The long awaited and unexpected referral

It came.  Quietly and with little fanfare, our referral was sent to our inbox.  Our process of adoption has been nothing like what I was expecting when we first started nearly 6 years ago.  No close watch of the trends as we neared our Log In Date (LID).  No call from our agency to tell us we had been matched.  No sitting down side by side with my husband as we together opened up the email that contained information on "our child", the one China had carefully and precisely matched us to.  No, the introduction of Wei Gongzhe was tentative at best. 

We had resigned ourselves to not adopting within the 2012 year. We even have a nice long vacation planned as we did not think we needed to hold onto my husband's paid time off any longer this year.  In fact, it was due to this vacation that I even reached out to our agency that day.  We added ourselves to the "waiting children's" list this past March but had still requested a girl with a young and limiting age range at 0-15 months.  When I called, I mentioned that we would be traveling soon and likely be out of range of a cell phone or internet so wanted to find out how we would handle that should we be matched in that 10 day period.  We discussed the possibilities and then moved on to a question that started innocent enough.  "Would you be open to a boy?"  We'd been down that road before.  I love being a Mother to our biological son, but we have built our brains around having a girl for the last 6 years.  I have a closet full of girls clothes.  My husband has read, "Interviewing Your Daughters Date" by Dennis Rainey.  (Hey, you can never be prepared enough for that one so we started early!)  We had her name picked out.  Our child has been "she" in our household for a very long time and I have been preparing my son for his new sister!  (Did I mention I have a closet full of girls clothes....each with special meaning to me as we have waited?)  I told our agency to forward his information along and I would show my husband.  Innocent enough.  I opened the email and while his beautiful brown eyes captured me the moment I looked at them, I resigned myself to knowing my husband would likely want to hold out for a girl.  I wasn't about to let myself fall in love with his picture as I have been very good over the last several years to protect my heart from disappointment in our adoption. 

I called my husband at work and asked him to take a look and we decided we would talk about it that evening.  After we both arrived home from our workday and had our family fed, we sat across from each other and said, "Well, what do you think?"  He was everything we'd asked for in our paperwork, he just wasn't a girl.  We decided we would call the International Adoption Center at Cincinnati Children's Hospital to have Dr. Mary Staat review his file and see where that trail led us.  I called a friend from church and asked that he would pray for us for the next couple days.  Then, we waited two more days.  When the call came from Dr. Staat early that morning, I already knew God had done a work in me.  She had glowing things to say about his referral and I could see that God had protected this child in the time he has been away from us as I have so often prayed in the last 6 years.  I could finally feel that ever so cautiously, I was giving myself permission to bond.  We allowed ourselves to look at each other and smile for the first time.  It did not seem possible our wait could be over.  Sometimes it seemed it defined who we were and we could not separate ourselves from it.  The next day my husband printed his picture which was placed up on the fridge and we were sharing our good news with friends and family.  As incredible and life changing as this entire process has been and no doubt will continue to be, God has allowed me to open my heart to the unthinkable, unexpected and amazing facets of obedience.

His referral came with little fanfare.  Sounds like someone else I know.  Jesus came silently one night to a young, inexperienced couple in a dirty stable.  Few knew the Savior of the world had come.  Then there is Elijah, pouting in a cave.  God placed before him a strong rock breaking wind, an earthquake, and finally a fire.  But God was not found in any of those.  He was found in the still, small voice that followed and called Elijah out. (I kings 19:11-13) Perhaps it's not much different in the way our soon to be son came into the world.  Born one night with a special circumstance that would not allow his parents to care for him.  They decided to leave him in a place where he would soon be found and taken care of.  Quietly he entered our world and quietly he has entered mine.