The road not taken..

I have always loved this line from Robert Frost's poem:

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."

Last week was unexpectedly one of the most emotional weeks of my life.. it is most likely a longer story that you will not have time to read~ so I'll try to be as brief as possible (although for me, that in itself is impossible!)

So last Tuesday, I did something that I have only done twice before.. I looked at the "Waiting Children" list for our adoption agency. I never do it, quite frankly, because it is heart-breaking and convicting all at once. To see so many children and at just one agency, 24 pages of 9-12 kids each.. the emotional toll of viewing it is great and not something to be taken lightly, especially when you are already emotionally charged as I am. 

People tell stories of looking on those Waiting Children lists when they had never planned to adopt a special needs child but then they saw that one face that for some reason spoke to their heart and they just knew, this is my child. 

I never imagined that would happen to me and yet it has already happened twice before on those other 2 occasions that I looked at the list.. 

First there was a little boy, 8 or 9 years old from somewhere in eastern Europe. He was so sweet and his little face broke my heart. He had facial deformities from whatever selfish craziness his birth mother had chosen to partake in while she was pregnant. His little nose was pushed up way too much and his eyelids were tiny slits like keyholes, which also made him legally blind. His predicament moved me even more because he was at that time living in a orphanage for younger children but at his next birthday, he would age out of that orphanage and need to be moved to the one for older children and teens. His photo had almost a call for help with it, saying that he was very happy and comfortable at his present "home" but that they believed that due to his physical challenges, he would experience a lot of bullying and torment at the new orphanage that they didn't know if his little heart could handle. I immediately (well after I bawled my eyes out..) called Stuart and we prayed about it.. 

Was this our child? 

I don't know.. Stu and I have no experience with special needs children or adults. I don't know...

We are pretty much middle class, ordinary people. We have no huge income or trust funds. He is nearly 40 years old, beginning a new career as an Electrician Apprentice and I am an Aesthetician/Skin Care Specialist at a day spa. We have a mortgage, a car payment, normal bills like normal people.. We have dreams for bigger things, better things, vacations, toys, experiences.. but at the same time, we have always had hearts for where we are called. We may not be the most church-going Christians but the Lord we trust and follow is real.. and His dreams for our lives are bigger and more amazing than the life we dream for ourselves.. 

We try to live with the philosophy of: I will follow You, wherever You lead me.

If we truly believe as we say that we do.. that everything in this life is a miracle and an opportunity to make a difference in this world, then how on earth could we simply see this need and feel the pull in our hearts, and yet walk away..

I mean, what are you supposed to do when you see a need that needs to be met?? 

If God brought this person into your world and into your heart, there must be a reason. 

So we prayed and talked and decided to call about him.. 

Was he our child? 

We were about to find out.. it turns out that he was not because someone had already chosen him, his file had been removed because a family was in the process of coming for him. We were so happy for that sweet boy!

But God was working on our hearts for a reason, I'm not sure what.. but for some reason that little boy touched, even softened our hearts...

Then #2.. (I told you I can't tell a short story!!) 

Now the little boy was like 2 1/2 yrs ago.. this next one was maybe one year ago? She was around 9 months old, in China and had among other things, Hydrocephaly, which basically means water on the brain. She was also noted as having "failure to thrive".. in an orphanage setting, that can mean a lot of things, and can be anything from super-minor to super-severe. You just never know.. But her sweet little face was speaking to my heart.. 

Was this my child?? 

Meanwhile, in this whole process, we were working on our adoption by devoting nearly every non-working hour to our homestudy and dossier paperwork.. so this was just one more addition to the heart-wrenching, overwhelming ordeal.. 

I won't go into the details again but clearly, she was not our child.. and yet she had certainly moved my heart.

So it had been nearly a year since I perused the List.. why I chose to do it again last Tuesday morning before work, I have no idea. But I did it and on that 23rd page, I saw that face. 

It sounds ridiculous and like I'm just a bleeding heart or something but when you feel something, you feel it. 

And its not pity or sadness or anything like that. There is a very real (what I imagine to be parental..) feeling that cannot be ignored. Maybe its not the same maternal feeling I will feel once I do have "my" child and when they are really and truly mine and not a just a photo on a computer screen. 

But the feeling is real.. to protect them from any more heart ache and pain, to love them and never let them feel abandoned again, to heal the hurt, to be what they need, to love them unconditionally and to give them what every child deserves.. a family. 

Its parental, paternal, maternal, human.. it is the very reason you choose to adopt.

So I saw his face, "Henry".. and he broke my heart. 

The only thing "wrong" with him?.. his age. He is simply too old, no one wants him. So I called and was told that he is 15 and will be 16 in August, at which point he will age out of the adoptable range and will, therefore, never have a family. 

How can this be? 

Now that I've thought about it, I'm sure that it happens all of the time in this country and across the world. Adoption is more common now but not nearly as common as is needed.. there are children that will turn 18, leave their orphanage or group home and not have a connection in the world. Wow.. To not have one person that will love you, that you can run to, that you know will be there no matter what you have said or done.. to not have one person that cares about you in the whole world.. 

That is tragedy in its purest form. How can this even be?.......

So Stu and I prayed and consulted and made decisions and called our social worker and the decision was made by that evening to see what our next step would be.. 

He is in Hong Kong.. how would this affect our Violet in Ethiopia??

Wednesday we waited.. it was all speculation at that point.. could we do both, would it even be allowed? How would we do this financially? And this is a teenage, nearly grown man, who doesn't speak English... So many unknowns.. But that face and my heart.. there was something Real there. God was moving us..

Wednesday evening over a Guiness at the local Irish Pub (how else do you make life decisions, right? lol) we decided this would be our life. 

Violet would have a big brother :) It would be perfect. Stu was more excited about having a son than I even expected him to be.. It was really sweet.

Thursday morning, we were thrown a major fork in the fork.. 

The Hong Kong program will not allow you to pursue two countries at once, period. No "holds" on our dossier or anything like that. We will have to pull out of Ethiopia entirely. 

So what does this mean for our baby girl.. for Violet? 

Our social worker said that at the point later on, when we are "allowed" to redo all of our paperwork and resubmit our new dossier to ET, the wait then will be around 3 years.. 

Whoa..

I was at work in the breakroom, coworkers all around me, but I couldn't help myself, I bawled my eyes out. 

Oh my God... What will it be like to have her nursery empty for another 4 years?? My heart literally split into a million pieces... I hurt physically. Emotions surging on all levels.. 

But then the news got a lot harder. Our social worker then explains that the risk that we will be taking will be huge. Not only will be be dropping out of Ethiopia but the chances of our getting "Henry" are so slim, maybe 5%. Even the Hong Kong director thought it was an incredibly risky move on our part. 

You see, the time period it takes to get all of the different documents approved by all of the different government agencies in both countries is huge. Once HK has your dossier in country, it will take approx 7-10 months for everything to be approved and for you to then travel to pick up your child. We do not have our dossier in country because our dossier is in Ethiopia and of course every country's dossier is different, you can't just transfer from one to the other.. plus much of our dossier paperwork is too old to resubmit because it is over 6 months old. All of those pieces will have to be redone, which even in super-fast time and with Stu working insane hours right now (81 hours this past week! You read that right.. 81) it would take us prob 2 weeks to get all of our paperwork together. At that point, we would have 4 1/2 months for paperwork to do what it will take a minimum of 7 months to do.

On a side note, we would also lose a pretty large amount of our country fee to Ethiopia due to it being non-refundable and all. But God provided the money up until now and He will provide later, if needed.

However, our social worker said that there is a very real possibility that we could get to August and have nothing... no "Henry", no Violet.. nothing. 

That would be a very dark and lonely place to arrive indeed..

Gosh..

Decisions are not always easy.. 

Life is not easy.. 

Doing the right thing is not easy..

I guess I always thought that if God was in the process, it would be easy. That His grace would cushion it somehow.. I don't know how it all works. Maybe its not as cut and dry as all of that. Life rarely fits into the neat little package that we'd like it to..

On that same day, we also received the entire case study for "Henry". It made the decision just weird because we were now being faced with discussions and decisions we were never prepared to have.. Discussions about how "Henry" was actually in the HK foster system until a few years ago, about his behavioral problems that stemmed from that. How that would affect our lives here? Discussions about why a single father and his new girlfriend would choose to sever his parental rights of his 6 year old child.. a child who was undoubtedly still suffering from the grief and trauma of his mother's death. Why no one else in his mother's family or father's family had chosen to take him? Why no one had fought for him?  

The imagined life that I had seen so clearly just hours before was becoming more cloudy and uncertain and I was feeling very guilty about it... 

Would we also abandon him? 

I don't know, I don't know... I don't know. 

To know of the needs of a group and to see photos at random is easy to ignore.. But to know a name and a face and a story.. 

Henry is real. 

To know that he wears glasses, which make him appear inquisitive, but that he often forgets to take off at night. His house parent has to wake him up and remind him to take them off.. I mean, those are intimate details of someone's life. I shouldn't know those things, you shouldn't either! 

Except we do... and we were meant to know them, so that we would care and have a connection to a need that we either never thought about or that we never wanted to think about.. 

but Henry is real and his needs are real.

Life isn't always the warm, fuzzy happy place we Americans like to pretend it is.. 

It is also a place where children go to bed at night, wondering why their dad didn't love them enough to keep them and why no one else wants them either..

That is tragic. That is heart-wrenching. 

Thursday night, after my evening happy hour visit with my sweet friend, Kim.. and thus with a few margaritas in my system, I bawled hysterically for Henry, mourning the losses that he has experienced and mourning our lack of courage and strength.. 

We tearfully came to the conclusion that we are going to continue on the road we were on.. our dossier will stay in Ethiopia because we know that our baby Violet will be there and she is already so much a part of this family that we cannot risk losing her and the connection to that part of the world I know that God intends for us to be a part of...

What of Henry then?...

I don't know, I don't know... 

I had romanticized his story in my head, this boy at an orphanage who always saw his friends being adopted but he was always left behind.. until that one day when we came and chose him and he got the family he always dreamed about and it was beautiful and amazing and we all lived happily ever after.. 

Yes, I am working on my expectations and perceptions (especially for our adoption) because clearly disappointment is in my future if I plan to put a fairy-tale spin on life..  and its not fair for anyone for me to do that. 

It would certainly be nice and easy if everything worked out and fit cleanly into a lovely little package.. but that is not life.

I also envisioned being something of a "savior" for Henry and that was unfair as well. He needs parents and without a doubt, the Savior that he needs is not me. 

My prayer for that young man is for God to bring the right people into his life that will love him and lead him and help him to become the person that God intends for him to be. 

I know that the reason that I know his name, face, and story are so that I could share it with you... 

God has big and amazing things in store for Henry, the life he has lived will only make his life more impactful to those around him. How can we help others in their suffering if we, ourselves, have not suffered? I pray that the pain that Henry has experienced will be used for good in his life and for others, that God will heal his wounds and give him strength and courage and Faith that will move mountains.. that today as he sleeps at this very moment in his bed at midnight in Hong Kong (with his glasses still on, no doubt! :) I pray that the Lord will enter his heart with overflowing love from the Father that Henry always wanted but until now, never knew he had.. and I pray that his dreams will filled with angels and happiness and encouragement to lift him up throughout the day. 

I pray that tomorrow, in just a few short hours, that God will bring a strong and Faithful person into his life that will mentor and befriend Henry and that this day will be a turning point in his young life. 

I pray that he will know that he is not alone nor forgotten.. 

He will most likely never know that he has forever changed the lives of two people on the other side of the world.. but he will know the difference in the prayers and hope and love that Stuart and I will have for him for the rest of our lives.

I know that this is probably the longest blog post ever.. and it was stocked full of personal information and details that most people would not share but I hope that if you've taken the time to read this far, that your heart has been touched and you will join me in praying for Henry and all of the others around the world like him.. 

It is a sad a lonely world but the joy and happiness and hope that we know through Him can and must change the world.. but we all play a part.