unexpected companions...

Once we found out we were pre-approved to be Ivy-Ann's family, we started sharing the news with our family and friends. I posted it on my facebook wall as well as in the facebook group of families that are also adopting from China using our agency.

Not long after posting it, a sweet lady (from the group), that I didn't even know, wrote and told me how excited she was for us. She said she had seen Ivy-Ann's picture on our agency's website months before and that she had been praying for her and praying that her family would find her.

I cannot tell you what this meant to me. Someone else had been praying for my little girl. Someone I had never met. And she was rejoicing that we had found our daughter!

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A couple of days later, I posted something on facebook about Ivy-Ann's name. My beautiful friend, Rebecca Reynolds responded, and, as we were talking, we discovered that around the same time we had decided to adopt from China, she had written a song called "Ivy." Not only that, a friend and mentor of mine, Ron Block, whose songs I've sung to my girls as lullabies since they were born, is the one who put those lyrics to music for his upcoming album.

And listen to some of the lyrics...

"Ivy, I can't ramble on, I'm running home to you."

"I long for the music of your laughter in the night."

"Ivy, wind your love around the love I bring to you."

"Ivy, make me strong; Ivy make me new."

"Ivy, I can't ramble on, I'm running home to you."

Here's a youtube video of Ron playing and singing "Ivy."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0xjDexsBX0

When I listened to Ron singing Becca's lyrics, I cried. As I sat there soaking in all the details of what this song is and how it came to be, I realized that my Father loves me enough that He orchestrated all of this for me. He had chosen Ivy-Ann for us. He knew her name before I even did. And He wanted me to know that. I couldn't think of a more beautiful way for Him to tell me than through this song written by these two, beloved friends.

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A day or so later, I was talking with a dear friend. She casually handed me an envelope and told me to just read it later. I put in my purse and didn't think about it again until later that evening. I opened it to find a beautiful, hand-made card. But the tears didn't come until I read what she had written.

Her best friend's father had passed away the day before, and as she was thinking about how to celebrate his life, she thought of Ivy-Ann. She said, "What better way to honor his life than with the gift of life for her!" Included was a portion of the money we need to bring our daughter home. We were so humbled and honored by the meaningful gift their family gave us.

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Each one of these things is a treasure to me that I don't want to forget. Each of these people has become a part of Ivy-Ann's story. It's all been unexpected, but it's been so beautiful!

Ivy-Ann...

Once we had seen this precious face, we asked for her file. A child's file contains all the medical history the orphanage has on her along with a bit about her development and personality. One thing that was mentioned several times about Ivy-Ann is that she loves to sing and can easily learn songs. Now, if you know anything about my other girls, you know that singing is a big part of our daily lives. In fact, Brian often says that our family lives in the midst of a musical. 

Another thing we learned about Ivy-Ann is that she has an eye condition called nystagmus. This causes her eyes to constantly shift from side-to-side. There is no cure for it, but glasses are typically very helpful. We will try to help her find the right tilt of head that will allow her to better focus. As she gets older, we will also try contacts, as these can often highly minimize the effects of the nystagmus. We don't know the severity of her nystagmus, but eye conditions are not foreign to our family. I have dealt with various eye issues for the past twenty years. Ashlyn had a very serious eye condition for five years (that cleared up two years ago!). Ivy-Ann's nystagmus felt very familiar to us. 

 

We also noticed that Ivy-Ann seems happy and loved. I'm a big researcher, and after some poking around, I found eighteen pictures of her and four videos. There are orphans in various orphanages that basically never get physically touched. This breaks my heart, and I just cannot understand it. But in most of the pictures of Ivy-Ann, she is being held or caressed somehow by one of the nannies. This spoke volumes to us. We have been taught that this will help her bond more easily with us.

She is also very curious. In multiple pictures she is peering into whatever is happening trying to figure it out. Since she can't see well, she has to hold items quite close to her eyes so she can focus on them. In one of the videos and in some of the pictures, you can tell that she spends time studying things in order to figure out the details of them.

These were some of the things that caused us to fall in love with this little girl immediately. After reading her file, we were ready to see if we could be matched with her. This means we would send a letter of intent for her to the CCCWA (China Center for Children's Welfare and Adoption), and they would pre-approve us to be her family. The problem was that Ivy-Ann's file was marked as "special needs" and not "special focus." Because of where we were in the process, we could only be matched with a "special focus" child. Our agency even requested that China change her file so we could be matched. They said no. Logan, our adoption specialist, said she would make a note by Ivy-Ann's file that we were interested in her, and she would let us know if another family got matched with her.

All we could do at that point was work on getting our dossier (our home study, immigrations' approval, police clearances, basically lots of paperwork) to China so the CCCWA could log us into their system. It was only when we were logged-in that we could be matched with a "special needs" child. We hoped and prayed that Ivy-Ann would still be available once we were logged in, but our excitement for her also proved to us that we were ready to adopt. 

We moved as quickly as we could through getting fingerprints and doing all we needed to do to complete our dossier. At the end of February, Logan called to see if we were still interested in Ivy-Ann. She wanted to know what our interest-level was and where we were with our paperwork. We were going to get fingerprinted the next day, which was the last thing we needed for our dossier. And yes! we were still very interested. 

Logan called the next day to ask if we would consider sending Ivy-Ann a little gift. She said this was not normal, and it would guarantee us nothing. Gift-giving is very important in the Chinese culture, and our coordinator in China felt this would be good for the CCCWA and the interested families to see. We decided to go ahead and send her a little blanket and a small stuffed animal. We knew that it may be nothing more than showing a sweet, little girl that someone cared for her. 

After that, we didn't hear anything until Tuesday, April 16. Our paperwork had been logged into China a week before, and with that we had sent a letter to the CCCWA expressing our intentions and desire to adopt this little girl. On April 16, we received a phone call from Logan. She told us that the CCCWA had pre-approved us to be Ivy-Ann's family. 

It had been almost four months since we had first seen that beautiful face.  Now we were told she would be ours. And so began the growing of this little girl in my heart. During those four months of not knowing whether or not she would belong to us, I had tried to protect myself from becoming attached to her. But once I heard those words from Logan, it was almost as if an emotional pregnancy began. God has created me to love and take care of this little girl, and He is growing her inside of me in such a similar way as He did my other girls. It is a gift, and I am so humbled and honored to be chosen to be Ivy-Ann's mama.

a couple of answers...

I've had quite a few people ask me the same two questions...

Why are you adopting? Why China?

I thought I'd answer those questions here. I've spent some time thinking through both of these questions, because I didn't have a cut-and-dried answer when first asked.

Some years ago, we started talking about and asking God what He wanted our family to do in order to take care of orphans. How could we bring beauty into the chaos of the lives of those who had been abandoned? How could we help give a name to one who had no name? During this time, we partnered with some orphanages in various ways.

Months into this, we felt a nudge towards international adoption. It was a little strange, because we were very content with our family the way it was. We really weren't planning on having any more children. But we started researching international adoption. About a year later, we found out we were moving to Alabama, and we put any thoughts of adoption on the back burner.

About nine months after we moved, we felt that nudge again. We went to a meeting held by an adoption agency to learn more, and we started getting excited. Adoption seemed more feasible and less scary. Still, for months, we kept learning, thinking and praying.

There was so much involved in this decision. One of the main things, for me, was thinking through how it would affect our girls. I tend to over-think things, so I had quite the array of scenarios constantly running through my mind.

Finally Brian and I sat down and asked ourselves this question, "What is it that we are waiting for exactly?"  Spending time with that question was crucial for us. It was at this point that we decided to go ahead and move forward. We had already decided on what agency we would use, so that was helpful. And though we were still somewhat unsure about what we were doing, we agreed that we would just start the process and only continue to the next step if we both felt that it was what God was asking us to do.

By July of 2012, we had finished everything we could up to the point of choosing a country from which to adopt. We spent time looking at the waiting children on our adoption agency's website and studying the details of the countries and the children living in the orphanages in each country. And for various reasons, we kept coming back to China.

While learning about the various countries, we quickly realized there were things we could and couldn't handle. We did not feel equipped to have a child who had Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, and the children in the Eastern European often have this. We didn't want to be out of the country for longer than four weeks or for multiple trips, which is required by Africa and the Latin American countries. We wanted a little one, age four or younger, who had been abandoned. We wanted the whole process to take less than two years. And we were okay to adopt a little one that had special needs that we felt we could handle.

As we learned more about us and about the countries, it seemed like China was the right fit for us. The entire process for adopting a little one from China typically takes 12-18 months for a child with special needs. You spend two weeks in China when you go to get your child. The children in Chinese orphanages have been abandoned. FASD is not prevalent in China. But even after deciding that China was the place for us, we still hesitated to jump in.

And then, the night before Christmas 2012, I saw a picture of a beautiful, little girl. I watched three videos of her. I was captivated. I called Brian in to see her, and we decided right then that we wanted to bring her home. (And we hope to soon!)

So, for us, adoption is our response to our Father when he commands us to take care of orphans. And why are we going to China? Well...mainly because that is where our daughter is. :)