(Tim here with an update)
And we're off! We have started the process to bring Ian Sanford, our fifth child, home. That just seems too bizarre to me to type! We have four wonderful children in our home now, and child number five should be home next summer!
We are very early in this process, at the point where the time between dreams of holding our child and the time of gotcha day (a day many months in the future) seems so long. We are guestimating about 9 months, which would put us into approximately August 2015, but we are hoping that somehow things will go faster. As with Jaden and Katie, we will do everything in our power to move things along as quickly as possible… when something needs to be done, it will be done ASAP, and each set of the never-ending mountain of paperwork will be sent overnight express.
I was reading back over my journal about the pre-decision time, the time when I was thinking about adopting again but had not yet decided, and I found the entry below … this is from the time when I was starting to realize that perhaps we don't have four children ... that instead maybe we have five children ... with one still waiting for us to bring him home. Or as Jaden often puts it when he talks about coming home from China, waiting for us to "find" him and bring him home.
******** (Below is part of an entry from November 2, 2014) ********
******** (Below is part of an entry from November 2, 2014) ********
Oh, the memories ... and the longing. Our friends, two of the strongest inspirations that helped get us on our adoption path, are in China right now getting ready to adopt again and they are only three hours away from meeting their daughter.
And I can't help but to feel the pull from China. Certainly it's not an intellectual pull. Everything in the natural, or maybe rational, part of my brain says I shouldn't be thinking about China.
And while I always want to do something to help the children in China that are orphans (and I will want to do that until the day I draw my last breath), this is not like that.
This is not really about helping a child in need.
This is not about doing something "for" a child.
This is not a thought of "I want to go save a child" or anything like that.
The driving force when we were called to go get Jaden and Katie was that we are their parents. It sounds mystical or like religious mojo, but I really and truly feel that we are called to be their parents.
And now that driving force seems to be back.
And so the question I now face is, "Do I have another child in China?"
I think that maybe I do.
I was sure that we were done after Katie got home. I mean, four kids? Laura still cannot get her brain around that, and sometimes I just have to sit and smile about it.
Honestly, a few years ago I thought that two kids was a perfect number.
Then three was perfect.
Then four.
But now ... ? I'm just not sure.
Before taking any steps to act on his we will be doing lots and lots and lots of praying and reflecting. And we will just have to see where this goes. And then if this is something that we want to pursue, Tracy and I will have to discuss and pray and reflect some more. And then, just like we did before we decided to move forward with bringing Jaden and then Katie home, we will discuss it with our other kids.
As I write this, our friends are hours away from meeting their daughter in China. Tonight at dinner we were talking to Jaden about it. His quote ... "Hey, I was from China, and Katie was, too. And now I'm from Oklahoma, and I'm happy and proud to have my pretty family." (He uses the word "pretty" like we would use the word "good" or "satisfying." )
I remember visiting with these friends and their family back in 2012 before we ever committed to adopt, before we had ever started the search that led us to Jaden, while we were still thinking about whether adoption was something we should consider or not. They had adopted their youngest child from China, bringing their total to four children. (At that time I was still arguing with / bargaining with / explaining things to God abut why adoption wasn’t right for us). At that time we had two wonderful kids and felt very complete, but this foreign and unexpected idea that perhaps we were supposed to do something outside of our comfort zone just wouldn't go away (no matter how hard I tried to ignore it!)
And I remember as we visited with our friends how much the father clearly loved his four kids … and to me, as a father of two kids, four kids sounded like a lot. It sounded like more than I could imagine. And yet here we are 2 ½ years later with four wonderful kids of our own, and it feels like the most natural thing in the world!
And four sounds like a great number.
But now I stop and wonder, is four the right number?
Is there any magic to it?
Is there room for another?
Should the number be five?
Again, the fascinating thing is that this is not a pull “do something to save a child” or anything like that. It’s not what my friend calls “MAD” (Multiple Adoption Disorder, where adoptive parents feel a drive to adopt as many kids as they can, perhaps as an attempt to save the world). It’s not that. I just can't help but wonder if I have another child out there. And if I do, then we need to go get him or her!
And as all of this has been bouncing around in my brain since our friends left Okmulgee to go to China yesterday morning, Tracy just pointed out that the father had blogged the other day about his family and about their plan to bring their fifth child home.
Below is an excerpt from his blog...
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The question is asked “why another kid?” “You have four already”. That’s the point, we love our kids.
(... insert well deserved and appropriate bragging about each of his children ... )
So this isn’t a mission for us, heck we’re greedy. We have four wonderful children and that’s not enough. We loved the appetizer, salad, vegetable and main dish and now we want dessert.
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Hmmm. Not the way I was thinking of it ... but it fits the sentiment I have been describing above. I love being a dad. I wouldn’t change it for anything. Yes, my kids irritate me sometimes. Yes, I get frustrated with them at times (usually when I have not been exercising enough). But I will gladly work a few extra years and give up a few luxuries if I have another child is out there waiting for me.
We. Shall. See.
Tim, 11-02-14, 9:20 PM
******** (END entry from November 2, 2014) ********
******** (END entry from November 2, 2014) ********
So talk and pray we did.
This is not a decision that we took lightly, and we did a lot of “what if” thinking and talking.
And either we had lots of coincidences that seemed to point out that it was OK to proceed with bringing home our fifth child, or maybe Someone else was involved … hmmm.
First, we started seeing ladybugs around the house again for the first time in months (ladybugs are the symbol for Chinese adoption, and they seemed to be around all the time when we were working to bring Jaden and then Katie home, and they disappeared when we were not in process to bring them home.)
Then, Jaden wanted to pick music to play on the iPad one day … something that he had never asked to do before … and he picked the following four songs. As the songs played, Tracy and I looked at each other and said, “really?” It was so surreal that I actually wrote down the songs that he picked so I could remember them.
1) “God’s Great Dance Floor” by Chris Tomlin
Now I surrender // Take me // This is all I can bring
2) “I Refuse” by Josh Wilson, which was instrumental in wearing away my resistance to our first adoption with lyrics like:
I don't wanna live like I don't care
I don't wanna say another empty prayer
Oh I refuse to sit around and wait for someone else
To do what God has called me to do myself
Oh I could choose not to move, but I refuse
3) “Kings & Queens” by Audio Adrenaline, which they wrote specifically about orphans …
On their own, on the run, when their lives have only begun
These could be our daughters and our sons
4) And then somehow he got onto iTunes Radio and played the classic “I Can Only Imagine”
And immediately after that, Katie got the iPad and picked “Bless the Broken Road” by Rascal Flatts with the lyrics
This much I know is true
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you
I think about the years I spent just passing through
I'd like to have the time I lost and give it back to you (**)
But you just smile and take my hand
You've been there you understand
It's all part of a grander plan that is coming true.
(** especially pertinent since we will have missed Ian’s first 10 years)
Sure, this could all be a coincidence. Ha. Anyway, it sure didn’t hurt the pull that we were already feeling.
We looked at the adoption advocacy sites, focusing on the 1-2 year olds because that would put the new child “in birth order” and bring them into the home as the youngest child … but none of the children seemed to be the right fit for our family. We just didn’t have the “THAT’S OUR CHILD” moment that we had with Jaden and Katie.
And admittedly we were a bit nervous. One of the things that we are most concerned about with adopting again is what it might do to Jaden and Katie at this stage of their lives.
We talked about how a younger brother might impact Jaden’s role as the “youngest boy” in the home.
We talked about how a younger child might impact Katie by bumping her from being the “youngest child”.
We talked about how a younger sister might further impact Katie’s role as the “youngest girl”, and about how a younger sister would invariably end up being compared to her … and let’s face it, if you’ve met her then you know that this would be a tough comparison for anyone to live up to.
And so we looked and considered and discussed and looked and considered some more.
We talked with Jaden and Katie and, while they obviously can’t really understand what all the complexities that are involved in bringing another child into the home, they do certainly have a very powerful perspective of what this means for the child in China who longs for a family. And they were open to the idea. Well, Jaden was open to it, and so that meant that Katie was open to it (since whatever Jaden does / says is what Katie wants to do / say).
And then the paradigm shift came … the thought that changed everything about what we were doing and thinking.
What if we shouldn’t be looking for a 1-2 year old to stay “in birth order”?
What if our child is older than that? What if he is much older than that? And once that thought took hold, we knew who our fifth child is. We had seen his face and video months before. He is well known in the online Facebook adoption community because so many people have advocated for him to try to get him adopted. But 9 year old boys are typically not what adoptive families are thinking about.
But this is a 9 year old whose personality shines through on the video that his adoption agency has of him.
A 9 year old who routinely asks his orphanage director if they have found him a family yet.
A 9 year old who has not been adopted yet because he is waiting for us to come and get him.
A 9 year old who will be 10 by the time we get there next summer.
A 9 year old who will fit nicely right in the middle of our children’s ages and won’t displace Katie’s or Jaden’s or Mitch’s or Laura’s positions in the family dynamics.
A 9 year old who will go by the name of IAN SANFORD.
And so on 11-18-14 at 7:38 PM I sent an email to our contact Xiaoqing at the adoption agency, and put the following entry in my journal.
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And now we know. We have asked Xiaoqing to hold Ian's file.
11-18-14, 7:38 PM
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When we told Jaden, this was his reaction
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| Jaden reacts when he finds out that he is going to have another big brother ... which looks a lot like his reaction (below) when he found out that Katie was coming home |
Since then we have had our first homestudy. Our social worker is leery of out-of-birth-order adoptions, but we are determined that this is what is best and what will happen.
We have started the paperwork.
We have started putting the wheels in motion that should lead to us flying to China again, this time in summer 2015. Interestingly, we will be going back to Chengdu, which is the city where Katie is from. And more interesting, perhaps, is that the little girl that our friends just brought home from China is from the same orphanage that Ian is in now. So these two former orphans will have flown over 8000 miles to get to their new homes, and they will live about 3 miles from each other. (We did check with her to make sure that she liked Ian … how awful would if have been if she hated him and he showed up in her town after moving halfway around the world!)
Anyway, we are under way. Here we go. And life continues to be grand.
