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Our Story
Trust in the
Lord with all of your heart. Lean not on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him. He will make your path
straight. ~Proverbs 3:5-6
Our journey to our children began almost 24 years ago when God
blessed us with the birth of our oldest son, Ted. He was our
first miracle, arriving after about three years of infertility
treatments. Failed infertility treatments and domestic adoption
attempts followed Ted’s birth. It seemed God had closed the door
to us having more children.
That is what it seemed like, but that is not what happened. He
opened those doors wide when we adopted Philip from China in
June 2008 – a mere 22 years after Ted was born! Our second
miracle came into our lives. During the journey to Philip’s
adoption, we kept having the strongest feeling that God was
going to bring us not one more child, but two! Just a feeling –
but still we kept tucked away in our hearts the feeling that
there might be another child out there for our family.
After returning home that summer with Philip, Kevin and I began
to wonder if maybe we had heard God wrong about adding a third
child to our family. Maybe this was what God had planned so long
ago, and we should be content and happy to stop here. All of us,
including Philip, were pretty overwhelmed with the transition
and frankly, Kevin and I were just plain tired adjusting to our
new life. We loved having Philip home, and we knew without a
doubt he was the one we had been waiting for, but we still were
very overwhelmed and thought we should stop there.
But God . . .
He had other plans. First he got our attention in a big way. At
the end of the summer of Philip’s adoption, we thought I was
pregnant! I felt and looked pregnant! We were so sure I was
pregnant that I took four home pregnancy tests over the course
of a few weeks! All came back negative, but we were sure I was
pregnant! Then during this time, we had a cricket in our bedroom
wall who chirped loudly all night long for several nights. I
remembered that crickets meant something special in China, so I
looked it up one day and found that they meant blessings and
many children. I then was led to a Bible verse in Deuteronomy.
It said, “He will love you and bless you and increase your
numbers. He will bless the fruit of your womb, the crops of your
land – your grain, new wine, and oil – the calves of your herds
and the lambs of your flocks in the land that he swore to your
forefathers to give you.” (Deuteronomy 7:13)
It turned out I was not pregnant in the physical sense. However,
our hearts turned fully to adopting again, so from that time on
we became pregnant in the adoptive sense, in our hearts. We
prayed for God to lead us, and lead us he did. Since Philip’s
adoption, China had changed the qualifications for adopting from
them. You could still adopt a child with special needs if you
were 55 or younger, but they were no longer accepting anyone
with a history of cancer, no matter how long ago and how well
you were doing now. Kevin had a history of cancer, having a skin
growth that spread to his parotid gland over 22 years ago. He
was deemed cured long ago having no reoccurrence of it since
that time, but China did not want any cancer history.
Our agency felt we should look at other countries, which we did.
But we also prayed like crazy for direction from God, and he
kept leading us back to China. Our agency called China, and they
said we could go and commit to a specific child, and then they
would let us know if they would accept us or not. Ok. They
didn’t say “yes,” but they didn’t say “no” either. We had hope. |
Eli's forever family, Ted, Philip, Mommy, and Papa
Eli's brothers - Ted and Philip
Philip and Grandpa.
Grandpa went home to Heaven on December 1, 2009. Eli won't get
to meet his Grandpas (both Janet and Kevin's dads) this side of
Heaven.
A preschool Christmas celebration with Gram and Grandma
Decorating for Christmas this year -
next year Eli will be home with us for Christmas |
We applied with that in mind, and
began to search the Waiting Children’s List. There were several
children we tried to lock in, but they were always being
reviewed by another family, so we never got to do so. Around
this time, our agency inquired again of China about us adopting
with them with Kevin’s history of cancer because several other
families had recently been turned away due to that very same issue.
China came back and said that if we wanted to adopt a much older
child or one with much more severe disabilities, they might
consider us. This discouraged us because we felt we couldn’t
adopt an older child right then and especially a child with more
severe needs, but still we kept praying for God to open doors.
Then one morning, I tried to access the newest special needs
list and found I couldn’t access it. I called our agency, and
our coordinator said she was just about to call us because they
had locked in a little boy for us to see. He had a cleft lip and
palate (just like Philip) and a heart defect. He was younger
than we had initially thought we would accept, and his heart
defect was certainly a little more severe than we thought we
could handle! We would need to check with our pediatrician
before we could commit. Our agency told us we had just one day
to get with our doctor and make a decision. Otherwise, his file
would be unlocked and other families could view his picture.
When I clicked on his file, I saw the sweetest most serious
little face I had ever seen. He immediately tugged at my heart.
I called Kevin and Ted quickly, and he tugged at their hearts,
too.
I promptly printed off his information and took it to our
pediatrician. Her office staff said she would review it and get
back to me later that day. Later in the day our agency called to
say they would need our answer by 5 our time, 4 their time. I
called our doctor, and her staff said she was having a very busy
day and couldn’t possibly review the file until much later in
the day, past our deadline. I said, “Ok, then maybe that’s our
answer. We will pray for a break in her schedule. Otherwise, we
will know this is not our son.” Because of this little boy’s
heart defect, we really needed to check with our doctor before
saying yes.
At 10 minutes until our deadline time, Kevin looked at me and
said, “Well, it’s now or never.” And with that the phone rang.
It was our doctor on the line. She said she thought this little
boy was perfect for us, and if it was her, she would go ahead
with the adoption. She felt we could handle the heart defect!
With only minutes to spare, I phoned our agency with the news!
The next hurdle to overcome was our Citizen and Immigration
paperwork. It had taken two months to clear with Philip’s
adoption, but we didn’t have that kind of time this time. We
only had a few weeks to get an answer. Miraculously, it cleared
in a matter of days, not weeks! We were on the way to Eli!
Yippee!
Throughout this adoption, as with Philip’s adoption, we have
seen and felt God’s fingerprints over every detail. He has
constantly confirmed that this is what we are supposed to be
doing and our little Eli is who we are supposed to be bringing
home. One of the most beautiful signs that Eli’s adoption has
had God’s blessing is the story of our double rainbows.
Back in October 2007, the autumn before we would travel to bring
home our Philip, we had two occasions to see two double rainbows
about a week apart. The first one happened when we were taking
our customary walk in the woods, chatting and praying for our
adoption. We did not yet know about Philip, and we were getting
discouraged because the wait was getting to be so long. I
remember we walked down a road that we had never walked down
before. The trees opened up overhead so you could see straight
to the sky. It was a normal, regular October day with no rain or
storms in sight. Suddenly we saw a double rainbow! It was
totally unexpected and took our breath away just gazing at it.
Kevin right then and there said it must be a sign for our
adoption – somehow God was getting something ready. I, however,
did not feel as positive about it being a sign. But Kevin was so
sure that it was a sign, a promise from God just like the first
rainbow had been to Noah, that he felt we should write it on the
calendar.
The next week, a friend of ours whom Kevin had shared the
rainbow story with phoned to say there was another double
rainbow in the sky! We ran outside and looked up – sure enough –
there was another double rainbow with no clouds in sight, no
rain again! With this second rainbow, I began to have the
feeling that Kevin was right. This just had to be a sign that
our adoption was moving along! Something good was happening.
When we received Philip’s paperwork with his referral the
following spring, we noted that his medical workup to ready him
for adoption had been between those two weeks of the double
rainbows! That was a beautiful sign from God, and we have always
treasured it.
Then something quite unexpected happened with Eli’s adoption.
When we spotted the second double rainbow, we had also written
it down on our calendar. A couple of months after receiving
Eli’s paperwork last summer, I was going over his birth date and
other things from his referral information in my mind. All at
once I realized something amazing! Eli was born during the month
of October – the month we spotted the double rainbows! I hurried
home to check the exact dates we had noted on our calendar for
the double rainbow sightings. Guess what! It seems the second
double rainbow on October 23, 2007 also had a special meaning
for Eli’s adoption, a fingerprint of God especially meant for
Eli. October 23, 2007 was the day our Eli was born! Isn’t our
Lord something? He was giving us two promises that October. We
just didn’t know it at the time! We do now!
Now we are waiting to bring Eli home. Won’t you come along with
us and see our third miracle come home to his forever family? |
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