If you know us personally, you know that in August we decided to start the adoption process again. I’d like to go back and share some of our previous adoption experiences another day so that they are all in one place, but today I have a purpose. Today, I want to tell you about how we went from searching to loving. How one child went from “orphan” to beloved daughter. This was our matching process to find our way to her.

The matching process in India is unique. You are not simply assigned a child, and each and every agency handles the process differently. Traditionally with our agency you would submit in your home study all special needs you feel comfortable parenting. You will also submit boy or girl, and an age range for your potential matches. While you are waiting for CARA approval (Indian Government) the individual who handles matches has a phone meeting with you to further inquire about your hopes for your family. Our first process went just like that. We went over our hopes and waited for CARA approval. We were called to go over Adelyn’s file the next day and accepted quickly. We did not have to review any more files. This time was a little more messy.

We began getting CARA approval MUCH sooner than we were expected. Like literally months were removed from our waiting. We truly believed at that point that God was going to direct us to our daughter quickly, and for some reason he needed us to find her quickly. I still haven’t heard of any other families skipping the line, so we are eternally grateful for this grace.

Once we were approved we asked our agency to pull a file for us. I had seen a literal “blurb” on facebook about her special needs and age. The blurb stated that she was 2.5 years old and deaf. This was something we have a lot of knowledge about, and our family knows a good bit of sign language. One of the things we said up front this time was that we would accept it if God told us “no” on a referral. We pursued the file the best we could, but in the end we did not feel like this was our daughter.

I’ll be honest. This was crushing to me. I cried and cried. Saying no to a child that needs a family is heart wrenching. I was also embarrassed and ashamed to think that I could turn a waiting child file down. I was scared to reach out to friends because of my shame. Finally, God prompted me to reach out and I took a lot of comfort from them. One friend, another adoptive mom, finally told me point blank that if I felt this way, then this was some else’s child. There are no adequate words to describe how much comfort that brought me. If I claimed to believe that God had orchestrated this all from the beginning, then I had to accept when he said no. So with a heavy heart we told our coordinator to un-match us.

There were no other children in the system at the time that met our checklist (India is moving slow right now) so we waited. Funny enough, I did not feel anxious during the time we had no news. Then Christmas night happened. I had a dream and sent my good friend (who was in India with me our first adoption) a message telling her how funny and random it was. I’ve copied that message below, you can see the time stamp of December 26th.

Weird, random dream right? Even weirder, we didn’t have four year olds in our home study. It only went to 3.5 years old. So fast forward to December 29th. I was taking a break from being a mom for a few minutes and enjoying a long bath. I was on facebook and clicked on a friend’s post for a waiting child. It led me to another page, to another page, to another page, and then to a Reece’s Rainbow page advocating for a four year old little girl that needed a family. I always click on the India waiting kids and say a prayer that they would find their family.

I clicked on the description and here is what I found out. This little girl was 4.5 years old. She was in a foster home that uses ASL for a range of different special needs. It was a foster home with at least one American foster parent. Then I came to where she was, Hyderabad. Welp ok God maybe you got most of the dream right, but Hyderabad had a terrible reputation when we were adopting Adelyn as being insanely long court waits. To be sure, I went into my India group and asked about the current process in Hyderabad. Immediately families started replying the court process was currently about two months there start to finish! WOAH.

So at this point I’m freaking out a little, but I’ve forgotten a very important piece, her Dad haha! So I immediately send him her Reece’s Rainbow link. I thought for sure he was going to say, she’s older than we were hoping, let’s wait for a match from the agency. The thing is though, he didn’t. He immediately started asking me more questions and was super open to her file.

The site to match families in India was down, so we had to wait and pray she was still there when it came up. This is the only part of waiting so far that has almost killed me! I’ve been very peaceful during this process, but I couldn’t handle not knowing if she was ours or not. While we waited over the weekend a double rainbow appeared outside and we all got to enjoy it. AJ and I both felt it was a sign we would match with her. If you know Adelyn’s story, we saw a double rainbow the day we matched with her.

On Tuesday, the site FINALLY came back up, in the middle of the day! Our coordinator grabbed the file for us immediately! We were over the moon! Until we realized the only medical info on the site was a medical report from when she was 1! It was a scary file and very disheartening. AJ was scared, but still confident as soon as we got more information we could move forward. I was disheartened.

I got several new books for Christmas. I had really been wanting to read Letters to the Church, but I felt a nudge that Radical was more fitting to my current situation. So I picked up the book and what do you think I found in the first chapter?

I couldn’t believe God was making this so easy for me! We were still waiting for the updated medicals though.

Then Sunday came at our church. We are praying for direction and change in our church. Our sermon this Sunday was prayer, praise, prayer, praise. I am the children’s church director at our church, so it’s pretty uncommon for me to just sit and enjoy the service with AJ. However, this week I was completely free of responsibility. I sat with AJ and about half way through we both were overwhelmed with emotion. I pulled out a picture and we looked at each other and said no matter what the new medicals said, this was our daughter. God had been very clearly speaking to us. As we both started to cry with joy, immediately after saying yes, we felt a set of arms literally wrap around us. A stranger (uncommon in a small church) said to us that the holy spirit prompted her to pray for us. She said that God was proud of us, he loved us, and he would see us through any trials and hardships. Of course we cried even more. We then showed her the picture of our daughter. She was the first person we were able to say, this is our TREASURED DAUGHTER, and she is in India. We are going to get her this year!

You guys, I can’t make this up. God grew my husband and I so much through this process. I had to be obedient in saying no, and AJ had to be obedient to trusting God without all the facts. He blessed us immensely with an amazing experience of love. We will always be able to tell our daughter of God’s faithfulness in her life, before we ever even met her, she was always meant to be with us. So guys, WE HAVE A DAUGHTER IN INDIA! She is four years old and I can’t wait for you all to meet her when this process is over!