Adoption Journey, Part 1

Putting our six and a half year long adoption story into written words is a daunting task, but one I feel I must do.  To forget the lessons of these last several years would be devastating. Much of our story has been shared in pieces here and there through the blog we used to update friends and family along the way.  But I want to put everything down in one place. Being able to look back on the entire journey to see how God was working all along--to see how he loved us every moment of every day--to see our faith justified and to know we are justified by our faith--I hope it will be an encouragement to me to be able to sit down and look back in future days.

Kyle and I always planned to adopt.  Kyle spent time in college working in orphanages in Mexico, and I have a sister and two cousins who are adopted.  Even before we were married there was never a question in our minds as to whether or not we adopt. Our firstborn, Matthew, came into our family easily.  Got pregnant just when we wanted to, easy pregnancy, easy delivery. Easy baby, all things considered. Anyone who knows me well will tell you that I love to follow a plan.  So I had our lives mapped out: Three biological kids before I turned 30 and got too old (insert eyeroll here--now age 32...who says 30 is old?!?!), then adopt from an international orphanage.  Of course I hadn’t yet learned that life doesn’t typically follow the plans I set.

And so God dropped his first of many bombshells.  In April 2012, before our firstborn was even one year old, I was in our bedroom, Matthew napping in his bedroom.  I think it must have been a rare day when I decided to make the bed. And in a moment I had the clearest impression from the Lord.  This had happened to me twice before. The Lord speaks to us in many ways, through pastors and other Christians, through his Word. And sometimes I hear him through these moments of clarity.  Moments in which a knowledge is planted in my mind and heart and I feel no doubt about it. A certainty.  

The first time I felt that way was in June 2004.  I was headed home from a babysitting job. Having just graduated from high school, I was feeling on top of the world.  I was driving up a hill, dreaming about college life and the big wide world in front of me. Suddenly I had this certainty in my heart and mind that I would be married to a youth pastor.  I remember being bewildered and thinking how strange that I would think that...but the thought didn’t seem to be from me. It was like a whisper in my soul of a future God had for me. It wasn’t until a few months later I developed an enormous crush on the guy I would eventually marry.  I another month after that before I found out his plans to be a youth pastor. I still found the concept of pastor’s wife hard to believe and didn’t breathe a word of it to Kyle until after he proposed.

I was in college the second time I felt a certainty from the Lord.  I came awake suddenly in the middle of the night. I was afraid and sure that I needed to pray for someone.  I wasn’t sure why or what could be wrong, but I just had to pray. So I started by praying for each of my family members, begging God for protection, but I felt no peace.  Next I moved on to Kyle’s family, praying for him, his parents, and each of his sisters...begging God to be present...praying blindly. After that I was able to fall back asleep.  The next day, Kyle called to tell me one of his sisters had been in a horrible car accident the night before.

So when this feeling of certainty came upon me, I knew I needed to listen.  I know not to blindly follow every thought that pops into my mind, but when I suspect the Lord is speaking to me, I know to prayerfully consider the thing in my heart and mind.  And this time the message was clear. Why were we planning to wait so long to adopt? Children need a home now. Why were we going the “easy” (for us) route of biological kids first, when the Bible so clearly calls us to care for orphans?  I gave Kyle a call and passed it on to him. “I think God wants us to go ahead and start the adoption process…”

He was stunned.  Asked for time to pray.  Called me back within a half hour to tell me his heart was telling him the same thing.  God didn’t want us to wait on this direction he’d given each of us before we were married.  It was time to start the process now.

The first thing we needed to do was decide where to adopt from.  With international adoption, you often choose an agency based on where you want to adopt from.  So we prayed and searched, looking at various agencies and the countries they worked with. We felt strongly that we should adopt from a place where a child living in an institution would be unlikely to be adopted.  In the end, the Lord led us to Azerbaijan. Very few agencies worked in Azerbaijan and they all warned us to expect it to take 12-24 months. I remember that felt like FOREVER...but we were confident it was where the Lord was leading us to adopt from.

From the moment we signed a contract with an agency, our sunshine and roses expectations on adoption took a quick downhill turn.  Within a few months our adoption agency went out of business because so many of their clients were adopting from Russia when the country banned US adoptions.  We had a new stack of paperwork with a new agency to begin.  

After completing the home study and gathering all the documents, we thought things were turning around.  We got our dossier translated and submitted and then began the waiting process...only to find out our agency no longer felt having an adoption program in Azerbaijan was viable.  We were asked to select another country. After prayer, we just didn’t feel released from an adoption from Azerbaijan. So we went to the only other agency in the US facilitating adoptions in Azerbaijan.  Our translated dossier was lost, the original returned to our doorstep. And so we started over again.  

This time it took over a year to compile the paperwork, get it translated, and then submitted.  And then the wait. Ohhh the waiting. It was excruciating to wait but even though we were more than two years into the journey...certainly longer than we expected...we were confident this was the direction God wanted us to walk.  And so we waited.

In the midst of the waiting I began to wonder if we were doing the right thing.  Life is hard in the waiting room. The doubts grow large and God’s voice begins to feel so small.  I questioned our direction. I begged God to show us another country, an easier way. Where would you have us go?  Where else can we pursue adoption? The next morning God responded with a resounding “Be Still” in the form of an acquaintance showing up on a rainy day to deliver gifts purchased in Azerbaijan for our future son or daughter.

After many months, another bombshell.  Our third adoption agency was not able to keep up with the financial requirements for the Hague convention and would have to cease their program in Azerbaijan.  We found out at the end of an incredibly hard summer. We had realized over the course of several months that something was wrong with Kyle. His ability to manage stress and pressure from work and life in general didn’t seem right.  We realized he needed to see a doctor. Through that process we had learned in the spring of 2016 that Kyle suffered from anxiety and depression. We began a process of counseling and medication for treatment. That summer Kyle had tried a series of unsuccessful medications that made various symptoms worse and significantly scarier.  At the end of an incredibly difficult family vacation, we learned of our third agency’s financial dilemma. As far as we knew, there was no other agency working in Azerbaijan.  

We spent the trip home that day discussing our options.  Choose a new country? China? Take a break and go for a biological kid?  It had been over four years since we’d made the decision to adopt. Did we hear Him wrong?

Then came another call.  Our second agency was willing to give it another try in Azerbaijan.  They would work with us. As we began paperwork again to transfer our case, we got a call from our adoption agency, telling us of a little boy in Ethiopia if we were interested.  How could we say no? After four and a half years, we just wanted to be a family for a child who needed one! We wanted a sibling for our boy. Another child to love.

Unfortunately this time the roadblock was with our home study agency.  Because of how volatile adoption in Ethiopia was at the time, they were unwilling to write a homestudy for that country.  He needed to go to another family.  

At the time, almost everyone in our families was pregnant.  My brother’s wife, two of Kyle’s sisters. And then me. We found out in October 2016.  Baby was due in June 2017. The joy of that moment only lasted for a few days before the bleeding began.  A little a first. Probably nothing. It happens all the time. It’s normal. Then a little more. It’s worrisome.  There could be a problem. And then the gush. And then it seemed to be too much. And the ER. And the ultrasound. “Your womb is empty.”  The day before the miscarriage, Kyle felt God pointing him to this verse:

“Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat.  

But I have prayed for you...that your faith may not fail.  

And when you have turned back,

strengthen your brothers.”

Luke 22:31-32

It was the lowest point in our lives up to that point.  Kyle’s diagnosis of diabetes early in our marriage paled in comparison.  I was angry. SO ANGRY. HOW could God DO this to US? Had we not suffered enough??  He had taken my plans. Kyle’s health. Now a child? I knew the questions I had to answer.  Did I trust God with my plans? Did I trust God with my husband? Did I trust God with my children?  My plans are not my own. My husband’s life is not mine to choose. And my children. Every one of them.  Every day of their lives. My children belong to the Lord.

I lost hope.  I doubted God’s goodness. I told him “I still choose you.”  But I said it with resignation. As if we were locked in a battle and He had won.  A few weeks after our miscarriage I wrote in my journal:

But what about hope?  That is my question.  

What about hope? Cause that word has been following 

me around and I don’t seem to have any 

and I can’t figure out where to find it.

This season.  Teach me to hope again.

However, by the end of January, my heart had begun to heal. In my journal I wrote:

Somehow you brought me through the dark days at the end of 2016.

I don’t even know when or how--only that I’m still standing and not by my own power.

And somehow, in my heart, I find hope.  As I cling to you and release my dreams one by one...there is hope.  How does that work? It must be a gift you’ve given.

Little did we know, on the other side of the world, our daughter was born that month, struggling but alive.  Experiencing the loss of her first family, the reality of an orphanage. And the hope of a God who saw her in her first mother’s womb and had a plan for her days.

And so we resumed the waiting.  Again, we felt that the Lord wanted us to continue the wait in Azerbaijan.  Now, however, we waited with a new patience and a slower pace. I learned to enjoy the here and now while waiting.  To enjoy life as a family of three and spend less time looking toward and wishing for the future. As 2017 progressed, another sister of Kyle’s found out she was pregnant.  All of our siblings (with the exception of my sister in middle school) would have babies born in 2017. Except us. Even so, we continued to wait. We stopped trying to look elsewhere for the child.  God led us to Azerbaijan...so from Azerbaijan we expected our child to come.

Stay tuned for part 2!