I've Just Seen a Face

{Psst: There's a new medical update over here today... }

The weeks leading up to seeing Brooklyn's sweet face for the first time are remarkable when I look back and think about them.

I was still sorting out the medical bills/insurance mix-up hassles.  Rhet and I had started back to school that fall, and we were adjusting to our new schedule.  I inevitably got a respiratory virus that was being passed around, and it took me almost a whole month to shake it off.  After it came back with a vengeance, I high-tailed it to my parents' house in Atlanta for help and rest.  We had fall break that week, and Rhet and I went early in the week and Nick joined us later for a few days.

The day we arrived, I had a missed call on my phone from a number I didn't recognize.  It's here in the story that I need to push rewind for a second...

****
A year and a half earlier, I had been praying for a 7-month-old little girl in China.  A friend had been advocating for her, and her picture just stuck with us.  Her file was not complete (nor was it being worked on at the time), so I just prayed and prayed for her family...and I prayed for us...that maybe we could be her family.  She had a medical condition I had never heard of before: biliary atresia.  I googled it and internet-researched it (yeah, the best kind of research right? ;) ) and just prayed.  Biliary atresia seemed big and scary.  And yet I just prayed....Lord, please find her a family.  Lord, please let us be the family.  Nick wasn't feeling it.  We had just gotten rolling on our Dave Ramsey quest--we still had all of our debt.  We didn't have any space for a new kiddo.  He didn't feel led to say yes.  And that is the way things go.  One person feels the pull, the other person isn't on the same page.  You live in the tension.  You pray and talk and one of you moves.  It requires lots of respect and communication and open hearts and a commitment not to harbor resentment, and it is really hard.  I think most adoption stories for most families probably include a piece of that.  But you move forward, knowing that you both have your family's best interests and God's leading on your hearts, and you'll make a decision...together. We decided that I could fill out a Family Profile for the adoption agency in order to find out more about her if and when her file was completed, but otherwise, I moved--this time was a "no."
****

So I listened to the voicemail from the unknown number.  A year and a half later, it is a representative from the adoption agency whose voice I'm hearing.  The message was vague: Can you please call me back?  I have something I need to ask you.  The voicemail was out of the clear blue and it perplexed me.  I stood in my parent's driveway, alone, just wondering.  I called her back and got her voicemail.  I googled her name--she is the coordinator for the China Hosting Program.  Ahhh, she wants to know if we could host a child next summer, I guess.  Um, lady?  Do you know we are already stacked on top of each other in our itty bitty house?  I dismiss the message in my mind.

But all week, my mind went back to it.  Is that what she really wanted?

I received a text from my dear friend Brooke, a matron of honor in my wedding, on the same day that I received the voicemail from the adoption agency.  The message says: We must talk.  Been way too long.  You've been showing up in dreams!  For real!  I figure it's a sign.  We played phone tag for the next couple of weeks.

The week at my parent's house was just what we needed.  Relaxing, recovery from illness, playing, sunshine, date nights, just enjoying being together. Nick and I even took the plunge and updated our "archaic" phones.  Our family of three drove back to Memphis at the end of that week feeling lighter and more restful.

Nick was unpacking the car that night while Rhet helped, and I flopped on the bed for a minute to stretch out from the long roadtrip.  I went to Facebook on my phone, and my eyes were drawn to the picture of a baby girl staring back at me.  A friend had reposted her picture from a China Waiting Child Advocacy page.  She was 9 months old.  With biliary atresia.  (Yep, I know what that is.  I've been sitting with that idea for a year and a half.)  Her name was Brooke.  (Brooke!  She's been having dreams about me...)  Nick came in the house with another suitcase and I called out to him, "Hey Nick!  Come look at this little girl..."

"Oh geez..." he mutters with a smile as he takes my phone.  He looks at her a second longer than usual.  "She is adorable," he says, his voice softening.  My heart leaps--NOT Nick's usual response.

I've written about what our decision-making process was like that week.  What I didn't include is that we'd seen a house we were interested in the previous week when we were in Atlanta.  We contacted our realtor and set up a time for me to go see it while Rhet was in school on Monday.  It was small--not much bigger than what we currently live in now.  But it was cute and staged well and it was in a neighborhood close to where Rhet and I went to school.  I brought Nick and Rhet to see it on Tuesday, and in those 24 hours between Monday and Tuesday we ran the numbers with our mortgage broker and talked seriously about living there.  There wasn't a lot of room in the house to play, but it had a big yard.  There wasn't room for family/friends to stay with us when they visited, but we could just pile into one bedroom and put our guests in the other.  There wasn't an extra room for an another kiddo, but we could just put Rhet in the master bedroom with the alcove off of it and put a crib in the alcove.  We all walked out of the house talking about the purchase.  We promised to be in touch, Nick got in his car parked on the street and waited for us to back out of the carport, which I'd parked under due to the rain.

Scrrrrraaaaaape.  My driver's side mirror scraped along the side of the house.  AUGHH!  I immediately re-centered the car and tried again.  Scrrrrrraaaaaape.  My passenger's side mirror scraped along the other side of the carport.  No no no!!!  I can't explain what physiologically and emotionally happened to me in that moment.  I know I'm sounding melodramatic, but as I finally got the car backed out the carport and backed down the driveway and scrrrrrrrraaaaaped the bottom of the car as I pulled onto the street, it was like a clean break.  I rolled down the window and said to Nick, "Did you just see that?"  "Yeah, bummer," he replied.  And in my mind, it was done.  There was no way we could buy that house.  The scrapes on my mirrors had just snapped me back to reality.  Nope, not our house.

Now as I think about that day, it feels like God was saying "You can NOT buy this house."  There wasn't enough room for Brooklyn over the next 5 years, and more importantly, if we had put that sale into motion, we could not have pursued her adoption.  The agency wanted someone who was already paper-ready for a China adoption (meaning their dossier was already sent to China).  We were not, but we promised to move swiftly.  USCIS requires that you re-submit paperwork for any address changes--we would have had to wait 30 days to close on that house and then get new clearances on several different levels.  It just would've set us too far back.

The day after we committed to pursuing Brooklyn's adoption, I finally got in touch with the woman from the other adoption agency with whom I'd been playing phone tag for a good two weeks.  She was actually calling to offer me a referral for a little girl with congenital heart disease.  My jaw dropped.  What if I had answered her call that first day of fall break?

****
I've just seen a face
I can't forget the time or place
Where we just met

She's just the girl for me
And I want all the world
To see we've met
Mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm mmm mmm

Had it been another day
I might have looked the other way
And I'd have never been aware
But as it is I'll dream of her tonight
La, di, di, da di di

Falling, yes I am falling
And she keeps calling
Me back again

The Way Way Back

Bear with me, friends, as I attempt to tell the story God has been writing.  To begin, we must start with some setup.  These are the things that can only be traced in hindsight...

In February 2014, I attended a favorite retreat for adoptive mom's called Created for Care.  One of my "take-aways" from the retreat that weekend (through several different sessions and conversations) was that I needed to listen to God in a more focused way.  In the minivan on the drive back, a group of dear friends challenged me in this.  And so I began to make an effort to listen.

I didn't grow up with an emphasis around me on listening to God or hearing God speak.  That was a little too "out there"...a little too charismatic-sounding for the denomination in which was raised.  I prayed.  I've been counseled by the Holy Spirit through people and Scripture.  But feeling prompted by God or hearing God was a little beyond my comfort zone.  Even typing it now, that I felt prompted by God or told by God to do something...it feels weird to me.  So I just need to tell you that that was my starting point.

My first time of focused, intentional, quiet listening to the Lord after I returned from the retreat, I wrote down two things:
1. We should ask our landlord if we can buy the house we've been leasing from him.
2. I needed to ask my friend Amy if she had any positions available for teaching at her preschool (to kick paying off our debt into a higher gear).

We've been leasing this little 900-square-foot house since I moved in after grad school in 2005.  That's right...this April, I will have lived in this house for 10 years!  I never imagined Nick and I would live here together for 9 years, start our family here, continue our family here...!  We seriously could have paid off the house by now.  While that could make me a little sick with regret, I'm also so thankful for the many years of NON-homeownership that we've lived through--being able to make changes in this house without paying for them, repairs and replacements that were required without our financial responsibility.  The 6-month lease I signed in 2005 has led to a decade of good memories and lessons in contentment.

We started to take a closer look at our house.  What would we change?  What were its flaws and strengths?  We have definitely redefined our definition of "cramped" for the last 5 years as we added another dog (totaling 2), then added a kid, then lost a dog...(and of course now added another kid!)  We desire more space for the future, but we also love the idea of being able to pay off a house quickly.  In examining our house with a more critical eye (the kind you have to a blinder on most of the time to enjoy contentment with you have), we realized there are some things we didn't think we could change about the house that we also didn't want for our family long term.

Simultaneously, I contacted my friend Amy, who is the director at a local preschool.  She didn't have any available positions at the school, but she told me she could definitely use me as a substitute teacher if I was able to fill in that way.  Something was better than nothing, although I wasn't quite sure what I would do with Rhet on the days I was substituting.  I filled out the application and visited Amy at her office.  In the meantime, a good friend who taught at the school was getting ready to take a maternity leave.  It started lining up in just the right way at just the right time that perhaps I could fill in as a teacher's aid in the class my friend was about to be leaving....  With a regular position, they were able to make a spot for Rhet in the 3-year-old class.

And so began last spring, pondering what we wanted in a future house (whether in the one in which we were living or elsewhere) and starting a part-time gig with small people.

In the busy-ness, I started developing this pain in my right molars.  I visited the dentist, convinced it was cavity-related, but they couldn't find anything wrong.  The pain spread up my jaw, and it would come and go intermittently.  After a few weeks, it consumed the entire right side of my face and it would bring me to tears it was so intense.  It happened on the way to school, at school, after school, and it even woke me in the middle of the night.  I visited my general practitioner who referred me to an ENT.  I went back to the general practitioner and then back to the ENT.  I finally went back to the general practitioner who referred me to a neurologist, and the neurologist sent me in for an MRI and diagnosed me with trigeminal neuralgia.  I was so desperate for relief from the pain, and I was so thankful to finally find a source.  At the same time, this whole "no cure" except for a really invasive surgery thing had me entirely freaked out.  I was put on anti-seizure medication, which left me feeling really tired and out of it, it affected my bladder in my weird way, and it even changed the way I smelled tasted things.  (I could not stand the smell of tap water!)  BUT, it IMMEDIATELY stopped the terrible pain, and that was enough for me.  I resigned myself to being on the medication for the rest of my life or until surgery was needed.

School ended, the summer began, and our May and June months were pretty busy.  I finally became irked enough with the side effects of my medication that I called my neurologist's office during a trip to Nashville.  She told me they'd switch medications to see if my side effects were alleviated, but she recommended I try not taking any medication at all for a couple of days.  If I experienced the face pain, I could immediately start the new meds.  This was a weird idea for me, but in the midst of all-day meetings for a training we were at, I went ahead and gave it a whirl.

The pain never came back.  I barely believed it, and completely credited it to a miracle healing.  For real.

That summer, we contacted a realtor and began casually looking at homes and figuring out what we wanted/liked, with the goal of maybe finding something by the spring of the next year.

We also took a trip to Chicago over the summer, as I tagged along with Nick for work.  We fell in LOVE with the city--we had great weather and a great time.  I ventured out everyday on my own, learning how to navigate the trains and buses.  The conference Nick attended is held annually, and we looked forward to returning again to Chicago for the next one.

And then, strangely, we started receiving medical bill after medical bill.  They were charging us full cost for the myriad of dr's appointments and tests I had received in the spring.  It was such a mystery, and as soon as I called and resolved one bill, another would show up for the same appointment or test.  After a bit, we figured out that Nick's employer had forgotten to sign us up for health insurance that year--somehow, we had just slipped through the cracks.  The retroactively added us, it didn't "take," they retroactively added us again, it didn't "take" again, and then finally they resolved the problem once and for all.

That fall, I continued working at the preschool as a permanent teacher's aid in a different class.  I received a discount on tuition and after-care, which allowed Rhet to start Jr Kindergarten there with my good friend (who was back from maternity leave).

I started reading through a great book entitled "The Best Yes" and meeting with friends every other week to discuss it.  It was all about how to make decisions that honored the Lord and discerning where He was leading.

And that brings us up to October, the month we saw B's face for the first time. (The two weeks leading up to seeing her picture get a post of their own!)

Hindsight has shown me God's hand in many ways:

• I needed to be able to listen to God before I could have heard Him telling us we needed to pursue Brooklyn.  The challenging conversation with my friends last February and the paradigm shift it caused as well as reading through "The Best Yes" with friends in the fall were so instrumental in this.

• Thinking about houses and whether we could/should stay in this one and eventually the decision to look for a house to buy influenced Brooklyn's adoption by getting us ready for change.  We were looking to the future and evaluating what our growing family would need in the future.  We were discussing debt and budgets and timelines.

• The job!  It helped us continue paying off debt, it gave Rhet a great school opportunity for this year, and (this was SO HUGE) it gave me so much flexibility to complete paperwork as fast as I could this fall.  There were several days I took off while Rhet went to school, and Rhet was able to stay in aftercare many afternoons when I was rushing around town.  The teachers even gave up Secret Santa during the holidays to take up a donation for our adoption expenses instead.  We were so so so blessed by the school and my job this past year.  Even now, Rhet has a stable school schedule with people we love and trust during this time of transition.  We could NOT have sped through the adoption as quickly as we did (which means maybe we could not have even adopted B at all) if it had not been for the preschool!  

• I still can not believe that I have not had one reoccurrence of trigeminal neuralgia symptoms.  I firmly believe God healed me from it so that I would be free to pursue this adoption.  I also think it was used to show us the problem with our health insurance so that we could get ready to bring B home.  We learned much more about our deductible and benefits through my whole ordeal, and we got all of the mess straightened out.  And if I had still been suffering from the condition during the adoption process, I would have had to get special permission and fill out extra paperwork to make an allowance for my health status.  With the whole thing in the past, we were able to bypass all of that.

• The trip to Chicago, y'all.  I still can't believe everything has led us back to Chicago.  When we were looking at programs on our approved "centers of excellence" list with short, direct flights, Chicago practically stood out in lights.  Not only did we have HUGE emotional support from dear friends-like-family there, but I felt so comfortable with the idea of going there alone and getting around the city and being in that big urban jungle because of my time there last summer.  Also, I had tasted and seen the awesomeness that is Garrett Popcorn.  ;) 

I can't wait to tell you what happened in October leading up to Brooklyn's "Face Day."  It is wild and only of God, as is every single step along this journey.  To be continued...!

Star of Wonder

Throughout our adoption process with Brooklyn (all 8 weeks of it so far!), we've experienced so many instances in which we could say "only God."  Now looking back, I am seeing even more ways God made a way for us to pursue Brooklyn.  I'm hoping to share as many as I can remember here, as a testimony to the power of God and for my own memory's sake.

But first, I have to start with Facebook.  Ohhhhh, Facebook.

I was late to the game, having graduated college before FB was sweeping the collegiate nation.  I remember hearing about the concept one evening when I was hanging out with a younger friend, and I thought it was the dumbest idea ever.  You just make friends with your friends?  And then you poke them?  And yet, shortly before Facebook opened its gates to the general public, I weaseled my way in with my old Auburn email address.  It was the summer of 2006, and I was already married, thus missing out on the thrill of changing my relationship statuses.  Those were good times, with statuses like "Jesse is wearing a scarf today, even if everyone else thinks it's silly" and photo albums for every month...

Ah, the dawn of social networking.

But Facebook lost its luster along the years for me.  Shortly before Rhet came home, I remember feeling really sensitive to what I was going to put "out there" about my child.  I felt a new desire for privacy.  I didn't love reading all of the judge-y rants or knowing everyone and their Great-Aunt Sue was weighing my own words with a critical eye.  (And I hated myself for doing the same.)  Over the past several years, I used FB mostly as the tool to keep up with my long-distance friends' happenings.  I had even deleted the app from my phone this year, finding that I was happier to spend my time elsewhere.

Please don't read that has a "high and mighty" state of being.  I just feel it's important to start there with what happens next...

On the evening of Sunday, October 12th, our family had just gotten home to Memphis from a roadtrip.  We had unpacked, had a quick dinner, and I was finally laid out and catching up on Facebook within the browser of my phone.  And I saw her face.

That face.  It gripped me.  And I immediately passed the phone over to Nick.  I can't remember his exact reaction, but it was probably a light-hearted eye roll or a snarky comment to make me giggle.

Brooklyn's picture and a short plea for a family had been posted on a waiting child advocacy page by the adoption agency social worker that day.  And a close friend of mine had shared the link.  There were 90 likes and 103 comments on the original picture.

Something in me needed to know more.  I emailed the social worker that night asking for more information on the little girl they were calling "Brooke."

The rest, as your mostly know, is history.  There were other things happening during this time period, but I'm sticking with the Facebook-centric stories for this post, so we'll fast forward to the night we asked God for a clear answer that we needed to say yes to Brooke.  I shared a little bit about that in this post, but just to remind you, the answer we received came via a (then) stranger's personal message sent to me on Facebook.

We've befriended a couple strangers over Facebook through that first personal message, and they have become not only dear friends but part of Brooklyn's larger family in the way we regard them.  I can't wait to share more about them in another post!

The day we announced on the waiting child advocacy page that Brooke had found a family and the family was ours, we had something like 90 likes within 10 minutes.  (The post ended up receiving 293 total likes!)  I'm not sharing that to highlight the the popularity, but to show the way this little girl of us just grips people.  When you see her picture, you keep looking.  You want to know more.  This interest on Facebook, in my opinion, has brought many people to their knees in prayer for her.  And it is these prayers that have influenced the hand of God in her paperwork and our process.

Shortly into the process, a friend added me to a group of a small number of families completing medical expedited adoptions in China.  This group has been like GOLD, helping me learn the fastest way to complete the paperwork for our medically fragile child.

Last week, we started on online fundraising campaign.  We were asking for $22,000 to cover travel expenses and fees for the rest of our adoption process with Brooklyn.  It was a very large amount to try to raise.  And it was during the holidays.  But we had been given the hope that if things continued on the trajectory they were on, we could be traveling to bring our girl home in January, so something needed to be done.  3 days.  THREE DAYS.  The news went out over Facebook, over this blog, over a few personal emails.  And the amount was raised in three days.  By family, by friends, by strangers.  We were amazed but not surprised.

And here is what I'm left thinking about Facebook: of all vehicles, of all platforms, of all ways that God could bring us to this little girl...it was this one.  And it has been how He has spurred on prayer and given wisdom and brought provision.  All through this social network that I had very recently pretty much despised.

He does that.  He can take our avenues of common culture and lead people to Himself.

Many years ago, three wise men were studying the stars.  As in, I'm guessing, astrology.  And what did God send?  A star.  The brightest one.  And it led them to worship.