We arrived home at the end of October of 2016 from our humanitarian trip. We had known for a while that we were going to adopt from China at some future time, but our hearts were definitely more eager when we returned home from the trip. About mid-November we filled out the interest sheet that makes sure we met the qualifications and then filled out the medical checklist; specifically checking that spina bifida box along with many others. We sent in those files and then... did nothing. The next step of the process required a big chunk of money, and every time I'd pray about it, I just got a stupor of thought and no real direction, so I figured we'd just wait until we felt inspired to move forward. Once again, life got crazy and we were just living along for another 10 months... until one day, on September 11, 2017, I received a voicemail...
The voicemail was from CCAI, the agency we had gone through for the humanitarian trip and had filed the initial adoption paperwork. All the voicemail was that a lady named Gigi needed me to give her a quick call back. I figured she just had questions about our trip, maybe some feedback about the children we had done photos and videos for. So I picked up Luke from his singing class, went home, had lunch, cleaned up and then finally remembered I needed to call her back. When I did, I received the biggest shock of my life.
Gigi: Hi Mrs Lewis, this is Gigi from CCAI. We are just wondering if you and your husband are still interested in adopting a child from our Chinese program.
Me: Yes we are. (thinking they were going to ask us to continue on with the rest of the process we'd been holding back on)
Gigi: Wonderful. I just wanted you to know, you have been matched with a file. Would you like to hear more about the little girl you've been matched with?
Me (in shock): Um....uh.... y-y-yes, of course.
Gigi: "We have a file of a little girl here, she is 10 months old. She was born on August 15, 2016. Her records are currently with the Zhumadian Orphanage. She was born with lumbosacral meningocele, which is a form of Spina Bifida. She was found when she was about 5 days old on the grounds of a Buddhist temple. She had a surgery soon after she was found and is doing well and recovering in a healing facility. From the information we have given you, would you like me to send you her records for you to look over?"
Me (tears rolling down my cheeks): Yes, please do.
Three minutes later, I opened the files of our sweet little girl and saw her face for the first time.
I've heard stories of adoptive parents seeing their child's picture for the first time and knowing instantly that he/she was their child, but it didn't quite happen that way for me. I saw her photos and thought she was adorable and I loved her the minute I saw her. But I just kept thinking, "Is this really our daughter? Could this really be her?" It wasn't until I started looking at the details that things started falling into place.
First of all, she had Spina Bifida. The spirit had impressed upon me so distinctly to pay attention to that little girl with spina bifida, and it was finally making sense why that was. He needed me to see that little girl and that she was walking, that she was okay. Otherwise I probably never would have marked spina bifida on our application.
Also, her records were in the Zhumadian orphanage. Of the hundreds of orphanages throughout China, what were the odds that she would be from that specific area that we loved and that orphanage? The one Beau and I had been to? The one whose director was our interpreter for the trip? Definitely not a coincidence. (By the way, the directors of the orphanages have no involvement as to who their files they go to. When we let Shu Ping know later on in the process that we were adopting a little girl that was from her orphanage, she couldn't believe it either).
And the biggest one for me involves the day she was born. Does it look/sound familiar? Remember back to when I had just learned about the humanitarian trip to China on August 11? Remember how for days I couldn't get it off my mind? Remember how I finally talked to Beau, got the information for the trip then paid our registration fee committing us to go? That day, was August 15, 2016. The day she was born. That may seem like a random circumstance to you, but to me, it was a beautiful, inspiring detail. I have no doubt that her mother was praying for her little girl. That her God/ancestors/the universe would send someone to care for her little girl. And God pressed upon my heart to get over there and get this process started.
She was already born when we were over in China, but because of her surgery and her being in a healing home for over a year, we never met her. But looking back now, that was also a blessing. Had we actually met her while there, it may have jeopardized our ability to adopt her, because they could have thought we had arranged all of this while there. It's amazing how beautifully it has all came together.
I often hear those crazy stories of women who didn't know they were pregnant, then all the sudden give birth to a full term healthy baby. How could they not know, for 40 weeks, they had no idea? I still don't understand how they don't know, but in a weird way, I kinda felt like that woman. For 10 months we had actually been in the system waiting to be matched with a child. And we had NO clue. We thought we still had things to do to be in that process. But man, I'm so glad I didn't know. That 10 month wait would have been brutal!
Blessings in disguise at its finest.