Our Hand Picked Angels: Mia's Adoption

I remember after Travis was born I just knew I would only have boys and adopt a girl from China. I could always see myself adopting. Well that isn't how it played out. We ended up with Travis, Taylor, Madison and Macy. Four smart, healthy, great kids. Already a big family to some. When Macy was born we knew we were done having kids. Our birth announcements said a cute little saying about how our family was now complete. We got rid of all the baby stuff since we didn't need it anymore.

But, was it really complete? I always had a nagging in my heart that we should adopt. We even went to a meeting about foster/adoption. With the ages of the girls at that time we felt it wasn't a good option for our family. Again, I couldn't shake the feeling. Then I started to look at waiting children and it lead to me finding so many beautiful waiting children in the US with special needs. I would send Larry different pictures of these precious children and he would answer the same, "yes they are cute but no we can't adopt them". I would continue to look. I have a teaching degree and taught early childhood special ed for 8 years before staying home with my children. I missed the special needs children I worked with but enjoyed being home with my own kids.

I started looking at the children more and the ones with down syndrome always stood out. I also found Reece's Rainbow and the need was overwhelming. I hadn't thought about adopting internationally but there are waiting lists in the US to adopt a child with DS. On top of that we weren't looking to adopt a baby. I really wanted to give a home to a child in need. We didn't need another child but another child needed us.

Larry and I went out to eat alone almost 3 years ago. I finally got up the nerve to bring it up to Larry again. I told him I felt strongly we were to adopt and then broke it to him that we are supposed to adopt a child with special needs, specifically down syndrome. I asked him to pray about it this time and see where God led him. Well shortly after that we went to an agency to talk to them. After looking at different countries we felt Hong Kong was the perfect match and the majority of the waiting children there have Down Syndrome. So we started the process with the intention to adopt a girl between the ages of 3-5 and closer to 5. My plan was that she was close to Maddie and Macy's age at that time. There was a precious little girl waiting that was almost 3 at the time. For some reason she didn't feel like she was ours. I justified it by saying she was just younger than we wanted. Another adoptive mom said when you see your child you will just know. So we kept working on the home study and waiting.

Then one day Larry happened to be home from work and we got an email from our SW of a precious little girl that just got listed. We opened the picture together and I started to cry instantly. I knew I was looking at our daughter! The only problem was she had just turned one! That is when I learned that God's plans aren't always the same as ours! On top of that she was only 14 pounds and teeny tiny. She was very much a baby but she was our baby! It was a long weekend waiting to hear if they would put her on hold for us and such a relief when we found out they did.

That is just a glimpse of our story. There is so much more before and after that I will blog about later.

These are the pictures that stole my heart the instant I saw them!