The Joy That Grows- Part 2

Before I begin I feel the need to say something.

Every loss is painfully broken and beautifully unique. The same holds true for what comes after loss. What was being born in our hearts is, by no means, ours alone OR alone the path. If God has a plan for each of us, we can only expect for those plans to be infinitely unique. I am beyond grateful that this particular painful, beautiful, and broken path was carved out for me. I am also humbled and awed to witness the very different and gorgeous paths of those around me. God is a pretty cool Dude.

When I was in second grade my parents had a First Holy Communion party for me where I received numerous gifts of cash. This, as you can imagine, was extremely exciting for my seven year old self. I had never really had my own money up until this point and I knew exactly what I was going to get, a Cabbage Patch kid. Her name was Annabell Lana. She word jeans and a blue wind breaker. Her dirty blond hair was up in braids. I LOVED her. Like, really loved her. I believed we needed each other. We were family now.

Then one Christmas soon after, Cabbage Patch Kids had a Christmas special on during prime time. My parents allowed my sisters and I to stay up to watch this 30 min animated show that ended up changing my life. It centered around a little girl, special needs, who was living in an orphanage and was later adopted.

I begged my parents to adopt from that moment on. Something was calling me way back then. I knew this would be a part of my life no matter what.

Fast forward a few more years. I was somewhere around 12 or so when I first learned about how my aunt Jane, as a young girl, had put her sweet baby girl up for adoption. With love and knowing, she wanted her daughter to have what she wasn’t capable of giving at the time. This news rocked my world. I had already loved my aunt Jane and her babies, my sweet cousins that I loved and knew, but it felt like my heart suddenly was linked to hers and this baby that I had never met, in a way I can’t quite explain.

All of this heart stirring was pushed over to the side for the next bunch of years. High School, college, career, marriage, baby. There was a lot going on. When the topic did come up, because it still did every couple of years or so, I’d feel something bubble then look around and decide it was not time. I’d put that topic right back up on that shelf. My assumption was that after I had a bunch of babies and we were all rich and settled (whatever!), then we’d take it off the shelf.

This brings me to…..

…….It was during this time that joy began to grow in my heart once again. In a way I never saw coming.

During that year after losing my second pregnancy with a partial molar I had monthly visits (reminders) to the doctor to have blood drawn. When everything in me wanted to close up and shut down, the opposite began to happen.

It started with a simple thought. Adoption? Now?

At first I simply started looking at some different websites and tossing the conversation out there with Andy and my family. They all smiled and nodded and thought this would pass. I mean, who was I kidding? We were living in a small apartment, I wasn’t working at the time, and we were just getting by pay check to pay check.

Yet, my curiosity grew.

This curiosity turned to a focused, driven, some may call it, obsession pretty fast. My unorganized flighty self was somehow able to learn every detail associated with adoption quickly and efficiently. That in it self, is a miracle.

There are many, many small miracles and key steps to our story. I will try to keep this simple and to the point.

• A mother I sat with during Grace’s ballet class shared a Halloween picture with me of her daughter’s best friend. She was a little girl that was adopted from China. When I told her Andy and I had just started discussing this, she gave me a number she had seen at church that Sunday.

• I called that number and the woman on the other end, a mom of 2 Chinese little girls, quickly became a gate-keeper.

• I leaned over to Andy during Christmas Eve mass, 3 months after his mother had passed away and our hearts still breaking, and told him to make sure he prayed for our little girl and her birth family. My heart was with them that night and every night after.

• After declining a few invitations to attend parties for families with children from China because Andy was just not ready, I finally convinced him to come with me. Just this once.

• We met a family at this party that talked about going back to adopt their second child. When I shared that the only thing holding us back at that point was finances, the husband shared with me that he was fortunate his company paid for half the cost of adoption. I jokingly said I should get a job at this company when he told me that this could actually be possible.

• As we walked through the parking lot on our way to our car that night, Andy turned to me told me he was ready. We decided that I would go home and apply online to that awesome company.

• I did just that, filled out the online application. Two days later I had an interview. Two days after that, in March of 2006, I was offered a job.

• Out went our application, off to the adoption agency.

I spent the next year being led like I had never experienced before. This year of my life, a time I refer back to whenever I need a reminder of how God has worked in my life, is very clear picture of what it means to let go and let God.

This was a time of KNOWING. Yes, I had fears and doubts. There were many nights of hard questions and tears. What the hell were we doing? Who did we think we were? How did we get ourselves into this? Why did we think we could handle all of this??!!

Yet, in my gut, my heart, my soul....the inner most part of me….I KNEW. God was in the drivers seat. He kept holding me. Telling me to take that next baby step. Being the boost we needed when we had to take the big leaps. Catching us when we fell.

There was one particular night that I remember as being extremely significant in my faith journey to my little girl. It was early on. The agency called to tell us that, financially, we would not be approved for China. We could apply for some other countries but since we didn’t own a home, we had very little assets. China was out.

When I tell you I sobbed, it might be an understatement. The loss came flooding through me. I was losing another baby. See, I KNEW that I had a little girl waiting for me in China. There is not explanation for this. It was bigger then any self-willed decision. It was an answered question and a matched desire.

The next morning I worked with Andy and my parents to take another look at our assets. Turns out that our young financially immature brains had made mistakes. We had more then we thought we did. We were back in the game.

It was March of the following year, 2007, that we went to pick up our sweet Nola Ann Chu Qi. Little miss Chu Qi had been waiting for over a year for her family. Her file had been passed around at more then one agency but not taken. I later learned of a woman in Quebec that had been praying for our little girl during that entire year. This woman first saw Nola’s picture in a group of photos when going through the adoption of her own little girl. She didn’t understand why nobody was bringing Chu Qi home. (I mean, just look at those cheeks.) It broke her heart. So she prayed.

A year later this same woman found us and reached out to me after seeing Chu Qi’s picture on a blog we kept while in China. She said it all made sense. Seeing her with us. We had been brought together, Chu Qi and us, by something far greater then any agency.

We came home from China on March 28th. The very same day my aunt Jane had to say good-bye to her first daughter twenty-six years before.

God. Seriously. You are too cool.

I am not going to pretend that I understand why or how God works. Why did I need to experience such loss to in order to allow such joy to grow? I am no longer interested in “figuring it out”. I’m just grateful.

Nola is 9 years old now. She is a classic middle child (we had a third). She is a bouncy, bright, opinionated, smart-assy, quirky, so, so loving, silly, and ours.

We still have a ton of questions. How we navigate our way through her growing curiosity about her birth family and country? How do we support her through this? How do we talk about it? What will this look when she wants to start a family of her own? What does that sweet little brain think and that precious heart feel? Are we capable of loving her the way she so needs?

All these questions and yet I still KNOW that we mother and daughter. We are family. This plan came way before either of us.

I can’t help thinking, how blessed am I? Having had the opportunity to know what it feels like to have a joy, a joy beyond my own limitations, grow in my heart. A joy that I now have the opportunity and privilege of witnessing growing into something brighter then I could dream.

What I KNOW today…..

God is good. All the time.

Joy grows in many ways.

Our life can take the most unexpected and glorious turn.

I want in. I want to stay on this broken, sometimes painful, beautiful path.

Lastly, I can tell you, that today, with a ton questions and no clue of timing or the hows or anything for that matter……..Andy and I feel and KNOW that a joy is beginning to grow once again.

Stay tuned……

xo