In the Waiting

The waiting is the hardest part.  We have waited a long time for our home study to be approved—longer than we expected—but it has finally been signed, sealed, delivered, and we have been matched with a child in China!  The delays with the home study were out of our hands, and I believe it was God’s intention to help us practice patience and have trust in his timing.  

It is hard, though, thinking of these children who wait, in faraway orphanages.  The news and images coming out of China are not easy to absorb.  International adoption rates continuing to fall in recent years.  New restrictive laws and costs for international adoption.  The government of China tightening its grip on its citizens, limiting freedoms and choices under an already restrictive regime.  Travel warnings for foreigners visiting China.  One particularly disturbing set of photos was recently published by a Chinese photographer showing disabled children licking milk powder from a mat on the floor.  The photographer who dared to publish these photos later went missing.  We recently heard from a family who traveled to China and reported back that the ratio of caregivers to children with Down syndrome in one orphanage was 25 babies to one nanny.  Photos of these children with bruises and sores on their heads from repeated head banging against the walls of their cribs, in search of some form of stimulation.  All of these occurrences are unthinkable in the United States.  It is heartbreaking to witness, and these are the images which burn into my mind.  And still, so many children wait.  

 And we wait, too.  To move forward.  To bring home this new child of ours.  We have never met each other,  yet this child already fills our hearts.  This one special little boy lives in the same orphanage which Elsa called home her first two years—in Zhanjiang, China.  We don’t know his exact birthdate, but estimates are that he will be 3 years old in June.  He was abandoned at around 5 months of age, and has spent all of his days since then at this orphanage.  From his medical record, he appears to be in reasonably good health, and like George and Elsa, he has one very special extra chromosome.  He has the cutest chubby cheeks and the most charming smile.  We are eager to receive any updates, but we have no guarantee of learning anything more about him until we meet when we travel to China.  We are not yet allowed to share photos of him, until we have approval of our match from China, but you can be sure we will be sharing his adorable photo with you when we can!

The waiting is hard on the heart.  When you know what the end goal is, you want it NOW.  It seems like everything is instantaneous in our society– we demand immediate results, you tap on your phone and you get a response right away, one-click-one-day shipping from Amazon, and on and on.  Let’s be honest, we are not a patient society.  Especially when we know that there is a child sitting alone in a crib, waiting for someone to hold him or play with, the waiting can be very difficult.  But there can also be purpose in the waiting.  It can help us prepare our home and our family to welcome a new child, it can give us time to reflect and grow.  We’ve spent some time looking back at photos and videos of when we first met Elsa.  We’ve been thinking of how she must have felt on that first day.  Taken from everything she had ever known—even if it was not an ideal situation—and here she was, being passed off to complete strangers, who looked, sounded, even smelled very different.  I can’t imagine what was going through her little mind at that time, but it must have been scary.  We are so grateful for how her heart has opened to us and she has let us in, though it did take time.  Time to build that trust and overcome the trauma of her abandonment—and some of it never goes away—it’s a part of who she is.  But then let’s fast forward to today:  look at this amazing, beautiful, full-of-life, animated, curious, happy little girl who is now part of our family.  What a blessing for her and for us!  We belong together, and we are so fortunate that God knitted our lives together.  And I believe it will be this way with our new son.  But for now we must wait.  More waiting.  More trusting God.  More reflecting and growing.  All in good time.  

Meeting Elsa

First moments with Dad

Beautiful, scared little girl

Speaking of reflecting, we sometimes wonder to ourselves—Are we crazy to be doing this again?  What are we thinking?  Our world is going to be turned upside again!  We just got another bill from the adoption agency?!  Yikes!  Maybe we are crazy.  I’ve asked Hugh these questions before, in the throes of one of my emotional roller coaster rides.  And Hugh, always the calm and logical voice of reason that he is, answers me, “Yes, we’re crazy.  But it’s a good crazy.”  We are crazy in love for this new little boy, and crazy excited to bring him home and love him.  Sometimes a little bit of crazy is a good thing.