Archive for the Adoption
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
Happy Birthday, Mother!
(Orphan Sunday, 11/8, makes me think of our adoption story, which begins here.)
Part 6 (preview!)
Today is my mother’s 88th birthday.
You already know the end of our adoption story, don’t you? We adopted. So it won’t be a spoiler if I skip ahead a couple of episodes so I can recount how Mother responded when we told her we were hoping to adopt . . . a girl . . . a little African-American baby.
Here are excerpts from the email I sent her:
I have some news that you probably never thought you’d hear again from us. We think we’re going to have a baby. An adopted one this time. A girl this time. You’re expecting another grandchild!
I was inspired by having a mother who had her last baby at only about a year younger than I am now. (I thought that since menopause hasn’t hit yet, God also thought that I wasn’t too old for a baby. A friend said, “Oh great! So John gets to adapt to a new baby and menopause at the same time!)
Her birth parents are African American. We have given much thought to this, and probably have thought a lot about most of the same questions that come to your mind. Let’s talk about it whenever you want to. This is a child whose birth mother has chosen against abortion. I have longed for years to be pro-life in this way. Now a beautiful little girl needs a home and a family, and to have a grandmother who loves and enjoys her will be an immeasurable gift for her.
I’m so excited I’m hardly good for anything, and it’s only getting greater! Barnabas and Abraham are really eager, even thought it means moving into the same bedroom.
Please pray for the little girl that we hope will be our daughter. And please pray for us. It’s an amazing, mind-boggling thing to decide to be parents to a baby now when we are an age more likely to be grandparents. We’ll need booster talks from you along the way, I expect!
If you have any thoughts or questions that you want to talk about, or just want to think out loud, please call us.I love you,Noel
I emailed instead of calling to give her time to process the unexpected information before we talked. I wasn’t sure how she’d respond to the idea of transracial adoption. But the email had hardly had time to land in her inbox before my phone was ringing.
“What’s all this ‘let’s talk about it’ business? This is wonderful news. I can’t wait to run down the hill and tell Pamela. A new granddaughter! I can’t wait!”
I love you, Mother. Thank you for welcoming with love every one of the grandchildren God has given you.
(to be continued)
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
Orphan Sunday, 11/8: Squirming and kicking
(Orphan Sunday, 11/8, makes me think of our adoption story, which begins here.)
Part 5
“Would you consider adopting her?” I can’t think of a question that could have made me happier. But the timing was a challenge for me–challenge with a small c, though, I do have to admit.
It was the beginning of a weekend. Weekends are the busiest part of the week for a pastor. And this particular weekend was loaded with extras for Johnny. I can’t remember any more what they were, but probably things like a Saturday morning seminar or a wedding rehearsal and wedding. Anyway, he had more preparation and speaking than usual to pack into the hours of each day of that weekend.
So I knew I shouldn’t even try to bring up the topic of adoption yet. Especially when there was no way this conversation could be theoretical like all the previous ones. This time we had to come to a conclusion–yes or no–not just stop talking about it until next time.
And I knew it wouldn’t be fair to him if I told anyone else about it in the meantime. This had to be between just him and me until we were ready to draw others into the conversation.
So I held the knowledge inside me, squirming and kicking, all of Friday . . . Saturday . . . Sunday, until we could talk on Monday. And no, believe it or not, I can’t remember what Monday was like!
What I do know is that this was the beginning of a couple of weeks of long talks, lots of prayer, and conversations with our children and close friends.
I would have said YES! right away on the phone. But this couldn’t be a unilateral decision. We had to come to a unified yes or no.
And that led me face to face with a capital-C kind of Challenge. What if it was going to be No?
(to be continued)
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
Orphan Sunday, 11/8: Knock, knock. Who’s there?
(Orphan Sunday, 11/8, makes me think of our adoption story, which begins here.)
Part 4
Although we didn’t realize it immediately, the very next day after I arrived home from Asia was going to change our lives forever.
Wen Qing and Qiu Ying were much on my mind, and therefore adoption was on my mind–mainly thoughts and feelings of sadness and frustration that the two little girls were out of my reach, probably forever.
That’s the emotional atmosphere within which the phone rang a few days later. It was the director of an out-of-state adoption agency. She and I had become friends during the many times she’d flown to Minnesota, bringing babies to their new homes.
“A little girl was born about a week ago. I’ve been praying about what home she should go to, and your family keeps coming to my mind. Would you consider adopting her?”
For a long time it had looked as if we were a family with only sons. I’d say, “Looks like the way we’re going to get daughters is by marrying them.” And then, jokingly, I’d add, “or by a little girl knocking on our door and saying, ‘Will you be my mother?’”
And now here it was. No joke. This phone call out of the blue was as if someone were knocking on my door on behalf of a little girl, saying, “Will you be her mother?”
The little girl had been born the day after I returned from Asia. Her birth mother must have been in labor as I was flying away from Wen Qing and Qiu Ying, the little girls who reopened in my heart the yearning to adopt.
(to be continued)
Monday, November 2nd, 2009
Orphan Sunday, 11/8: What good will it do?
(Orphan Sunday, 11/8, makes me think of our adoption story, which begins here.)
Part 3
In October 1995 I visited friends in Asia. Later, I wrote about an one afternoon with them.
In the crib room of a government home, I see babies and toddlers who can’t toddle. One is hydrocephalic and can’t raise his head. One has frequent convulsions. A newborn is so frail, she probably won’t be here next week. Most lie lethargic. One child shrieks piercingly at intervals, and the others, hearing him, whimper.
I walk from crib to crib and lay a hand on one child and then another. I reach for bare skin – my palm resting on stiffened hair, with fingers caressing forehead or ear or nape of the neck. Tears fall from my eyes, and I pray. For peace for this moment and for God to give this little one happiness she can understand. Each falls silent as I touch her and pray. The room becomes peaceful.
In the midst of them is Wen Qing, a solemn old lady of a toddler, standing on the bare oilcloth of her crib, watching silently. She’s the size of a 9-month-old, but she’s probably 2 or 3. An older child gently lifts her over the crib rail and stands her on the floor.
Holding my finger, Wen Qing wobbles around on stiff, straight, unpracticed legs.
Why is she here? Because she’s a girl? The older child looks up at us, “This is a case to pity, isn’t it?” Wen Qing will remain in this crib room until she dies or is able to walk out and join the children in the next-older house.
The older girl is Qiu Ying – Autumn Hero.”What a handsome name! Were you born in the autumn?” She gives a one-sided smile,exasperated, sad smile:”How should I know?”
She’s 13, but looks 10, and walks bent forward because of a growth at the end of her spine. No one is sure what it is. Even if they did know, what could they do about it?
Qiu Ying shows us around the compound, which is neat and fairly well cared-for. Everyone here, from newborns to the very elderly, shares the same surname – Dang – which means “The Party”, telling the world that they have no mothers or fathers to give them a name, and so are wards of the state.
With Qiu Ying and Wen Qing lodging themselves in my heart, I think about adoption. “What good will it do in the midst of the orphan tragedy in this nation,” my American friend asks, “to remove just one or two children? And besides, the children in this small provincial institution are not registered for adoption, and maybe won’t ever be.”
We put Wen Qing back into her crib and Qiu Ying holds our hands as we walk toward the front gate. Just then, the porter runs past us, cradling a cardboard box found at the train station. A newborn lies swaddled inside.
“Will you be back?” Qui Ying asks.
I can’t bear to think or say no, and so I say, “I don’t know.”
In English she says what she must have heard from other visitors, “See – you – tomorrow.”
I have prayed and wept for Wen Qing and Qiu Ying, whom I may never again see on earth. My friends who live near the girls wrote me later. They had accompanied a surgeon when he visited, but Qiu Ying was too scared to let herself be examined. And they didn’t see Wen Qing in her crib. Perhaps she had walked to the next-older house. Perhaps.
I’ll try to explain next time how this story is somehow part of our adoption story.
(to be continued)
Saturday, October 31st, 2009
Orphan Sunday, 11/8: Lord, change one heart, and let it be HIS.
(Orphan Sunday, 11/8, makes me think of our adoption story.)
Part 1: Being pro-life led me toward adoption.
Part 2
Before we were married, we had our family all planned out–2 boys, 2 girls–2 born to us and 2 adopted. Then we married, time passed, and reality happened. One after another our 4 blond, round boys were born–the cookie cutter kids, Johnny called them.
And anyway, as we understood it, adoption wasn’t really possible, and so therefore probably wasn’t needed. All we heard about were the long waiting times to adopt. And so adoption faded from our minds. What we didn’t realize was that those facts were true only about white, healthy infants.
Our assumptions were shaken when our friends adopted Micah and began to tell us and anyone who’d listen about the need for adoptive families for minority children. My dreams of adopting came alive again.
Over the next few years, periodically I’d bring up the topic to let Johnny know I was thinking about adoption. The conversations helped each of us to know the heart of the other, but in the end each talk drifted off without a decision.
Our conversations went many directions as we explored the what-ifs. One seeming obstacle was this: Johnny was concerned about our age. He imagined us white-haired and near retirement as we guided another child through the teens. How would he or she feel about such old parents, and would we have the energy for the adolescent years again? Besides, weren’t we on the verge of a new chapter of life and ministry now, free from the afternoons of being soccer dad and carpool mom?
But to me, our age never seemed an issue. Yes, we’d be older and probably less energetic. But perhaps in our years of parenting so far we’d gained some wisdom that might help. Besides at the time of these talks, I was still younger than my mother had been when she bore her last child, and I had not yet passed out of the years of childbearing possibility.
During the months between those conversations, I prayed that God would change the mind of one of us, the heart of one, so we could come together to a definite yes or no. Of course, to be honest, that wasn’t all I asked. I wanted the change of heart to be Johnny’s.
(to be continued)
Saturday, October 31st, 2009
Orphan Sunday, 11/8: Something that involves my life
Orphan Sunday is coming up on November 8. Thinking about this sent me into my memories of adopting Talitha.
Our family was heavily involved in the pro-life movement through the years when rescues were a main public way of protesting abortion. Johnny spent one weekend in the county workhouse after being arrested while sitting in front of an abortion clinic. Another time we had to pick up our son, Benjamin, from the police department and go to court with him. He and some friends had been hauled in for chaining themselves to a clinic door to block it. Our younger children and I had spent many hours walking silently and praying.
As important as those things were, I began to dream of doing something pro-life that involved more of my life. When friends with teenagers adopted a baby boy, that spoke to my heart.
One day that adoptive father told me about a baby boy who was waiting for placement. I told Johnny about it right away, sure that he would feel just as strongly as I did that we should bring that baby into our home. He didn’t.
I didn’t take into account that I’d been thinking about this a lot, but it was a new idea to him.
(to be continued)
