In the middle of the furious action, the bigger of the two boys stops suddenly and, in a bit of pout, complains to the other that he’d been doing it all wrong.  It turns out that they were re-enacting some swashbuckling scene in which the bigger boy was supposed to defeat his friend…except that his friend wasn’t cooperating by going down.  The little one just shrugged and responded that he was tired of being the bad guy.

It was interesting to observe how clearly those boys understood the idea of roles within a narrative.  The hero is supposed to triumph over the villain, so the story goes.  Even in the middle of spirited play, there was some level of awareness that the action was supposed to unfold a certain way.

Today is my birthday.  I always feel introspective on my birthday (at least more so than usual).  I thought about those boys today and the notion of choosing roles in my life.  With varying degrees of vanity, I cast myself into certain roles and those roles, invariably, carry great importance.

This being our adoption blog, I can relate this to adoption, too.  It is with utmost sincerity that I proclaim adopting a child to be an act of courage and selflessness.  That doesn’t make me, as an adoptive parent, a selfless person, though.  In fact, there’s a great deal of selfishness and self-centeredness here.  You can see it in how I envision my role as a father: Rescuer, Benefactor, Protector, and Life-changer.  I have so many dreams for my son.  In my dreams, he will be a man of character; living a life with integrity and honor.  In my dreams, he’ll be a winsome personality, quick to make friends and beloved by those who know him.  He’ll be funny and smart and athletic and creative.  He’ll marry a wonderful woman and have many fantastic children.  He will be a good husband and a loving father.  He’ll know Jesus and live a life of worth living.

I feel – sometimes so deeply that I sense it in my bones – the need to make those dreams come true.  Those of you who are parents know what I’m talking about.  We’ve all had these thoughts.  Some of us live our lives in light of those dreams, making daily choices to usher those dreams to fruition.  Some of us, in the harsh light of reality, have already been disabused of those notions.  Regardless, we all know the type of role we’d choose for ourselves if, indeed, the choice was ours.

Today is my birthday, but it is also Christmas time.  In reflecting on the coming of Christ, my thoughts are drawn to the life of Joseph…himself an adoptive father.  We don’t know much about Joseph.  He is an often forgotten player in the narrative, infrequently celebrated.  In the retelling of Jesus’ life, his adoptive father bears little mention.  But we know that Joseph willingly and obediently played his role.  He didn’t abandon Mary.  He moved his young family to Egypt, getting them away from Herod’s murderous intent.  He eventually settled them in Galilee, fulfilling a prophecy.  He raised his son and taught him his trade, so that he could make a living.

Joseph serves as a good reminder that parenthood is not about casting myself into the central role.  His life is a reminder that parenthood is NOT about investing in some payoff down the road, but about a loving choice today.  I feel compelled to examine what motivates the dreams I have for my son.  Who and what are they ultimately about?  I want to be the kind of dad that values, as precious, every contribution I make to my son’s life.  But, I don’t want to be the kind of dad that needs that affirmation, nor do I want to be the guy that buckles under that pressure or tries to control everything because that’s the only way he can see things turning out right.  Am I wrong?  Thoughts?

Mostly, it’s a reminder that there is but one Story and God occupies the central role of said Story.  And, if I want my son to understand how his own life fits into this one Story, I need to be the kind of father that lives out his role in light of this reality, too.  So, with that last thought, our family wishes to extend to you our prayers for His blessing upon you this Christmas season!

I recently tried to obtain a copy of my own Social Security Card.  Due to discrepancy in the spelling of my middle name between federal records (passport) and state records (driver’s license), it became a big hassle.  Such are the joys of having an English middle name transliterated from a Chinese name…just like the first day of school in every grade from K-12 when teachers stumble over its pronunciation or having to spell it out while speaking to customer service over the phone.  With that in mind, the ease by which we obtained Jacob’s was a relief.

It was also significant to see our son’s name on an official government document. Although the card itself is none too impressive, looking like a dot matrix print job circa 1986, there’s still something “real” about having that card. Maybe this is made more significant in context of adoption, but our son’s name is really Jacob Dylan Chen.  That isn’t just what we’re choosing to call him…that’s him, that’s his identity.

A name is an identity.  This is the reason why corporations pay millions for naming rights to stadiums, for example.  It’s why Reliant Energy pays a whopping $10 million a year to have the Houston Texans call their football stadium Reliant Stadium, on a contract that runs through 2032.   It’s why the Houston Astros, after the Enron scandal, couldn’t wait to change the name of their baseball stadium from Enron Field to Minute Maid Park.  If you can’t buy a name, you can buy a close association.  It’s why you see corporate sponsorships on everything from the AIG on the front of Manchester United’s soccer jerseys to Lowe’s Home Improvement on Jimmie Johnson’s number 48 car to POM Wonderful pomegranate juice on the title of Morgan Spurlock’s new movie.  Since Google wouldn’t pay us to name our son Google Chrome Chen or to plaster “Google” all over his onesies, we had to put some thought into what we’d name our son.

We chose Jacob as his name, after Jacob of the Old Testament.  It was a choice rooted in hopes for our son.  The Old Testament Jacob was a flawed man with a track record of scheming, lying, and trickery.  But, he also wrestled with God and was a man who refused to settle for the circumstances he’d been born into.  He fought for a different inheritance and the blessing of God.  As we thought about this adoption, we prayed for God’s redemption to extend to baby Jacob.  We prayed that he, like his namesake, would refuse to settle for the circumstances under which he’d been born.  We prayed that he’d fight for a different destiny, a new future. We prayed that he’d be willing to wrestle God Himself for his inheritance and His blessing.

When our son was born, he was officially called “Baby Boy” by the hospital staff. He was given no other name because, for the first 2.5 days of his life, he had no other identity.  In fact, he was the only baby in the nursery because every other baby born in that hospital was with his/her mother.  Alone in an otherwise empty nursery.  No parents.  No family.  No home.  No name.

Then, we arrived.  When we showed up, suddenly he had parents who loved him already. He had two sets of grandparents. He had aunts and uncles and cousins. He had friends and community.  And he had a name:  Jacob.

Now being part of a Chinese family, we needed to give Jacob a Chinese name, too. For that, we asked my Dad to pick out a suitable Chinese name.  Chinese names are somewhat complicated and beyond our knowledge of the language to pick out. Also, with Jacob being the first Chen grandson, we wanted to honor my father in this way by having him name his grandson.

Chinese names can be full of meaning and blessing.  We were expecting Dad to pick out something very Chinese, with references to mountains and trees and lions and courage. Instead, the name he picked out was the Chinese name for Jacob of the Old Testament.  The first character is the last name, Chen.  The next two are the name Jacob.  It’s pronounced Chén Yǎ  Gè in Chinese Pinyin (2nd tone, 3rd tone, 4th tone). According to Dad, the reason he chose that as Jacob’s Chinese name is because the reasons for why we chose his English name should be the reason for all of his names.  Pretty cool, Dad…

When we say that adoption is the Gospel, we’re not talking in an illustrative sense. It isn’t simply a metaphor.  We’re not just making a comparison.  The Gospel is adoption.  So the earlier scene at the hospital is very much what happens in us when Jesus intersects our lives.  He enters in and, having chosen us, gives us a family (the Church) and a Heavenly Father.  He brings us into community and gives us a new identity and a new name (Rev. 2:17, 3:12).  All of this because He showed up.  We are His and He is ours.  Consider this as you consider why Adoption should be an important “cause” for the Body of Christ.

We had some awesome, generous friends make our stay in California an enjoyable blessing. They even threw us a celebration party on Tuesday, our last night there. They brought gifts, prayed for us, and just rejoiced with us.  Our four days in Southern California were full of blessings like that.  While it might seem like we were “stuck” in SoCal for a few days, it was more like we got to introduce our son to his California family, such was the excitement of our friends.  It was a great picture of friends, who’d shared in our sorrows, now sharing in our joy.

On Tuesday, we boarded US Air flight 548 from Orange County back to Austin. Obviously, we’ve never flown with our child before.  I do have plenty of experience flying with other people’s children, though, and that was enough to pray that Jacob would make a good traveling companion.

I’m happy to say that Jacob slept through both legs of the trip.  In fact, save for an “incident” involving diapers, peeing, and his mother (which I’ll let her retell, if she desires), he was virtually trouble-free.  It was a truly clutch performance on the part of our 10-day old.

Even so, we were pretty tired by the time our plane landed in Austin.  It was already past 11:30 pm.  By the time we gathered our things, we were one of the last people to disembark (which I suppose I should start getting used to).  Carita has Jacob and I have our carry-on bags.  As we make our way to the escalators, down to Baggage Claim, we are greeted with this sight:

Balloons. Posters. Camera flashes.  And cheering loud enough to fill all of Baggage Claim at Austin Bergstrom International Airport!

Some of our friends made a late night trip to the airport to welcome us home! Friends from our church community group, friends who work with us. Old friends and new friends.  Young friends (like Cohen Chen on his dad’s shoulders) and not-as-young friends.  Faithful, caring, loving friends.

After a long and tiring trip, during which we both felt a sense of “Okay, now comes the hard part!”, we are greeted by this heart-warming sight.  What a poignant reminder to us that we are not alone; neither in this adoption nor in life.

This homecoming also makes me think of another homecoming.  The author Frederick Buechner once wrote, “Faith is homesickness.”  The journey of our Faith is a journey HOME.  I think of the Cloud of Witnesses in Hebrews 12, of loved ones who’ll go before me, of angels singing…and of seeing Jesus face-to-face.  ”There is joy before the angels of God over one sinner that repents,” according to Luke 15. If the heavenly host rejoice over the repentance of just one of us, I can’t even imagine the scene in Heaven when all of us finally come home!

For the friends who sent us off with blessings, the friends who welcomed us home on our return, and the friends whose love and affection from afar carried us along the way:  Thank You.  You have given us a taste of Heaven.

After traveling all day, we finally arrive at Madera Community Hospital.  It’s almost 9:30 pm and it’s after hours, so we have to enter the hospital through the Emergency Room.  Surprisingly, every hospital worker we meet seems to be expecting us and we are quickly ushered to the Maternity Ward.  One nurse smilingly asks if we’re excited to meet our son.  Our son?  Wow.  Yes, our son!  We are excited beyond words.  There is a child – a boy – somewhere in this hospital who needs a family and parents to love and protect him.  We are determined to be his parents.  But, in the back of our minds, there remains the sobering possibility that it could all change when the sun comes up in the morning.

We arrive at the door to the Nursery.  I am not kidding, I felt the passing of time slow and everything seemed to unfold in slow motion.  We’re led inside and we notice, in the nursery, one solitary infant in an otherwise empty room.  Is that him?  We strain to look past the nurse’s shoulder hoping for a better glimpse. Surely, that’s our boy!  As the nurse begins to wheel his little plastic bassinet towards us, I am overwhelmed by a flood of emotions.  I find myself weeping uncontrollably at the intensity of seeing my son for the first time.  At some point in those tears, I notice Carita clinging to my arm, hand over her mouth, crying along with me.  I’ve often felt, in the 9 years of infertility, that my life was stuck. Sometimes, I felt as if a new day was just my pseudo-future, a pale imitation of what life should have been like.  But when I gazed upon the sleeping, peaceful face of our baby boy, it was as if life suddenly became very unstuck.

At that moment, one thing was very clear to us.  No, the answers to the mysteries of the Universe did not unfold before us, but it did feel like a long journey was drawing to a close.  We knew with every fiber of our being that, had our path deviated at any point in the last 9 years, we wouldn’t be holding this boy – our son – this day.  Had we gotten pregnant 9 years ago, or 8, or 7.  Had the China adoption proceeded in the expected pace.  Any of those happen and we aren’t there in Madera, California that night.  At that moment, everything that we’d endured seemed worth it.

With shaky hands, I reached for him.  Holding a newborn and knowing that there isn’t another person on earth more responsible for his well-being than you is a powerful moment.  Looking down on him, I choke out the words, “Hello, son.  I’m your dad and this is your mom.  We’ve waited so long to finally meet you.”  That’s all I can manage through the tears.

We named our son Jacob Dylan.  Jacob, after Jacob of the Old Testament.  The specific reasons for this choice we’ll share in a different blog post.  Dylan, simply because we liked it.  I did joke with the nurse that we were inspired in equal parts by Bob Dylan – the legendary rocker, Dylan Thomas – the Welsh poet, and Dylan McKay – the side burned anti-hero in the ubiquitous show Beverly Hills 90210.  I think the nurse believed me.

The nurse showed remarkable sensitivity to our situation.  We were provided two rocking chairs, a private room, and all of the time we wanted to soak up the moment.  We’re so grateful to the medical professionals at Madera Community Hospital.  I do remember holding Carita’s hand, as she took her turn holding our son.  We tried to pray a prayer of thanksgiving, but the words kept escaping us. It’s still comforting to know, that even as our words failed us, God could listen to our hearts.  Our hearts were indeed praising Him.

The rest of the time at the hospital was a blur of filling out forms, receiving baby care instructions from the nurses, and basking in the joy of the night.  Finally, we wrapped baby Jacob in some swaddling cloths and left the hospital at 11:30 pm. Our first night as a new family was spent in the Springhill Suites off of Highway 99 in Madera, California.  There has never been a more joyous night of sleepless child care than ours on March 22.  We got a couple of hours of sleep that night.

As the sun rose on March 23, we both knew it would be a momentous day. The birth mother was supposed to sign her Parental Rights Termination papers today. Once she did that, we would sign our own documents, assuming full legal responsibility over the Jacob.  Once signed, these papers would be binding and irrevocable.  She could also, for whatever reason, refuse to sign it. That morning should have been full of tension due to the uncertainty.  Instead, we felt an indescribable peace from the Lord.  The old hymn, “All the Way My Savior Leads Me” was on my mind that morning:

All the way my Savior leads me, what have I to ask beside

Can I doubt His tender mercy, who through life has been my guide…

…For I know whatever befall me, Jesus doeth all things well.

While we wait at the hotel for the lawyers to arrive, we have lunch at the restaurant across the street.  Our first family meal.  It’s a greasy diner off the highway in the middle-of-nowhere-California-town called Madera. That meal wouldn’t have been more special had it been in the fanciest restaurant, in the most beautiful setting on earth.  Of course, Baby Jacob slept through the whole meal.

At 4:45 pm, our lawyer, Ted, and his wife, Sheryl, finally walk into the hotel lobby. There are big smiles on all of our faces and hugs all around.  The birth mother signed the papers, without hesitation!  As they tell us more about their interaction with her, we get the sense that God is writing a much bigger story here than just our adoption story.  Ted and Sheryl tell us about the small ways that redemption is entering into the birth mother’s life and how, through all of this, there are glimmers of hope that she can turn her life around…that she might one day experience her own redemption through the Cross.  We are elated, inspired, and humbled that God assigned us roles in this narrative that is still unfolding.

On March 23, 2011 at 5:12 pm, Carita and I sign the four pages of documents that now give us the legal rights as Jacob’s parents. More importantly, we receive the spiritual stewardship of raising Jacob as our son.  We have never felt more dependent on the grace of God, nor more confident in the sufficiency of that grace.

There’s so much more I could write, but those will wait for future posts.  For now, we are content to let this story come to an end, as we look forward to a new beginning as a family.

In closing, here is a picture of our son, Jacob Dylan Chen.  I hope you enjoyed this ride with us.  For those who, in tears and in hope over these many years, beseeched the Lord on behalf of our family, reflect on His answered prayer and the knowledge that Jesus doeth all things well.

Here is the world, son. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid.

Our everyday lives were put on hold as we hustled to take care of details.  The first week of March passes by and no baby, yet. Going into the next week, we figure it’s going to be any day now.  Sitting on pins and needles doesn’t begin to describe how we felt…

On Saturday, March 12th, we receive a call from Ted.  Once we decided to pursue this adoption, we’d been free of doubt regarding whether this was what God intended for us.  Now, Ted was telling us the the birth mother was having doubts about us adopting.  Was she just getting nervous?  Did she have hesitations about us as people?  Is she even considering what’s best for the baby boy?

We will probably never understand how difficult of a decision it is to choose to give up your child.  How difficult it must be to see the upside of those choices?  Birth mothers who make that choice, against all odds and in the face of the “convenience” of abortion, often do so under horribly stressful circumstances.  So, we weren’t completely shocked to hear that she was having doubts.  We still hoped and prayed that God would somehow calm her nerves, help her to consider the welfare of the child, and ultimately choose us.

On Monday, March 14th, we get another call from Ted’s office.  The worst thing we could conceive, in our grimmest imaginations, was actually happening.  The birth mother changed her mind and no longer wanted us to adopt.  After all of the positives steps forward in this adoption, she decided that she’d rather one of her relatives take custody of the boy.  We knew, from all reports, that there were no “good” situations within her family.  What made things worse was that, once she decided that we weren’t going to adopt, we had zero access to any information.  We wouldn’t know when she’d deliver, what hospital she’d be at, nothing.  There was no closure, no explanation as to why.  Selfishly, we couldn’t believe that she’d backed out.  More importantly, we couldn’t believe that this was the outcome God intended.  It was a loss and a sense of desolation far worse than anything we’d endured thus far in our infertility and adoption journey.  We felt completely cast aside.

Seriously?  C’mon, God.  After all that we’ve gone through, over the years and in the last two weeks?  We were beyond crushed. This felt like an incredibly elaborate hoax, cruelly played out by God and we were the ones being punked.  We never went after this…why did He have to bring this to us?  If He was going to say no, why did He say yes in so many smaller ways leading up to this?

In nine years of infertility, we never allowed ourselves the choice to purchase baby-related items, never picked out kids’ names, never made any plans as if children were a certainty.  But, this adoption was like kicking over an ant pile and it set things in frenzied motion. Our house was littered with the remnants of our hope deferred: the stroller that we’d picked out three days ago, a bassinet filled with baby clothes, a study in need of conversion into a baby room.  We’d even given the boy, our son, a name.

We spent the next week in a haze of sadness and regret.  A part of us sensed that God wanted us to keep hoping, but I found it difficult to attach that hope to anything.  And attaching it only to God didn’t feel all that reliable at the moment. Carita’s faith amazed me, though.  The substance of her faith was, once again, revealed through fire.  While I crawled into my hole to lick my wounds, she cried out to God and pressed harder after Him.  What an amazing woman…

On Sunday, March 20th, we got yet another phone call.  This one was from Madera Community Hospital in Madera, California. We were informed that at 4:20 that morning, the birth mother had given birth to a healthy baby boy.  The hospital social worker said that the birth mom’s preferred option to adopt him had fallen through and that she was, once again, wanting us to adopt.

There was one catch:  We have to travel to California before anything is finalized or the baby boy will be taken by social services and placed in a foster home, pending resolution of this adoption.  The hospital needed to know whether we’d be willing to travel out there to take custody of the baby boy.

This was what we’d been hoping against all hope to happen – that she’d pick us. But was this just another false lead? Would the birth mom change her mind again? Would a blood relative appear at the 11th hour to take him away?  In our hearts, this boy was already our son.  The thought of him spending even a single night in foster care seemed unacceptable.  At the same time, the possibility of us traveling to California to hold our son for a couple of days…and then have him taken away was a nightmare beyond reckoning.

What are we willing to risk for this child, who would be our son?  What are we willing to lay on the line and hand over to God, by faith?  So, with as much faith as our wounded hearts can muster, we make arrangements to fly out to California. And by faith, we believe that we will be bringing our son home.

Almost a year ago, we were returning to the U.S. from our sabbatical.  At the airport in Frankfurt, Germany, we logged on to our Facebook accounts and noticed a message from friend and co-worker, Don Diva.  Don knew of an adoption attorney in Southern California who was looking for potential candidates interested in adopting an Asian child.  Would we be interested? Until then, we never considered adopting domestically.  Too complicated, too messy, too risky.  There was something more appealing (and seemingly safer) about International Adoption because we could remain blissfully ignorant of whatever calamity surrounded the conception and birth of that orphan.  But, after praying about this throughout our flight back to the U.S., we knew that God wanted us to be open to this. Ultimately, that adoption case turned out to be a dead end.  Much ado about nothing.  It seemed to us like God just wanted us to open ourselves to the possibility of domestic adoption.  A lesson in submission, perhaps?

On February 22, 2011, we got another call from Ted, the same California attorney that we connected with a year ago.  He was calling because he had a client, an Asian American woman, who was looking for an Asian couple to adopt her baby boy.  This woman was due to deliver March 1st and time was of the essence.  Are we interested?

In over 25 years of practicing adoption law in Southern California, Ted has only seen a handful of Asian babies put up for adoption and has NEVER had an Asian couple sign up to be adoptive parents.  Somehow, God brings us back to his mind even though we had the briefest of interactions a year prior.  We were the only candidates that fit the birth mother’s criteria.  It would either be us adopting or the boy would be in foster care.

We hadn’t thought about domestic adoption even once since we last spoke to Ted. Our hearts remained focused on waiting out the time until we adopted from China. But, as Ted went over the available details surrounding this woman’s pregnancy and desire to put her child up for adoption, our hearts broke.  For so long, we had been afraid of domestic adoption precisely because of circumstances like hers.  Too complicated, too messy, too risky…right?  But, when confronted with a real-life situation and the future of real-life baby, the one thing we distinctly sensed the Lord communicating to us was, “Do not be afraid.  Bring this to me in prayer and see what I will do.”

When we prayed, we were continuously brought back to the Gospel.  Galatians 4:4-7 resonated like a hundred church bells in our hearts.

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.  And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying “Abba!  Father!”  So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

Every time I thought about adopting this child, I would be reminded of the fact that we are all orphans, ransomed back to the family of God as nothing short of sons and heirs through the blood of Christ.  The Doctrine of Adoption became more real, more precious, and more beautiful to me than ever before.  Every point of fear and hesitation that we had about adopting this child was overcome by God in His adoption of me.  Dealing with complications and hassles?  Rescuing out of dark and dire circumstances? Coming at great expense?  Crossing barriers of morality and culture?  Jesus overcame all of those obstacles and more, in infinitely greater measures, in order to adopt me.  The fact that this unborn child already faced a future in foster care screamed of the opportunity to live out the Gospel through adoption.

The next day, on February 23, we called Ted back and told him that we would like to start the process of adopting this soon-to-be-born baby boy.  In what might seem to be a short time, we had arrived at a point of certainty that God wanted us to adopt this child.  Sometimes, we still find ourselves surprised by things that we’re anticipating.  But, like all of the truly best surprises, we never saw this one coming!  In about 24 hours, being parents went from something far-off and beyond our grasp (like it’d always felt) to something imminent.  Imminent as in something that could happen in less than a week!

Looking back, it’s a good thing that we felt certain.  We would need that sense of certainty in order to face what was ahead…

June of 1999 – Tonight is our date night and we arrive for dinner at the not-quite-famous Novotel, one of only two hotels in town that serves “Western” food.  A Summer Project missions trip in East Asia can be a damper in the romance department.  We’re looking forward to getting away, for a night, from the responsibility of leading our team.  At this time (and in this place), nothing spells “romance” like a dinner of faux spaghetti and meatballs at the Novotel!  We notice a large group of foreigners dining together. Americans, probably.  Clearly, these people are not long-term residents.  Those ridiculous fanny packs are a dead give away.  We also notice that these foreigners all have small Asian babies with them.

“Hey, I think they’re all here to adopt those kids,” I lean over and whisper to Carita, mastering the obvious.

“Yeah, isn’t that cool?  Do you ever see us adopting?  I’d love to adopt someday.  Look at them…they look so happy!” Carita gushes.

“Well, I’m not sure.  I haven’t thought much about adopting…maybe after we have our own kids?  We can pray about it, I guess.”

That night, back in our rooms, we pray a simple prayer.  Carita wants us to pray that God would, according to His will, allow us to adopt.  That is way too specific (and, frankly, determined) for my taste.  Preferring something more ambiguous, I simply pray that God would show us His heart, to do what was necessary to help us know Him better (and if it maybe, possibly involved adoption in some way, I’d consider it).  Only one year into marriage, we have no idea what He has in store. Be careful what you pray for, though…

February of 2002 – It’s a cold, rainy day in Hong Kong.  We make our way from the Causeway Bay MTR stop to the high-rise jungle above, searching for what seems to be an especially hard-to-find address of one Dr. Tsai.  We’ve been having problems conceiving since the Fall of 2001.  In fact, Carita is not ovulating and, after a few months, seeing a specialist seems like the quickest way to solve our problem.  We have a plan, after all.  According to our schedule, we were to start a family last Fall, wait a couple years, and have kiddo #2…and so on.  Living overseas in East Asia makes finding doctors challenging, but Dr. Tsai turns out to be a pretty funny guy, telling us stories about his years living and practicing medicine in Chicago.  Overall, it’s a very positive consultation and we’re feeling hopeful that the medication he prescribed will get things “back on track.”

“Falling behind a little bit in our master plan is okay, but Lord, would you please allow this visit to the doctor to fix whatever is wrong?”

May of 2007 – One of the reasons for coming back to America in 2003 was to start a family.  The doctor’s office calls and informs us that, after a surgery and subsequent procedure, our first fertility treatment failed.  We waited eleven days…eleven very anxious days…to hear that our now-five-year-plus struggle for children would continue.  We wonder when it’ll finally be our turn?  Most of our peers are years into parenting by this age.  Watching as couple after couple experiences what we long to experience ourselves…can we keep the seeds of bitterness from taking root?

“Lord, what are you intending here?  Are you even there?  Do you hear us at all, see the pain we’re in???  We know that there’s a choice here: to trust you or to curse you.  We believe in your goodness; help our unbelief.”

June of 2009 – We are finally finished with our adoption “dossier” for China.  With all the paperwork prepared, we’re about to drop this all-important dossier in the mail.  Our minds drift back to the Summer of ’99 and that fateful date night at the Novotel and later, when we prayed for the first time as a couple regarding adoption. The excitement is palpable and we’re both sensing the significance to the moment. By sending this out, we’ll officially be in the “process of adopting” a child from China!  Thoughts of parenthood run rampant in our heads.  We’re expecting about a 2-year wait…but after seven years of infertility, two years seems hardly worth noting.  Besides, we have one last fertility treatment…maybe this time, the result will be positive!

“Oh, Lord, after all this time, will you finally answer our prayers for a family?  Long have you known our heart’s desire.  Would it be so that this chapter of our lives draws to an end.”

July of 2009 – Spending a month in California sounds awesome, in theory.  But not under these circumstances.  We just spent the last few weeks in Orange County, undergoing our very last fertility treatment with yet another doctor.  The last in several attempts over the last two years.  After this, no matter how it turns out, we’re through.  Finished.  All done.   That is something that we both agree on. There is only so much money, time, and energy  that we have to give. That doesn’t even take into account subjecting ourselves to disappointments and Carita to the pain of nightly shots and other medical hardships.  The doctor calls us this afternoon.  Carita’s blood work is back and, no, we are not pregnant.  Bitter disappointment, again, for what feels like the thousandth time.  This was to be the last stop on the last train of our infertility journey.  This was supposed to be when God would, finally, answer the prayers of so many.  It would’ve been a very dramatic story.

“After seven years of trusting you, submitting to your timing and your will, we feel like you’ve left us with nothing to show for it.  Don’t you think you owe us more than this?!?  The fact that we are now also waiting to adopt from China provides a small comfort, but it’s hard NOT to wonder how else you might frustrate those plans, too, given how you’ve stymied everything so far…”

February 19, 2011 – Recent updates from China put our “turn” in the Endless Wait that is China Adoption at still two years away. Even so, Carita wants me to attend yet another Adoption Conference with her.  She thinks there might be more we can learn. My attitude, on the other hand, falls along the lines of, “I’d rather not learn anything else…it’s been two years already…until it stops feeling like a pipe dream and actually starts to feel real.”  Unsurprisingly, Carita wins that contest of wills and we attend the Conference.  What was surprising, though, was that we sit in on two optional breakout sessions about Domestic Adoption and Fostering To Adopt.

Something was changing within our desires to adopt, to have a family.  It’s been gradual, taking place over the last few years. Having children is still our dream and adoption was a way to attain it.  But, we find that our desire for kids now shares center stage with a desire to see God bring redemption into this world through adoption.  The Gospel is an adoption story, after all. Early on, our desire for kids was our near-singular focus.  That it happened to be considered a “good cause” was a convenient thing.  Somewhere in the last few years, it’s become much bigger than just what we want.

“We’ll check out those sessions about Domestic Adoption…but surely you’re not calling us to do that.  I mean, we’re locked into an International Adoption from China.  You started this in 1999.  Yeah, it’s taking much longer than expected, but that’s your department, isnt’ it?  Surely it’s what you have planned for us all along…right?”

We had no idea that on the following Tuesday, February 22nd, we would receive a call that would change everything…

Our China adoption is still about two more years away.  (The reasons for the dramatic slowdown in China adoptions, even in comparison to a year ago, will have to wait for another posting.)  Finding stuff to talk about regarding adoption hasn’t been hard.  Finding the motivation to write about those things, with the “finish line” still so far away, has been the challenge.

God, however, has a way of springing surprises upon us.  Proverbs 16:9 says, “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.”  And, so we’re back on the blogging bandwagon, determined again to record the ups and downs, joys and sorrows of this wonderful, awe-inspiring endeavor that is adoption.

The reason for our renewed vigor is that, on March 23, 2011, we adopted a baby boy via domestic adoption!  Early Sunday morning, March 20, 2011, Jacob Dylan Chen was born in Madera, California.  We travelled out to California to pick him up on Tuesday, March 22.  The next day, Wednesday, March 23,  we signed legal documents to adopt Jacob as our son.

These are the basic facts.  But, you know there is a much bigger story behind these simple statements.  Rather than one mega blog post where we put forth all of the details, thoughts, and emotions surrounding this most joyous of occasions, we’ll try and divide things into more manageable sizes in the next few posts.  Consider it a mini-reboot of our adoption story.  We want to capture these thoughts before life proceeds too far ahead because:

1. We want to celebrate the answering of a near-decade long prayer for children and a family.
2. We pray for the opportunity, through our story, to minister to those who are struggling in the midst of waiting on God (especially those wrestling with God regarding infertility & adoption).
3. We pray that God might use our experiences to fan the flame for the Cause of Adoption, which we believe to be one of the most significant opportunities for the Body of Christ to live out the Gospel.

For those of you who’ve actually stuck by the RSS feed on this blog or who periodically still check in, thanks for doing that.  We hope you enjoy it as we retell how our life has changed.  In the meantime, we welcome all of you to rejoice with us in this time! We are blessed beyond words.

In our paperwork that we sent in, we were able to put in our specific requests for what age and gender we are hoping for.  We have always believed that God has always known who would be a part of our family even before we became a family.  But we did include our requests.

WHAT ARE WE ASKING FOR?

BOY OR GIRL? So even though we know there are many little girls in the orphanages in   China, we put that we have no preference for either a boy or a girl.  In addition, we said that we would REALLY desire to have twins.  It would be so wonderful if the twins are one boy and one girl, but most likely, if we do get twins it’ll be two girls.  Are we crazy?  Many people may think that, but we would love our children to at least know one biological relative.  Regardless of whether we adopt one or two children from China, he or she will most likely not know who his or her birth parents are.  There usually is no record of this information since most children are abandoned.

Even when we were going through infertility treatments, our hope was that the Lord would bless us with twins.  Dennis and I have always thought it would be wonderful to have a set of twins as we know several sets of twins who have incredible relationships with their twins. That type of a relationship is so special, and if the Lord allows us to raise twins, we would welcome that challenge!

Of course, being matched with twins doesn’t happen very often, but it’s also not impossible.  In fact, since we started our adoption process, our agency has matched two families with a set of twins.  Of course, if we are matched with a single child adoption, we would be 100% delighted and grateful as well.

WHAT AGE? If we have a single-child adoption, we have asked to adopt a child that is 12 months or younger.  If we do get matched with twins, we are asking that they be 24 months or younger.

Knowing this and how long the wait is right now, makes us realize that our child(ren) isn’t even born yet.  It’s a strange thing to think about since we are so eagerly awaiting the news of getting matched with a child, but in the meantime, a woman and her family will have to deal with an unwanted pregnancy and go through the pain of giving up her child.  It’s hard to think about that, but thinking about that always reminds me of how God had to go through the pain of giving up His only child so that we could have life in Christ.

HOW MUCH LONGER? We had mentioned before that couples of Chinese decent are on an expedited track.  However, this expedited track is still about a 2 year wait.  In fact, this month’s newsletter from our agency stated that expedited couples that had their log-in date from April 17-23, 2007 were just matched this month.  So the actual wait right now for expedited couples is closer to 30 months, 2 1/2 years!  As a reminder, our log-in date is August 21, 2009.  So at this current rate, we won’t get our match until February 2012.  *sigh*

It is a bit disheartening to think about how much longer we have to wait, so we would love to have you join us in praying for hearts that will persevere in trusting in God’s perfect timing.  As we wait, we want to be people who are content in the wait and in what God still wants from us before we become parents.  We know there’s a lot to learn and prepare for, and we want to be good stewards of these years before us.  We are not so naive as to believe our lives won’t change after having kids.

I wold like to hope that the time line will speed up, but there is nothing guaranteeing that right now.  We’ll be sure to let you know if it does though.

So for now, we continue to wait for Chen X.

Then on August 14th, our agency told us that our papers had all been translated and our dossier was being mailed to China.  At that point, I was definitely nervous.  I know they take every precaution to make sure the papers don’t get lost on their way to China, but after all the work we put into that dossier, I was definitely praying and anxious to hear of its safe arrival to the China Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA).  After almost a week of being nervous, on August 19th, we received word that our dossier had been hand delivered to CCAA.  What a relief!  To me, that was like getting to hear the baby’s heartbeat for the first time at an ultrasound appointment.

At this point in the process, it is typical to have to wait up to 3 weeks before we receive what is referred to as our official log-in date (LID).  Even if we were adopting a waiting child (a child with special needs), they said it’d take up to 1 week.  However, today, after only 5 days, we were told that we have our LID.  So officially, our LID is August 21, 2009!  It only took CCAA 2 days to review our dossier!  Anytime things go faster than expected in this process, it’s definitely worth celebrating over.

The significance of this LID is that it’s basically our number in line.  China matches families with children according to their LID, which works very much like when you take a number at your grocery store deli counter.  You get “served” according to your LID.  For couples who are of Chinese descent, we are classified as expedited couples.  Currently, expedited couples with log-in dates from April 10, 2007 have just received their matches.  As you can see, it is taking over two years even for expedited couples to get their matches.

At this point, we wait and at a later point, we’ll have to update some of our paperwork since some of it will expire while we wait.  It’s not too disappointing, since we know that’s part of the process.  We’ll just continue to take it one day at a time.

What we are most excited about today is that there is a date to pray toward.  We have been told that it should be no longer than 24 months from our LID when we’ll receive our match.  Would you all please pray with us that the Lord would continue to move in this and bless us with a match in less than 24 months?  We trust that whatever length of time we have to wait is what will lead us to the child/children God has planned for us; however, to be honest, waiting is never easy, right?

Everyday I pray for our child/children, knowing that he/she may not even be conceived yet.  We are looking forward to the day when we’ll get our match and get to actually see a face to this child we are praying for.  In the meantime, our hearts are already filled with so much love for our future baby/babies.