Have you ever woken up and realized that your life has changed so dramatically that you can scarcely recollect how it happened? That's where our family is some two and a half months after my wife and I came to the conclusion that we wanted to adopt a child. One day, we're a family of four; the next, we're on our way to five and who knows, maybe more?
Of course, to say that it all happened on a whim would be misleading. Andrea and I have discussed adoption many times throughout our marriage. Collectively, I think both of us knew that we would eventually get to this point someday, but it was always discussed in future tense. So, what changed our minds? Well, for me, it's somewhat difficult to put into words. Growing up, I never thought very much about having children. Even as we were expecting our first child (Andersen, 9), I had no idea what to expect. But the moment he was born, it was love at first sight for both myself and Andrea. A few years later, we had our daughter Paige (6) and we fell in love all over again. To say that there's a lot of love in our household would be an understatement; we're absolutely crazy about our kids. We feel sorry for all those people who talk about their kids as being a burden, because we cherish every moment we have with them.
After Paige was born, we talked quite a bit about whether or not we wanted to have any more kids of our own. Early on, we were kind of split on this discussion. Andrea felt pretty firm about stopping with two, but in my heart, I wanted more. Of course, at the same time, we both had concerns about how far we could stretch ourselves as parents. We do everything with our kids, and found it challenging to split our time between our two children. Ultimately, we decided together that we were done having children and it was time for the old snip-a-roo for yours truly.
Fast forward about 6 years and all of a sudden I can't stop thinking about adoption. It's hard to know exactly why. All I knew was that our family was great and I couldn't help thinking that bigger would be even better. So one night, Andrea and I are sitting around the dinner table after the kids had gone to bed and I spring this on her, not knowing what she would say. To my great surprise, she immediately perks up and says that not only is she on board with the idea, but she's already found our child: Trent. One of our friends who used to go to our church had posted a link to Trent Facebook. Imagine my shock when I discovered this little fella had no arms and no legs; just a foot. But this is where Andrea's heart was, and I found myself moved as well. After all, somebody had to care for this child, so why not us? Of course, I didn't know how in the hell we were going to pull it off, but together, we could make that work. I say we with a heavy emphasis on Andrea because let's face it, the woman can do anything she puts her mind to.
Overall, it was a very emotional and exciting time. The next day, we decided to talk to the kids about it. It didn't take long for them to jump on board. It's a proud moment for a parent to watch your kids open their hearts in that pure way that only kids can. And just like that, it was happening. Our family was "knocked up" as it were. For me personally, it was one of the most exciting times in my life. In our hearts, we knew it was the right thing to do.
So, at that point, we knew we were ready to adopt, but had no idea how. If ever you find yourself in such a situation, may I suggest sicking an Andrea on it. In less than 24 hours, she set the wheels in motion for getting our mound of paperwork rolling and getting us on the fast track to make this happen. Despite her speedy work, however, we quickly encountered disappointment as another family swept in and snatched up Trent before we could get this thing off the ground.
Undeterred in our quest, we reluctantly moved on and kept looking for our child. In the meantime, Andrea kept plugging away at getting our home study scheduled and so on. After our disappointment with Trent, I think we both kind of struggled to figure out how to go about finding a perfect match. Having resolved ourselves to finding a child with missing limbs, we sort of narrowed our search and kept combing through the same children over and over again. Somewhere along the way, we saw Xinlei and realized that he was the one (again). Luckily, as fate would have it, he was indeed the one and we're happy to report that he has been placed on hold for us while we move forward with the adoption process. Happy Chinese New Year to us!!!
So far, we don't know very much about him other than that he's about a year old, adorable, and apparently good-natured. He has a deformity in his right leg, but is otherwise healthy as near as we can tell. We probably won't learn too much more about him until we get to meet him later this year. So for now, we wait. We wait, realizing that somewhere halfway around the world, our precious son is waiting for us. We can scarcely think of anything else, and have given semi-serious thought to planning a covert operation to go and bust him out. In the meantime, we'll just have to hope and pray and send out this message to him: "Your family is coming Xinlei, and we can't wait to meet you."
Post By: James
