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Why a "Waiting Child"?
I wanted
to add this portion to our site because deciding to adopt
a waiting child was not a choice CJ and I made on our own,
it was placed in our hearts heavily by our heavenly
father.
Here’s our story… (Our red thread)
When we started the adoption process, we were very happy
and content about our decision to adopt a ‘healthy’ baby
girl between the ages of 0-12 months. As time went on, we
put together our dossier with very little trouble and were
thrilled to have a log in date of 3-8-07. We knew the wait
was most likely going to reach 3 years for a Non-special
needs child and as hard as that was to swallow we really
felt God lead us to China and we would just wait for his
timing, not ours. I (Amy) threw myself into anything and
everything about Chinese adoption. CJ at the time was just
starting his business so when the kids went to bed, he
worked on the business and I educated myself for the both
of us about the referral phase of the adoption. One
morning, I settled in with a cup of coffee to watch The
TODAY show and I was so excited because they were showing
a special segment on a little girl from China that flew to
the US for a major operation (she was later adopted by the
doctor who performed the surgery and her husband). Little
did I know this segment would change our lives forever! As
soon as it was over (and after I wiped off my tear soaked
face) I called CJ and asked him if he had ever thought
about putting our intentions in for an older child. I knew
his answer but I needed to hear his words spoken from his
heart. “Of course, I would want an older child”. Then I
asked him, would you ever consider a child with a special
need? Again, not surprised, he said “of course”. My heart
literally skipped a few beats and I had an excitement come
over me that I have only felt on three occasions. 1. Our
wedding day. 2. Trevor’s birth. 3. Rachel’s birth. We knew
God was speaking to us and we were listening!
At this point, I knew I needed to talk to Kim at GWCA to
see what we needed to do to switch from non-special needs
to a waiting child. Her answer was pretty cut and dry.
Review the files of the waiting children and apply for
those you fell drawn to. I asked her when the list will be
available and she said any day now. It was so surreal to
me that our daughter could be on that list!! I could
hardly contain my emotions as I patiently waited for the
new list to post and finally on April 27, 2007 @ 4:30 CST
the list was posted. CJ and I both sat there staring like
deer in headlights at the list with mixed emotions because
HOW do you choose a child??? This is the point when our
faith was really put to the test. We applied for a child
(we were only allowed one application at a time) but were
told we could put our intentions in the application for
any other child we would be interested in, so that’s
exactly what we did! We waited a month for the review
process to start, I tried not to think about it too much
but that was impossible! I must say, I would not allow
myself to think about it during the day when Trevor and
Rachel were with me because time with them is very
precious to me and I didn’t want silly worrying to get in
the way… so I stressed at night!!!! LOL!!! Poor CJ, he had
to talk me down the crazy tree several times during the
waiting process…Fast forward one month…Review week... Two
of the three girls we applied for were placed with other
families. We were very disappointed (for about 2 minutes)
then we were filled with joy because we knew those
precious babies had forever families!!! Of course, we
still had hope for the third child and prayed God would
grant us a blessing… Weeks went by and her file was still
open. We continued to pray and hope and pray and hope,
every time the phone rang between the hours of 8am-5pm we
held our breathe thinking it would be GWCA. Then June
29th, 2007, I was sitting in my home office with Rachel,
we were making visor hats for the grandma’s and grandpa’s,
not realizing our lives were about to change forever…The
phone rang (our phone announces who’s calling), I heard
the words I was praying for GREAT WALL CHINA ADOPTION!!!!
I fell to my knees and praised God all the while the call
went into voice mail!!!! I just couldn’t move to answer
it. As soon as I got myself together and reassured Rachel
I was fine and that mommy was happy not scared I dialed
GWCA with hands a shaking!! Kim got on the phone and
muttered the words I so desperately wanted to hear… The
committee is reviewing your application and we have some
information to share with you before we share her file.
Because we are awaiting our LSC, I won’t go into details
at this point but basically she was giving us a worse case
scenario. She asked me to talk to CJ and to get back to
her when we could. I immediately called CJ and COULD NOT
reach him on his cell phone!!!!! Finally, he called me
back with in seconds and I explained what Kim had told me
and without hesitation he told me to call Kim back and
tell her we would love to see her file regardless of the
worse case scenario. GOD IS AN AWESOME GOD!!!! Kim was so
happy to hear our decision and then congratulated us and
told me to look in my inbox in a few minutes; the file was
on the way. Rachel and I began jumping up and down,
laughing and crying and then panic stuck…CJ’s not here, I
can’t look at our daughter without him so I called him
checking to see when he would be home and his answer
was…I’m right down the street… :) :) :)
The minute we opened the file, we knew that beautiful,
darling little girl (age 2) was our Linzhi Rose. Without a
doubt, we knew!
To answer my question, why a waiting child… I must say, I
(Amy) never thought I was equipped enough to handle a
child with a special need but God blessed me with a
husband who has faith in me as a mother and I have faith
in him as a father and together with the love of God, we
are where we need to be for this child. When we look at
her, we see our daughter and all the rest just falls to
the side. We know we have possible surgeries ahead of us
and rehab and a chance she will have to have
accommodations the rest of her life but we feel we are
only assisting God in HIS plan for her and what a blessing
we get to be chosen to love, parent and watch first hand
what God has planned for this precious child. I’m in awe
of his Amazing Grace!
I guess, I still haven’t answered the question… God chose
a child that was waiting for a mama and a baba, we just
followed his lead.
~CJ and Amy |
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