In February 2003 I had a D & C to "complete" a miscarriage, which turned out to be my final pregnancy. It took a few months for me to work through the worst of the grieving process and start thinking about what to do next. Once again, I was figuring out my own plan and not relying on God or anyone else, or so I thought.
And then two things happened in my life that fall into the category of "before/after events". By that I mean the kind of life-altering events where your life gets divided into before and after. Either of these things alone could have brought me to my knees, but together they forced me to take a good hard look at myself.
The first one happened in the middle of May. Jon was out driving Dana to a concert band event on a sunny afternoon, when my mother called to tell me that my 3-month-old nephew had died. You see, while I was busy dealing with my latest miscarriage, my brother and his wife had welcomed their second child, Andrew. I had only seen him in pictures because so far we hadn't been able to coordinate our life schedules and meet up. And if I'm going to be totally honest, there may have been a part of me that was a bit jealous that they had a baby while I had a D & C, and I just wasn't ready to deal with it. Andrew died in his sleep in what was initially believed to be a case of SIDS, but turned out to be a tragic accident ultimately caused by all four family members napping in the same bed. We went to the funeral and it was the saddest one I have ever attended. I am convinced that it goes against all of nature for a parent to have to bury a child, especially one who had barely even begun to live.
Then less than two months later, on July 1, our telephone rang at 2:30 in the morning and before I even picked it up, I knew I was going to hear something I didn't want to hear. I mean, who calls with good news at 2:30 in the morning? My stepfather, who had raised me since I was 6 years old, had passed away from a sudden and massive heart attack. My mother, who had built her life around his and was still reeling from Andrew's death, was devastated. For quite a while, having another baby was not even on my radar. But the double losses of Andrew and my stepdad did make me step back and think about where my life was going and how I was using my time and energy. At the time we weren't exactly trying to get pregnant, but we weren't preventing it either.
Somewhere around October of that year, I saw a notice that the adoption agency we originally filed our paperwork with in 2000 (before abruptly canceling a week later, when I found out I was pregnant) was having an informational meeting about adoption in November. In fact, it might have even been a notice in our church bulletin that we saw. Jon and I talked about it and decided to go check it out, just in case the pregnancy thing didn't work out.
The night of the meeting we pulled up at a local bed and breakfast we'd never been to before and went inside. For some reason, I felt so conspicuous! But inside there were several other couples like us, representatives from the adoption agency, and couples who had already adopted. We listened to all the presentations and perused the information packet, and then the speakers brought out their own children, who had been adopted from the US and other countries. Once we saw the kids, we were hooked! We spoke to a social worker named Pam, who later did our home study, and told her how disappointed we were that we couldn't adopt from China, because that would have been our first choice. And then (raise your hand if you know where I'm going with this) she told me that China had recently changed their adoption requirements and we were now eligible! We were already making plans as we walked to the car that night and I couldn't wait to get started on the paperwork. Finally, something we could do and KNOW that at the end of the process, we would have a child.
As out of control as I felt trying to get (and stay) pregnant, I was not prepared for the lack of control I felt during the adoption process. In one case I was at the mercy of nature and my own body, but in the other I was at the mercy of various governmental agencies and the US Postal Service. I'm not sure which is worse. There are a LOT of hoops to jump through in order to adopt internationally. Your own country has to approve you, then the country you're adopting from has to approve you, and you're dropping dollars all along the way. You need a home study, which can be as intrusive as... well, a thorough (and I do mean thorough) physical exam. And you have to have one of those too, by the way. In a home study, a licensed social worker comes to visit your home, interview you, and determine if you are fit to raise a child. And before you even get to the home study part, you have to complete mountains of forms relating to your physical and financial health, and write an autobiography. All of this is sent to the social worker who will be conducting your home study and becomes part of your dossier. Our social worker Pam was herself the parent of a daughter from China and was a dream to work with, having been through the process herself. Once you get over the home study hurdle, you (and all the adults living in your household) have to get fingerprinted and file some ten thousand forms with the US government. OK, it wasn't really ten thousand, but it was a lot. At the time I was very thankful for all the things I had to do because I didn't have time to lay around and feel sorry for myself. All of those (ten thousand) forms must be notarized, copied and authenticated by several government agencies, and you become best buddies with your local FedEx drivers because you're always either waiting for a package or sending one out.
And let's talk about the cost. International adoptions usually cost over $20,000 and in some cases, way more. Jon's company had an adoption assistance program in place that would reimburse up to $4,000 of adoption costs once the adoption was complete. It wasn't much, but every little bit helps. It just so happened that while we were in the process of getting all our paperwork together, Jon went to the Human Resources department at his company to inquire about how to use the adoption assistance program. The person Jon spoke to told him that no one had ever used the program before, and since it was time for the company's annual benefits enrollment, he was going to propose that they DOUBLE the amount reimbursed. And they did. Can you believe that? In addition, the US government had a tax credit in place for adoptive parents whereby you could get up to $10,000 in tax credits during the year your adoption is final. Basically, $18,000 of our adoption costs were reimbursed and we ended up paying about $2,000 out of pocket. That's practically unheard of in the adoption world!
A lot of other things just seemingly fell into place during the adoption process too. I started to get the sense that if I would just step out of the way and let go, God would handle everything that needed handling. That's kind of anticlimactic, but there it is. I could only do what I could do, and beyond that I had no control. That's a concept both devastating and freeing all at once.
So in a fast 6 months, we had all our paperwork completed and sent to the placing agency, which happened to be in Colorado. The placing agency would then send our dossier of paperwork to China, where it would be logged in and we would be given a Log-In Date, or LID. That LID is very important because that's how the CCAA (China's adoption agency) will group you to match you to a child. Our paperwork went to Colorado in June, so we expected a June LID. You can imagine my frustration when I found out that our paperwork sat around at the agency for a couple of weeks before getting sent to China. At the time, referrals were coming back around 8 months from LID, and the delay just meant that we would be one month later getting our baby.
The internet is a powerful tool and can be a constructive or destructive force. In our case, it was a blessing. There is a huge online community of adoptive parents and parents in the process of adopting from China, and there was a wealth of information out there. I joined an email group (or four) and settled in for the wait. Oh, how I loathe waiting! There was nothing I could do to speed things up at all, so I spent my days reading emails from all my groups. In between downloading new emails, I concentrated on getting our home ready for the new arrival and started experiencing the sweet sensation of knowing it's all in God's hands.
Because of the availability of information online, I was able to keep track of when referrals came in to our agency from China and therefore had a very good idea of when to expect that oh so important phone call. In fact, I set up our video camera so I could record myself taking the call. On January 7, 2005, our phone rang with the news that we had been matched with a little girl named Min Fu Ya, age 7 months. It was just over 5 1/2 months from our LID, one of the shortest waits on record (beginning with February 2005, referrals started slowing down and the current wait for a referral from China is 3-4 years). In February 2005, we traveled to China to bring our little girl home. (That trip is a whole other story, which I won't go into right now.)
Now, it hasn't been all gumdrops and roses since then, for sure. But I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God chose this child for our family. So many of the circumstances surrounding our adoption made it clear to me. The feeling of peace and completeness that came over me when they put her into my arms for the first time could have come from no one but Him. It was like someone had put the last piece in a jigsaw puzzle and I could finally see the whole picture.
I don't know why I had to go through those miscarriages, but after the dust had settled somewhat I remembered an earlier time when I realized just how little control I have over my life. In 1992 I was divorced from my first husband, which left me the single mother of a 3 1/2 year old little girl. I didn't ask for the divorce and I didn't want it, but there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. The only thing I could do was trust God and move forward.
Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a little bit of a control freak. But in reality I'm not in control of ANYTHING. I know this now. Any control I have is an illusion God allows me to have. When it comes to problems there is exactly one thing I can control: whether I try to fix it myself, or lay it at God's feet and trust Him to fix it. I have to believe that the hard things I've gone through happened for a reason, if for no other reason than so I can hold the hand of someone else who's dealing with the same things. That's not to say that I believe God caused my miscarriages to happen. We live in a sinful world and sometimes bad things just happen. People get hurt through no fault of their own. Life is not fair. You can lay down and moan about it for the rest of your life or you can get back up, dust yourself off, fix your eyes on the Father, and trust Him to make something good out of the bad. Romans 8:28 says, "And we know that in all things" (not some things) "God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." I once heard a pastor say that our job is not to work out the good, but to love God and stay called. I would also add, "and stay out of His way."
So why write all this down? Frankly, it helps to talk about it. And maybe, just maybe, someone else can find some comfort in my story. I lived through it and can now look back with a different perspective. Infertility is not the end of the world, although it may feel that way when you're in the middle of it. You are not a failure in any way if your body cannot make and/or carry a baby. A miscarriage is a loss (so is infertility, for that matter), and all too often it's a loss that only the parents grieve, either because no one else knows about it or it's just not discussed. One thing I want people to take away from this series of posts is that there is no shame in being unable to reproduce. There IS sadness, and you might be able to make someone's journey a little bit easier if you offer them a little compassion instead of acting like it's no big deal.
The other thing I want people to take away is that there is great freedom in giving up the illusion of control over our lives. God already knows what my future holds and He knows how to best prepare me for it. Working the plan is pointless unless it's God's plan and not my own. His plans are infinitely better than anything I can think up. The best thing I can do is look to Him for guidance and trust Him to lead me in the right direction.
Now, on to other subjects. :-)
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