Referral Acceptance!

Our prayers have been answered!   After another month of waiting for China to release the list of Special Needs Children who were available for adoption, we have found her!!  I woke up Tuesday Morning, March 26 at 5:00am to check my email (as I was hoping it would happen) and there it was-our agency had emailed us at 11:05 pm for a referral they had received from our social worker on the ground in China at 10:51pm.  Her name is Shangguan Minghui-but soon we pray that she will become Kailyn Mari Wilkerson!  Her birthday is March 4, 2012 so if we do get to travel around August or September, she will be 18 or 19 months when we get her.  She is placed in the Social Welfare Institute (SWI) of Shanggao County where she was abandoned at 2 days old.  As I have explained in a previous post, children are abandoned so that they can legally be orphans.  If there is knowledge of the parents, then the child cannot legally be considered an orphan or available for adoption.

We are thrilled beyond words about this precious little girl.  We pray and ask for your prayers that the rest of this process would go smoothly so that she can become ours.  Right now we are waiting for our pre-approval from China, and then I believe that they will fully review our dossier before we can be officially approved to be her parents.  Prayers Please!!!!!

On top of that we have been able to find a good amount of information about her orphanage through others we googled that have also adopted from this orphanage, and in fact, I found one family who has recently picked up their child from Shanggoa in February!!  Hopefully, we can get in contact with this family.  I am adding their blog to our list of adoption blogs on the right of this page.  One interesting and positive thing that we've learned about this orphanage is that it is small, from what we can tell from the pictures it isn't in the most urban area, which means not as smoggy!  Also, and I've never read this about any other orphanage, it is an SWI which means that it houses not only children but also elderly people who have been abandoned :(  but what I am gathering is that the babies their are actually paired up with an elderly person who serves as their primary caregiver.  Now I have also gathered that this orphanage calls that the child's foster home, and it seems that this is a truly good situation, when you consider that in many orphanages the ratio of caregivers can be and in many cases is actually 1 to 50 children.  In the report that we got from China it does mention that Shangguan Ming Hui will smile in response to the "granny."  So that has my curiosity to find out if what I am putting together is the case.   I will post the link below to the touching story I read of this mom getting to actually meet the 78 year old woman who had been looking after their little girl.  It is a little funny too-their little girl was also given the first name of Shangguan, and I believe this has to do with the name of the orphanage and county being Shanggao.  The other thing that I find to be a little amusing is that the personality description of their little girl is the exact same personality description that we got as well-she is quiet, likes music, and can laugh loudly, so we'll see:)  The description of our little girl also says that she can crawl-which is GREAT for an institutionalized child a year old.  Her diet is milk powder and noodles, fruits, veges, and eggs and that makes me feel better about her nutrition.  Her weight is only in the 10% by American standards, but the doctor at the international clinic said that is very normal and it is good to see that she is actually on the charts.
 
Being able to find pictures, videos and an outstanding adoption blog about this orphanage only makes this adoption that much more exciting.  I cannot wait to go there and meet the people who took her in to care for her.  From everything I have read, I feel pretty good about it and it seems to be a caring place.

This first link is probably my favorite in that it shows pictures of both Shanggao County in general and also of the orphanage.

Pictures of Shanggao County and the Orphanage


More of the Orphanage

I had to post this link because this is the blog I found of the other family who has adopted from Shanggao.  It makes me chuckle and also happy at the same time to see such similarities.  A baby girl bundled up like a marshmallow puff-not at all in "girl colors", outside with the same weedy background, with the same personality description as ours:)

The Chronicles of Nestlewood Lane

What an outstanding way to end such a sickly spring break.  And I mean sickly-the whole family, the whole week!  Severe colds, vomiting, a child passing out on the tile bathroom floor  and 911 calls (no worries, this ended well and we learned what we have been trying to figure out for a while now, but I don't have time to write about that one now).  It is a wonder Andrew and I were able to think enough to accept this precious child.  But then, we had been boldly praying for the last month, that the next referral would be it-that whatever child was sent to us, that fit in our age range and the special needs that we felt peace about-she would be the one.  It is a wonder that the week she was sent our way, our minds were too groggy and clouded from sickness to think.  When I look back on our life experiences, it seems like whenever we are involved in some type of major "mission" for lack of better terms, we alway have to get dramatically sick or our kids do right beforehand.   For example, the night before I left for my mission trip to Guatemala, Joseph wakes up at midnight with violent projectile vomiting.  I had to be back up at 5:00am and had just gotten to sleep at 10:30.  Needless to say I was a zombie at the airport the next day.  But that was it.  After I left, no more sickness.  Then when Andrew was gone for missions for 2 weeks in Indonesia, I got just enough of a stomach bug that I had to literally crawl up the stairs to put the kids to bed.  Coincidence or spiritual warfare?  Don't know.  I do know that obedience to Christ is always worth it.  And this little girl is worth anything we may have to go through to get to her!

Here is my song today:)
Not for a Moment by Meredith Andrews

Amy

The Most Difficult Decision

It was Wednesday morning at @ 9:30 when I got a call from our agency.   Our first referral had been sent to our social worker at 2:30am that morning and I was completely elated to say the least.  It was quite unexpected as most of the time the special needs children are posted as a group once a month and then it is just a race for your agency to lock in a child that fits your families requests.  Anyway,  I immediately contacted Andrew and began to look over the child's file.  The little girl was 2 and 1/2 years old, and had been found by the orphanage at 9 days old.  Ok-so that right there is enough to grab your heart.  At the same time, this is a common story for orphans in China.  That way, if the parents aren't known, then they can be considered as legal orphans. In a quick review of her file, it was actually difficult to tell what her special need was.  At a glance, this little girl appeared to be healthy but to have some personality quirks that differentiated her from the other children.  Quirky and introverted would fit right in in our household.  The only thing concerning on this file in my mind was her low weight and the poor diet that was described in the report.   At this point we did not have her picture, but from the information we had, I will tell you that we were ready to give our hearts to this child-and I think that we had.

So at this, I began filling our requests for a medical review of her file done by the International Adoption Clinic here at UAB.  By @ 10:00am, I had sent the file over to UAB for an expedited review given that we really needed to have our letter of acceptance turned in by the end of the day Thursday so that it could be translated and in China within 72 hours of receiving it.  Now in order to accept the referral, you also have to have your plan for treatment of the child's special need.  So really, it is impossible to do this until you have been given results from the IAC to base your plan on.  So now we had to wait to hear from them and at the time we were expecting to hear back in 24 hours so that we would get the results on Thursday morning.  In the meantime,  we were awaiting a picture and a video (which getting a video by the way is a bonus, not a guarantee.)  The next 24 hours were excruciatingly long, and at the same time very exciting.  When we got the picture the Thursday morning (I was checking at 5:00am, it was a younger picture of her) it was absolutely beautiful. This did not help me to think objectively AT ALL!   So then it was just a wait for a phone call from IAC so that I could finish filling out my acceptance paperwork.  And I felt like a teenager waiting on a boy to call or something having my phone with me at all times.  Then, the wait only grew longer as we did not get the call until 3:00pm!  

The phone call however, was not what I was hoping for.  I keep saying "I" because of course, Andrew was at work during all of this, and that was probably the best for our relationship:) What I learned was that Dr. Chambers  (who I believe is the main founder of IAC and not only has adopted children from China, also has been treating internationally adopted children for many years and has made numerous trips to China to visit the orphanages there) had actually been to the orphanage that the little girl is from and had actually seen this particular little girl.  Her observation was that what we had deemed to be quirks, or at most a mild form of autism was actually more severe than what we had been able to tell from the report.  She described her as distinguishing herself from the other children in such a way that was beyond orphanage behaviors (sometimes termed institutional autism) that are a result of neglect.  The doctor I spoke with also said that her small head size-which was not even on the growth chart was also a red flag of significant neurological issues with development.  We should be prepared for continued therapy and the possibility of learning disabilities that would interfere with judgement, and the ability to be live independently.   Another factor working against her was her age.  An autistic or mentally delayed child who is born into a loving family can still make a lot of progress with therapy given that the crucial time for neurological development happens within the first 3 years of life.  Without proper care and attention, even a healthy child's brain suffers and does not develop normally.  Most adopted children require extra time and work at their development because of this reason.  So in this little girls case, she had experienced what the doctor described as "anti-therapy," given that this orphanage was neglectful due to the caregivers simply being overwhelmed with the number of children to care for.  Wow, not the report we were expecting at all.  The first thing I did was call Andrew at work and tell him all that I learned.  Originally we were going to have our acceptance ready by the end of the work day on Thursday, but given the difficulty of the decision, we were able to extend that time until Friday morning.  Still, only hours to make such a life changing decision.  

Looking back now, I can see that although we have thought much about different medical conditions, how we were going to work hard at attachment, adjustment, and development with our child, we had not given this type of special need enough thought to be prepared.  And in checking our records, autism was not a special need that we had marked and turned in to Villa Hope as one we would accept-although from the orphanage report, true autism was not a clear diagnosis.  

Anyway, from 3:00pm to 9:00pm, I do believe was the most intense emotional time I may have ever experienced.  If you can just imagine,  you have been on an emotional high for the past 24 hours, expecting to have an official match with your child.  I know that getting hopes up is not wise, but it is hard when you are desiring to know them so much, and knowing this could be the one.  So then, add a time crunch and the necessity to think clearly (impossible), and two biological children who are needing help with homework, needing dinner, and a van that needs to be dropped off at the shop to this time period!  I am writing this, because I want to remember this part of our journey.  I know God gave us this experience for a reason-maybe so that we can encourage someone else, but I know for sure that it is part of His way of strengthening our desire for the child that He has for us.  

I can remember telling Andrew a few times that he would ultimately have to make the decision.  I couldn't do it.  I couldn't think.  I could only feel.   Now here is the part, where I know that those of you who have been praying for us came in.  Andrew was talking about discerning God's will, apart from an emotional response and apart from rationalizing the decision.  The decision had to be a result of the peace of God   Isaiah 30:21  Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” 
Out of the blue, Andrew thought of an analogy that helped us think clearly come to a conclusion.  We thought what if God were to take us to one of these orphanages filled with children-hundreds, thousands of children, and then told us to "choose one."  How could we possibly?  But that is exactly what we must do.  Choose one.  It was this analogy that made us realize that no matter what type of special medical need our child will have, the one thing that we know we do want to have is a relationship, a close relationship with her, and we want our boys to love her, to interact with her, and we want to leave ourselves with the open possibility of adopting one more girl, if God would have it.   According to the information that we had, it seemed that accepting this little girl would make all of that a likely gamble.  So by 9:00pm, we made it official that this precious, beautiful, loved by God little girl would not become ours.  It was the most painfully, excruciating decision we have ever made.  I woke up this morning around 3:00am and could not sleep.  Everything was surreal.  Did we really just say no to a child?  I would have never imagined it.  

As the day has went on, we have had however increasing peace over this.  Looking back over the orphanage report in a less emotional state, the signs appear to be much clearer.  The statement that the little girl did not play much with the other children seemed now to make much more sense,  and we knew she would need much more of our time and attention than we actually have to give in order to see her make progress.  

Still, our hearts ache for her, but we know that there are still many other children who are in dire need of forever families and that we will find ours very soon.  We will pray continually for this child, that God would stir the heart of another family who is prepared  to seek her out, and it is amazing to see the variety of special needs that He does call families to seek out, and they do it intentionally.  We have met some of them on this journey.  But we can only chose one-at least at this time.  So we also pray in general, that God would stir the hearts of His people, to awaken more hearts to adoption and foster care according to His lead.  

Follow up and Two Amazing Adoption Videos!

I wanted to follow up with the previous post just to say that Andrew talked to our agency and got a much clearer picture of what is going on.  Villa Hope is transitioning to a new and hopefully more efficient means of providing matches for families.  I won't go into all the details again of why we were confused and what all goes into the matching process, but we are relieved to gain better understanding. I will also tell you that my God is way too sweet to me.  On Wednesday morning in my Bible reading (I am still in Isaiah by the way-which I LOVE!) a verse just leaped off the page and I knew it was God's way of restoring my peace and joy throughout this waiting period.  Now I will also tell you that the context of this verse is referring to the the end of times when God will restore and establish all of His people, including those of Israel who turn to Him and they will enjoy His everlasting light forever, once and for all delivering them from sadness and oppression.  (So at this I must ask-do you belong to Him through faith in His son?)  Anyway, so you get the point-the context of this scripture is not Andrew and Amy's adoption:)  But, the truth applies to all things that are from God and according to His purpose:

Isaiah 60:22  "I am the Lord; in its time I will hasten it."

I was reminded that the timing and choosing of our daughter is not dependent on the "process" and agency uses, but on the working of God.  

I also wanted to share with you two amazing China adoption videos of some friends and friends of friends that we know.  I think you'll really enjoy these!


Greer Family Adoption


Thomas Family Adoption


And for the grandparents:)

2nd Grade Living Museum-Steve Jobs 

Bud's Best Cookie Company

Children's Theatre

Amy