Part Two:
For I know the plans I
have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you,
plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and
pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you
seek me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:11-13
It is hard to explain
the feelings that you have when you look at a picture of a child that you have
been told is going to be a part of your family. Sometimes there is a
familiarity, sometimes there is immediate love, and sometimes there are plans
and expectations. I think we felt all of these things as we studied YuanYuan’s
pictures.
Just a few days after
we received Pre Approval though, we got another email. This time, it was news
from afar, but not at all what we were expecting. After we committed to adopt
YuanYuan I did my research and found a yahoo group that was for parents of
children who were adopted from or currently living in Yulin City’s Children’s
Welfare Institute in Shaanxi,
where our little one was. I found some information about the orphanage, and I
also read about an organization (started by a woman from the Netherlands)
that did some work in the orphanage. Several people suggested that anyone in
the process and waiting on a child currently at that orphanage should contact
this organization to see if they had any pictures of their child. So of course,
knowing our little one was having blue spells and in serious need of surgery I
was hoping this contact could check on YuanYuan. I sent an email to the contact
person (I will call her M) and told her a little about YuanYuan (birth date,
heart condition, Chinese name, etc.). I heard back from M and she told me that
some things had changed with the government and they had not been allowed to go
into the orphanage for almost a year but just that day they had received
permission again! She told me they would be visiting the orphanage in just a
few days and she would be happy to check on YuanYuan. I was so excited and
expectantly checked my email no less than 100 times each day after that.
On the morning of
November 7, two days after we had received Pre Approval, I woke up around 6
(which is early for me) and of course, got my phone to check my email. My heart
about stopped when I saw an email from M. I opened the email and began reading,
and I immediately knew something was wrong. M described how she had just
visited the orphanage and as she was talking to the nannies there was a lot of
confusion. There was no female child at the orphanage named YuanYuan with that
birth date and that heart condition. M apologized and said she didn’t know how
to say this, but that there had been a mistake…and YuanYuan was a boy, not a
girl.
We were completely
shocked and did not know what to do. My sweet husband just held me while I
sobbed. I’m thankful for a social worker who must not ever sleep, because she
answered an email from me at 6:15 in the morning (and I often receive emails
from her after midnight) and told me to call her cell phone. She confirmed that
what we had found out was true because she had also received an email early
that morning from our agency’s contact in China,
who had been given the information from the CCWAA (the governing body over all
adoptions in China).
The Lord says, "His
plans give hope." He says, "Call upon me…Come to me and I will listen."…Jeremiah 29:11-13
We had so many
questions. We wondered why this information was being given to us right then?
God is perfectly Sovereign and allowed this information to be revealed to us,
but why? What were we supposed to do? We began by praying and asking God to
CLEARLY show us His will. It was so
hard, because you could look at the situation in so many different ways. The
fear was overwhelming at times because we basically had three choices and all
of them were difficult to make. Was it a closed door and this child really
wasn’t ours and this was how God was showing us? If we said no to him though, might
we be missing out on the biggest blessing…one we never even imagined? Was He
asking us to trust Him, and maybe this child really was supposed to be ours? We
never would have found him if not for this mistake because we were not looking
at files of boys…but God. How could we tell YouYou that she wasn’t getting a
sister, the thing she had asked for and prayed about for years? Or, even
crazier, were we supposed to adopt two children…this little boy and a girl? This
was something my husband brought up to our social worker the morning we found
out. She said that was definitely an option (but not one I had ever imagined
doing). Lots of people are adopting two children at a time now, but that didn’t
mean that was what we were supposed to do, just that it was a possibility. But,
wow, the fear there was great because we didn’t yet have the money for all of
one adoption, much less two. Could we handle the bonding and attachment process
with two children at once? There were just so many questions. But the only
thing we could do was pray.
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