossier logged into the CCAA in China. I was deflated and sad to realize I would not get to travel with some of my adoption friends. I finally handed the entire situation back to God (the best place for it to always stay) and rested in the fact that God was in control of the entire timing of this adoption despite how low my heart was feeling. In reality, we were only on day 43 of our wait for LOA (letter of acceptance) instead of day 74. That is a huge difference, but so be it!

In the meantime, I must have considered a dozen names for our new son. I started out with the name Jeremy and then went all the way around the bend and back before deciding that Jeremy would actually be his name! His picture is forever at my bedside for a quiet goodnight prayer. Sarabeth also asked for his picture to be in their room, too. We were able to send Jeremy his first package (which included a photo album of his new family) with another family who were travelling to his orphanage to adopt their new daughter. This family was so kind in not only delivering this package, but took numerous pictures of Jeremy for us, too. Some of these pictures are what has already been posted on this blog - thank you Walkers!! A second package is on its way to China right now. The Chapmans are on their way to adopt their daughter who is also in Jeremy's orphanage. So I will soon have even MORE pictures of my son to post all around my house!

Thanks for visiting our blog and reading all the way through this long post. I just want to say that God has been so gracious to us as we follow His direction in the adoption of these children. So as I recently posted on one of my yahoo adoption sites:


There's no other more worthy thing to invest your time, life or money into - than the lives of children. Dear Sarabeth had a wonderful life in China with a wonderful foster family for nearly 7 years .... but she was NEVER told that there was a God who created her, loves her and died for her to be able to go to Heaven. She is just eating up the Word of God and glows with inner joy!! No amount of money, time or having a safe/comfortable life can compare to seeing this transformation in her life! And dear little Juls - she would have been dead in the arms ofsome poor ayi, since no one in China could have ever fixed her heart -it was a real toughy for the docs here in the states! And if we have to pay the bills off for years to come, so be it!

No we are not crazy and no we are not trying to fill some void in our lives or trying to "stay young" by having kids in our late forties! We have heard all of those comments! The crazy one most of all. But when you do it once, you finally know that it's not that bad/hard and geez, we could do this for yet another child! ... and another .... and another!


Catch the adoption Spirit!! Actually several of my email/adoption girlfriends think we should create a new AA - adopters anonymous! Hello, my name is Mary and I peeked at another waiting child list just this morning! LOL! Another heart issue for me is this - when I reach Heaven's gates, I want to have run a long, hard race, fought a tough, exhausting fight and fall at the dear Lord's feet totally spent and used up for Him. I do NOT want to be wallowing in riches in my retirement years, sipping tea by the pool and taking sight seeing world trips! I do not want to be refreshed and freshly showered - I want to be worn out and filthy from the work of bringing every child I can to the Lord's throne. THEN and only then will I truly enter into rest and be able to rejoice forevermore with all the children HE has brought into my life!!

Blessings!

Mary