Yesterday, March 28, was the day, three years ago, on
which we decided to begin our adoption journey.
As I pondered that day, I thought about how excited we were
as we begun the process. Looking back now, I would call it the “honeymoon”
stage. At the time, I had no idea that we would go through eight long and tough
months of gathering all of the required information, going through the required
interviews, surviving insensitive comments people would make,
etc. Then, after our dossier had been in Nepal for another eight long and
tough months, I had no idea that the US would close the doors to Nepal. August
6, 2010. It took us seven months to recover from this “adoption
miscarriage”—and it was for a child we never even saw or met. We began our
China adoption journey on March 21, 2011. Nine months later, on Dec. 1, 2011,
our completed dossier was logged in at the China Center of Adoption Affairs.
And on Dec. 20, 2011, we received the call of a lifetime. Now, literally 100
days later, we are awaiting the call to go get our precious daughter.
Many of us in the adoption community talk about how hard it
is to adopt. And it’s true. The hoops you have to jump through; the paperwork
you have to complete; the incredible amount of money it costs; the volumes of
books you need to read; the waiting you have to endure; and for some of us, the
years of infertility prior to this process—all of this is extremely difficult,
and unless you’ve been through the process, you really have no idea what it’s
like.
But what we don’t talk very much about (at least while we’re
in the middle of the process) is the anticipation and joy that is welling up
inside of us. The joy that we’re following a dream. The joy that we’ll get to
be parents to a child who was once an orphan. The joy that we’ll get to go to
another country, be handed a child who was rescued from the side of a street,
knowing that it was our arms that ultimately rescued her. Yes, it cost us a lot
of tears; yes, it cost us a lot of time; yes, it cost us a lot of money. But
what would it have cost HER if we had not followed our dream? The cost would
have been far, far greater.
For you, my dear sweet daughter, I would do it over, and
over, and over, again. And over again. You are worth living a dream that
required much; you are worth all of the time and effort spent—and far more.
There is no actual worth we can put on you that would suffice, except the worth
of the blood of a Son who came to defend the cry of the fatherless, your cry. Soon, your cry will be comforted by
laying your head on the hearts of two people that knew you were worth it all.
