Adoption/birth stories

Adam: I'll start with Adam, because he was the first child to join our family, and even though he wasn't adopted, his being with us is truly a miracle. David and I were married in 1995. The following summer, I found out that I was pregnant. We were very excited, but unfortunately, that pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. After that, we tried for another pregnancy for about a year and a half. We saw a fertility specialist one time, and shortly after that I was pregnant again (with no intervention from the specialist). Adam's was a textbook pregnancy. I was perfectly healthy, as was Adam. We took Bradley birth classes and had Adam completely naturally. I was very into breastfeeding and he nursed for a very long time (I won't mention here how long, so I don't shock anyone!).

Now, this doesn't sound too miraculous, until I mention that I had two miscarriages following my pregnancy with Adam (one of them was twins). Also, this past year I finally found out why I have had so many problems with my cycle, problems conceiving and problems carrying a pregnancy to full term. I have severe endometriosis and also had polyps. I had to have an ovary removed last year, as well as the polyps. The fact that my pregnancy with Adam was perfect was a complete miracle. Often, our children talk about the four other brothers and sisters that they will have in heaven. I cannot wait to meet them! But I am also glad that we get to know Adam this side of heaven.

Lily: We began researching adoption intently after my second miscarriage. We had always been interested in adoption. We weren't looking into adoption only because of the miscarriages, but they were an impetus for setting things in motion. We knew that we wanted to adopt from China, because we both had good friends who were Chinese and we knew about the plight of the little girls there. We simply called agencies and decided on the closest agency to where we lived. Then began the paperwork (that wasn't too bad, because AAC does the dossier preparation). Then, as our paperwork was almost ready to send to China I found out that I was pregnant! We got a lot of advice to stop the adoption, but I knew in my heart that our Lily was waiting for us in China. She seemed a very part of me and there was no way that we could think of not adopting her.

Well, it was very difficult thinking of having two babies at once, so I experienced some stress over that. But, then I had real peace from God. On September 20, 2000, I wrote in my journal, "And now there is JOY!" Little did I know that on that day, Lily was born in China, and her Chinese name would be Joy!!!

A couple of weeks later I had my third miscarriage at 18 weeks. This was devastating, especially as we found out that I had been pregnant with twins and one of the little ones had died earlier in the pregnancy. But, after the grieving, we were even more ready to bring Lily home. Unfortunately, the wait was really long. We finally got her referral picture in July of 2007 and were absolutely thrilled! We traveled to China a month later with Adam and my mom. It was an incredible trip and we were absolutely in love with our little girl. She was, and still is, a treasure beyond compare.

One more thing about Lily. The one thing that we consistently prayed for Lily while we were waiting to get her was that she would be held and loved. Well, about a year after we got home we met Katie who had lived in China, teaching English. She had organized a number of student volunteers who daily went to Lily's orphanage to hold the babies! How is that for answered prayer!

Jadon: After we had been home with Lily for about nine months, we felt that God was leading us back to China. We found out about special needs adoptions and decided that was the route to go. At the time, there was a quota for traditional adoptions in China, but all special needs adoptions were allowed outside the quota. We used a different agency because AAC was not doing special needs adoptions yet. We were matched with a 3 year old boy, whom we adored and were going to name Luke. But, about a month later we found out that the CCAA had accidentally sent his file to two agencies and another family was already planning on adopting him.

This was quite a blow and we weren't sure what to do. We decided to ask the CCAA to match us with a baby. The agency rep. called a couple of days later and told us about a little boy with cleft lip and palate. He was 19 months old, which meant he was 6 months younger than Lily. We weren't sure what to do. We asked for more time, but a couple of days later the agency rep. called again and said that they had a 9 month old baby boy for us. We asked to have her send the file. She said that she would send both files. David and I discussed this and decided to delete the older boy's file before looking at it. But guess what?! We accidentally (wink, wink) opened up the wrong file! And when we saw this little boy's big brown eyes and sad face, we were sure that he was our son. We also knew that it would be easier for the 9 month old to find a family, so we committed to the older boy.

So, then we waited some more. And finally, we went to China to get our little Jadon. Adam and Lily stayed home with my mom, which was really hard on Lily, but it did give us some time to bond with Jadon. Right away, we knew he was all boy, yet also very affectionate. He fell asleep while David was holding him the first night.

The adjustment for Lily and Jadon was rough, but as I write this they are out in the back yard playing on a pile of mulch together and having a funeral for a dead bird (oh boy, how many funerals did I have for dead birds when I was a kid?). They are very often best buddies and want to sit next to each other at dinner and have quiet times together, etc. Adam loved Jadon right away, as he has loved every child that he meets. All three of them got along really well, but now Lily was praying for a sister, and so....

Yana: We prayed for two years for a sister for Lily. These were rough years, as I was sure that God was calling us to adopt again, but I didn't trust God to work out the details. But, eventually, He made His will very clear and we met Yana. She had been adopted from Ukraine by a neighbor who was having a very hard time. They had only been home for a few days when she came by for help. We tried to help her keep Yana, doing everything that we knew to do, but eventually the neighbor told us that she couldn't keep her. We told her that we loved Yana and would like to adopt her.

Yana came to live with us right away and then we moved into a 900 sq. ft. apartment so that Yana and her first adoptive mom would not have to see each other all the time. It ended up being a great thing, as it really helped with bonding. Yana had some issues to work through, but she was very resilient and LOVED having a dad. Though we never planned on adopting a 7 year old, it worked out great, as now we had two older kids and two younger ones. It was fun for Adam to have someone closer to his age and abilities. We could never have planned it so well.

So, Yana ended up being our surprise child, and she was literally delivered to our doorstep. No one but God could have worked this out! And not surprising, Yana had been in the orphanage for two years (the same amount of time that I had been praying!). God had things planned all along.

Grace: And now for Grace. You can read about our journey to Grace in our first post of this blog. And I can't wait to know and to write about the rest of the story....