Our Adoption Story

Why Adoption? Why China?

The first time I can remember seriously considering adoption was several years ago after I read an article in Reader's Digest about Chinese orphans. The number of abandoned baby girls in China is staggering. My heart went out to those helpless children and I remember thinking that somehow, someday I would have to do something. Even if I could save just one little girl...

At that time, Tyler was not even a year old and anyone who knows Kenny knows that he had put his foot down about having any more children. I certainly didn't think back then that it would be something I would ever talk him into doing. The idea stayed on my mind for quite a while but the more I thought about it the more frustrated I was getting. I couldn't figure out why this was so important to me. And there was still no way I was even going to bring this up to Kenny. I kept telling myself "I don't even know who to ask or where to go...there's no way I could do something like that...we can't afford it, I don't know how, and Kenny will NEVER go for it." I was beginning to feel like I was going to explode!

Then, one Sunday we went to church just like we were doing every week. The sermon went along as usual and at the end Brother Kevin began to go over the announcements for the week. And his most important announcement that week was that they had received the referral information for their daughter that they were adopting from China! Up until that point, I didn't even know they were working on an adoption. Well, I just started to cry right there in church. He was talking about her age, and how big she was, what they were going to name her, and that his wife and another lady from our church would be travelling to pick her up in about two weeks. And then he showed her picture on the monitor above the stage. Kenny still had no idea why I was crying, Brother Kevin had moved on to another subject and I was STILL crying. A lady I didn't know came over and hugged me and asked if I was okay but I couldn't stop crying long enough to answer her. I didn't think we were ever going to get out of there.

Our Bible Fellowship Class was having a pot-luck get together after church. I was still crying and Kenny was still trying to find out why. I finally was able to tell him what was wrong, but it didn't go over very well with him. I don't really remember the specific objections he had, but it didn't matter at the time. I really believed that day that the answers to all my questions had been answered by God. I kept hearing Him tell me to adopt and I kept telling Him I don't know how and I don't know anyone who has done it either, and He finally decided He'd had enough of my excuses and decided to spell it out for me.

Since Kenny wasn't as moved by this whole situation as I was, I just let it go. It wasn't long after that when he was sent to Fort Bragg and when that happened our lives were basically put on hold until he got back. At the time he left, we didn't know how long he would be gone or if he would be staying in North Carolina or going over seas.

He ended up being gone for ten months and during that time we talked about having another child. I hadn't forgotten about adoption but I just wasn't ready to accept never being pregnant again. Right after he came back home, we started trying to get pregnant and fifteen months later Andrew was born.

Even before I had him, I still had that feeling that our family just wasn't quite complete. But, Kenny and I had an agreement. Andrew was it! We were done.

Andrew just turned a year old on October 16th. A few weeks before his birthday, I was going through some things to put in our yard sale. I came across some items that I had been saving for many years hoping to be able to pass them on to my daughter some day. Most of it isn't worth much money, but it means a lot to me personally. I was choking back the tears as Kenny was asking me what I was doing when I began to sort through the items. I hated to part with my things, but it was beginning to be too painful to keep around. I don't know what happened to change Kenny's mind about having more children, but he told me not to sell my things. He asked me what I wanted to do about having a daughter. Did I want to try again? What if something goes wrong? What if we have another baby and it's not a girl? Will having another child affect our plans for me to be a teacher in a few years? I told him I wasn't comfortable with going through another pregnancy and a fourth c-section and that I didn't think I was prepared for the disappointment I would feel if we didn't have a girl. I wasn't willing to take that risk. So he said "What about adoption?" I couldn't believe my ears. I had been praying and praying and praying for God to open Kenny's heart to adoption...I knew that was the only way it would ever happen. I did not want him to agree to it just because I wanted to do it. I wanted him to want to do it too, and to know it was the right thing for us.

So, after talking about it and attending a seminar on adoption, we decided this was God's plan for our family. And we decided on China. China just seemed to make sense for us. We want to adopt a baby girl and 97% of the orphans in China are girls. We were also drawn to China based on the process. Any type of adoption has its risks, but since the baby girls in China have been declared abandoned before they are adoptable, there won't be any risk of losing her to her birth parents after we are into the process. China seems to have their procedures very well organized and the timeline was more dependable since we wouldn't be waiting on her to be born such as in Guatemala. There were several countries where we didn't even meet the qualifications because we aren't childless or because we have more than two children already. And some countries require more than one trip with stays as long as four weeks. We just weren't comfortable with the requirements and risks in some of the other countries, including the United States. I know there are people out there who would question why in the world we would go to China when there are so many homeless children in the United States. All I can say to those people is that they need to realize that Kenny and I are not a young couple and we have three children at home and Kenny has three grown children. Our chances of having a birthmother choose us to raise her child are pretty much zero. I could go on and on about the reasons why many adoptive parents choose not to pursue domestic adoption.

Anyway, we began to study the brochures and information that was given to us by all the agencies represented at the seminar but we were really having trouble making a decision. I ended up asking our pastor's wife, Lynette, who they used and she highly recommended A Helping Hand Adoption Agency located in Lexington, Kentucky. It is a Christian-owned, non-profit agency specializing in international adoption and orphan relief efforts. Lynette said they were wonderful to work with, their staff in China is excellent and that it would help having an agency located so close to Louisville. All of the other agencies we were considering were out of state. So we filled out our application and mailed it in on October 17, 2004, one day after Andrew's first birthday.

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