How Kaiyun came to be our daughter {Not as we expected}

I'm not sure how much to share or not to share, but I want to try- so one day Kaiyun can look back and see how God wouldn't let us say no. I want to share the story to encourage others to step out in faith, just as others have encouraged us through this decision.

It's not about us, or really even about Kaiyun.

It's about Him and his great love for us. 

November 11, 2013~  I was having a sad day. It had been longer than expected for more files to come, yet again.  My friend Melissa encouraged me to check in with our agency.  I got an email back right away and my heart was pounding... She told me they were expecting files soon and that she thought she had found our daughter! What little info she had was in Chinese, but she was able to share a few basics... her first name, where she was living, that she had a heart defect, and...her birth date. 9.29.12.  Chills! Seriously?! Our Jiangxi babies would share the same birthday? Only God!

December 13, 2013~ Even though her file hadn't been translated yet, our agency was able to share a little bit more info. Kaiyun was born with a complex heart defect. She was born with Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF), which is a combination of 4 abnormalities in the heart, along with an atrial septal defect (ASD) and patent ductus arteriosus (PDA). We were also told that evening that she had abnormally shaped ears.  I started doing research and it was scary. Lots of syndromes associated with severe heart defects and ear anomalies...and yet I still had peace that she was ours.

December 23, 2013~ First see her Chinese file and pictures.  I didn't get immediate warm and fuzzies. She just looked so sad in her photos, but Alex said several times, "She's cute."  Even though the majority of it was in Chinese, there were some abbreviations, numbers, and dates I could figure out.  I could tell there were two additional diagnoses listed after the heart disease which made me very curious but I couldn't tell what they were. I was also able to tell when she was abandoned, when she had had her heart surgery (5.5 months old) and noticed she was very small with an even smaller head, which was also cause for concern. I requested an update with videos from our agency.

January 7, 2014~ Finally! We received her official file. We learned the other two diagnoses listed were vertebral deformities and a large birthmark on her leg.  (I find it odd that they pointed out her birthmark but not her unique ears.) More questions and my anxiety was high. What prompted them to do the x-ray of her back? Is she still on heart medications? Does her vertebral defect affect her mobility? Is her head too little? Would a possible syndrome mean severe delays or mental disorders? I almost didn't even send her file to a doctor because it all just seemed too much, but I knew I would always wonder if I didn't.

January 8, 2014~ The International Adoption doctor confirmed our fears. This little sweetie had 4 concerning special needs- complex heart, deformed vertebrae, deformed ears, and probably microcephaly if the head measurements were accurate. She described her heart as a broken teacup that had been glued back together... fragile and likely to "break" again. Everything she shared was overwhelming. She said with 2 defects, we could assume 50% chance of a syndrome. With all 4, it was pretty much certain she had a syndrome. Along with these possible syndromes, she could have other health conditions that we just couldn't see yet, like renal defects or mental issues.

We told our agency no.  Too many unknowns.

I was saying no because her needs didn't fit into MY plan.  I can picture God just shaking his head at us and thinking, "Really?! I made her birthday Sept 29th so you'd know she was yours and yet you still don't trust me?"

January 9, 2014~ My friend Greta sent me this text the very next morning, not knowing what we had gone through the night before.

Over the next couple of weeks, I looked into switching agencies but never felt like it was right. With Brielle's adoption, I had felt an urgency to switch and then found her with a different agency just a couple of weeks later. This time, I was doing a lot of looking but felt in my heart that we needed to stay with AAC.

January 24, 2014~ My friend Janna decided to switch from our agency to a new agency. It was a Friday. 

January 27, 2014~ Monday morning arrived, it was her first day with the new agency and my friend Janna was matched! I was so excited for her!! Yet even with her quick match, I didn't feel the urgency to switch. I felt like we were supposed to stick it out with AAC. (I love how God nudged her to switch and gave us peace to stay.)

January 28, 2014~ The very next morning, Janna texted me and asked if Kelli on AAC's site was the little girl we had turned down. I went to look.  She looked so different, I barely recognized her but the birthday and special needs seemed to match.

I called my agency and they said they had gotten an update with new photos and two videos! I immediately asked if I could see them! (By the way, in the meantime, her file had been offered to other families that had said no too.  Of course we know it was because she was waiting on us. ;))

Since I was at work that day, I went to see more patients while I was waiting for the update and videos. As I was telling a patient that she probably had PCOS, I started to explain this syndrome to her.

WAIT.

Did I just say syndrome?!

I'm hoping the patient didn't realize the light bulb that came on in my head. Almost every day at work, I have a patient with polycystic ovarian syndrome, or PCOS.  It is just a normal thing to me. Nothing scary. Why were we so scared of the word syndrome?! 

I got the update and watched her videos. My heart melted. Watching her crawl around and babble to the nannies was so darling! 

She suddenly became a little girl who needed a mommy and not just a file full of scary unknowns.

I immediately shared the update with Alex, my mom, and a few of my adoptive mommy friends. I needed people to be praying.  My mom wrote back, "Sweetheart, she looks great to me. Happy and interactive."  We were all falling in love...and yet I was still scared. It had been 3 weeks since we had said no. In fact, the videos and pictures were taken on the exact day we told our agency no. January 8th.

I was trying not to get my hopes up. I sent her file to two new doctors as well as the one who had reviewed it originally. All of the scary stuff the doctor had told us before had been pushed back in my memory.

Then later that day, someone posted her picture and info on a FB adoption advocacy group. My friend Melissa saw it and went into protective Auntie mode and texted me right away. As soon as I saw it, I could feel that urgency...the same urgency I felt to lock Brielle's file when I saw her.  I quickly posted that she was on hold with a family. :)

I began feeling overwhelmed with all of it at work and went upstairs to talk with a girl at our office. She is a prayer warrior. She let me share my heart with her. I also noticed a verse on one of her picture frames. Psalm 103:5  "He fills my life with good things."  I went back to my desk and read the entire Psalm 103. You know what the very next verse is? Psalm 103:6 "The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed." Kaiyun wasn't meant to be an orphan! She was meant to have a family! I really had to keep it together because I was at work but I just wanted to go home and talk it through with Alex.

January 30, 2014~ I typed up our Letter of Intent to adopt Kaiyun and emailed it to our agency in case I heard from the doctor while I was gone that day.  We really wanted to take that leap of faith but after what happened with our last referral, we wanted to hear back from the doctor first. 

January 31, 2014~ I found a baby photo of Kaiyun! A family with our agency adopted a little boy from the same orphanage and Kaiyun's picture was in the same finding ad. So special!! Alex sent me a text that said, "I'm pretty certain she's our girl." ♥

The International Adoption doc who originally reviewed her file contacted me later that day. She went over all of the scary things she had mentioned before.  Weeks before, her assessment scared me enough to say no. This time, I was thinking like a momma would- how we could support her and help her get the treatment she needed. I prayed about how to tell Alex because I wanted to be fully honest about what she said but also hoped it wouldn't scare him.  Then later the doctor sent an email that said, "She's manageable but with a large degree of uncertainty about the future. And will mean a long term investment with multiple specialists."  Those comments really hit me. We could manage this. We didn't need to know her future because God already does! Of course she is a long term investment, just like all of our babies!!

That evening, Alex and I decided she was ours...tacked on by a "as long as the other doctor doesn't tell us anything worse."  We made our decision on Chinese New Year! It also meant the offices in China were closed for the next week so we had more time to wait on the doctor since we couldn't file paperwork during that time anyway.

February 2, 2014~ The other specialist emailed.  She told us the same things as the other doctor only she mentioned yet ANOTHER syndrome...only this one was even scarier than the other two. When I researched it, it led to page after page of different syndromes associated with heart, vertebral, and ear deformities. It was nauseating.  Would I need to quit my job to care for her? Do we have the resources available in our little town for all of the therapies she would need? Would we be taking care of her for the rest of our lives?

To be completely honest, I was broken. I thought for sure we had made our final decision but I went to bed scared to death about saying yes. 

February 3, 2014~ This was truly the decision day.  That morning when Alex and I were talking about all of the unknowns, he told me to call our agency and tell them that other families could review her file while we tried to decide. Well... I didn't call. I was afraid to let her go. Instead, I emailed our agency contact and asked her to check on an update about her eyes (to help rule out one of the scarier syndromes).

At one point that morning, I felt completely overwhelmed, physically in pain from the decision we needed to make. I broke down in tears and was on my knees, praying for Him to break my heart for what breaks His. I felt like Jacob wrestling with the Lord. I knew I had to surrender my will for His. I called Alex and cried to him, "I don't want to say yes but I think we have to say yes! What if we are the family that is supposed to tell her about Jesus?"  We wanted to be obedient but everything in our earthly minds was saying it was too much!

I researched more. Google can make you crazy! I kept letting the fears take over throughout the day. I was scared of what saying yes would mean for our family. Turning off the computer and opening the Bible does wonders for the soul! That's where the truth is!  When Alex came home from work, he shared with me how he felt we could handle the unknowns. We also discussed how this would actually not hinder our other girls at all but would help mold them to be more loving and compassionate of others. 

That evening, I was able to chat with some adoptive mommas who have children with some of the syndromes Kaiyun may have.

Wow- to see the kiddos and not the diagnosis! 

God used them to soften my heart even more. Every single one of them said the same thing about their child, "She is sweet and funny!"  Every.single.one. And seeing their faces, I believed them.

We just kept feeling more reassurance to trust Him. We also read my sweet friend Janice's blog post "Faith trumps Reason." She talked about how if everything made sense, we wouldn't really need faith. And that's exactly what we were going on...A giant leap of faith when reason said to say no. 

We talked a lot that night about eternal worth. We live a pretty comfortable life, but He doesn't call us to be comfortable. He tells us to step out of the boat when the waves are crashing the sides.  Some day, He would ask us why we didn't choose her. What would we say?

That it was too risky? Too scary? Too uncomfortable to adopt HIS child?

We decided we wanted to be a part of her story...His story of redemption for her.

Because she is worth it. 


February 4, 2014~  I emailed my agency to tell them we were ready to send the Letter of Intent...and then can you believe I erased it and restated it? (Thankfully, the Lord is patient with us!) I said we were ready to send it IF the update about her eyes came back ok.  I knew it was still Chinese New Year anyway, so I figured there was no need to rush it since we couldn't really start our wait for our approval until the end of the week.  After backing out of our last referral, I think it just put an extra dose of worry into our decision. But, He always knows what we need and the verse of the day on my Bible app was Philippians 4:6-7. "Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus."

February 5, 2014~ To be fully transparent, there were MANY "freak out" moments, but he just kept reassuring us!  The song by Sidewalk Prophets "I want to live like that" came to mind and I listened to it several times that day. I love it!


February 10, 2014~ Chinese New Year was over. We wanted to send our LOI but thought the update would surely come soon so we waited.

February 12, 2014~ I couldn't stand it anymore. We had known about Kaiyun for 3 months.  We had made our decision over a week ago and couldn't leave her waiting while we sat around waiting on an update that may never come. I called the agency and said to send our LOI. We shouldn't have let fear scare us when we got her file on Jan 7th! We decided we would wait for the update though to tell our girls and families because it was so hard when we changed our minds after our first referral in July.

February 13, 2014~ My agency notified us that our translated LOI had been submitted that day and she sent me a copy of our PA (pre-approval) the same day!

February 14, 2014~ LOA! It is dated the same day as our PA! Unreal! This is the same approval that we waited 99 days for last time!! 

Last time, our LOA took 2 days to reach our agency, so I was anticipating a call by 2/19. We soon found out that while it was approved on 2/14, it wasn't mailed until 2/25! :(

February 28~ In true adoption fashion, nothing seems to go as expected and it took 2 full weeks for our approval to reach our office this time! But, it finally did and I was sitting in the drive-thru ordering food when the call came. ;)  We also found out that our agency was going to be closed while they were all in China for 11 days in March, which meant we needed our immigration approval fast!

March 1~ LOA arrived at our door. We signed and mailed it back to our agency! Time to start planning for travel! Alex said from the beginning (much to my dismay) that he expected us to get matched in the fall and travel around the same time that we did for Brielle. Mid-April to Mid-May is his quietest time in the office with it being right after tax season. Apparently, God realizes this is important to Alex and he has blessed us with another trip to China in that same time frame. :) 

Letter of Acceptance arrived! (photo by Brielle bc she was oblivious! ;))

March 13, 2014~ Blessing from God! Last time our I800 approval (immigration) took 3 weeks. The average right now for approval is 2-3 weeks. If that happened, our approval would have come while our agency was in China, but we got approval in just 9 days!!
 

We waited patiently to tell our families and friends our big news! We had no idea how long the update would take. It actually never came. We were just lucky that our agency met Kaiyun and were able to tell us for themselves that her eyes were normal (which actually gave me even more peace than if the update would have come...He knew that.)

Before anyone finishes reading this thinking that this post is to pat ourselves on the back, that is so far from the truth.  We want to be open about how scared we were (and still are at times). Quite honestly, there was a part of me that thought, "If we've waited this long, I'm just going to wait for a really young, minor needs child."

Let's back up to last July... We were matched with an adorable heart baby. In her file, it mentioned "dystrophy" twice but we were led to believe this was likely a translation for "weakness" after her heart surgery.  Then we saw videos of her and it was obvious she truly had some type of muscular dystrophy. We were given possible causes by a doctor and we were too scared.  We said we can't do this and backed out. Because you see, we are just normal people who were happy in our comfortable lives. But He used her to start molding our hearts. Had we been given Kaiyun's file last summer, we would have been too scared but He used those 9 months to break our hearts and change our thinking. This is all Him.

Kaiyun was labeled "Special Focus" meaning China realized she would be harder to match with a family. I've had to purposefully avoid googling the possibilities because I don't want to let fear win. I see how important it was now to wait to tell our families because over the last several months, my love for this child has changed and grown so much! I can't wait to love on her and tell her what He has done for her!

 "For God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”  1 Samuel 16:7b

If you haven't fallen in love with our Kaiyun yet, this will do the trick.