Adoptive Families

Team Green - by Cara Green

 "I drew them with gentle cords, With bands of love, And I was to them as those who take the yoke from their neck. I stooped and fed them."   Hosea 11:4

Greg and I first discussed adoption over the phone during our engagement in the fall of 2001.  The telephone wires between Alaska and Texas glowed hotly as we talked non-stop for up to 12 hours each day. We discussed every subject under the sun, and to this day there is very little I've discovered about him that I did not learn during that blessed long-distance relationship. Greg was working as a teacher for lowest level functioning autistic and otherwise disabled children who'd been abandoned and were in custody of Child Protective Services. Greg loved one boy in particular named Adrian and spoke several times about adopting him. But as we were just beginning to know the Lord and each other, we had to conclude that taking in a 12-year-old with a myriad of physical and mental handicaps was just not something we were physically, mentally, spiritually or financially prepared for. However, I believe God used Adrian to plant a seed in our hearts for adoption. We continued to speak of adopting "some day," but we had no specific goals. 

We were married the following year in June and were thrilled when we fell pregnant in July. The pregnancy was wonderful. I felt great, had more energy than ever, always felt cheerful and full of hope, fell asleep easily & slept like a baby through the whole night, never felt more than slightly nauseous...  It was the opposite of the miserable, painful, emotional monthly cycles I'd been enduring for 17 years. I never knew life could be so blissful. I wanted to stay pregnant forever!  Eight months in to the pregnancy I began having contractions which quickly advanced to being 5 minutes apart.  My midwife advised me to go the hospital. We got in the car around midnight and headed out. We knew the drill. I'd get a Pitocin shot to stop the labor. Then I'd be sent home and maybe put on bed rest for a while. The same thing had happened to many of our friends. I did get the shot, and my labor stopped. Then dozens of different doctors and nurses came in and did ultrasounds over the course of the next 10 hours. We asked them what they were seeing, but they ignored us and said nothing. Finally, one nurse showed us a large area of fluid in the baby's upper body. We were then whisked in to a little gray room where they hooked me up a better ultrasound machine. One of the head doctors pointed to the screen and said flatly, "Unfortunately, we have a terminal situation here. You can go home and wait for labor to start again on its own or we can induce you and you can deliver it today." 

We opted for the latter since the baby had already tried to come naturally. Our son Jonathan was stillborn that afternoon- on February 14, 2003. He had a myriad of birth defects, but it was a condition called Potter's Syndrome that had prevented many of his major internal organs from developing properly. We were told that once the umbilical cord was cut he would not be able to breathe on his own. Thankfully, the Lord took his life before birth, sparing us the pain of having to watch him suffocate. The indifferent hospital staff treated him horribly. He was born with a ring of bruises around his neck from their twisting his body violently from side to side (he was breech) in order to complete the delivery quickly. They cut his face from their fingernails. A dozen students were brought in to the room to watch the show. After we dressed Jonathan and spent some time with him another careless nurse came in and zipped him up in a body bag while we and several of our family members could only stare in disbelief. 

The staff's apathy is not normally something I describe in such detail, but I believe it paints a clear picture of a tremendous problem in today's world. Many societies no longer view children as blessings from God. The image of a wife as a fruitful vine has been trampled and mocked while selfish pursuits are glorified. The "child-free" movement is in full swing, as more men and women start blogs and write books heralding the amazing freedom and happiness they have found by avoiding the annoyance, expense and pain of having children. Sucking a baby limb by limb from it's mother's womb is given the same non-emotional consideration as a wisdom tooth extraction.  Still others bear children and then abuse them, throw them in the trash, or otherwise abandon them. So while it was beyond awful that Jonathan was treated so poorly, the Lord used that mistreatment to strengthen our love and appreciation for His precious gift of children. And we would need this strong belief to help move us along the path He had planned for us...

We had a lovely, unbelievably well-attended funeral for our son. In fact, the seasoned funeral home director told us it was the largest turnout he'd ever witnessed for an infant funeral. The particulars of that day are like a series of cloudy, short film clips...  An unending sea of faces and tears, a tiny white coffin, the sobs of my friend Kim holding her own pregnant belly, the strange peace that so completely enveloped me on the way home. It was His peace to be sure. As I lay in the back of a friend's vehicle, I found myself being overcome with thankfulness for the beauty of His bare, gray branches against the azure sky. And I fell asleep.

Naturally, the peace did not last forever, and we were soon overcome with longing for more children. We had hoped Jonathan would be the first of six, seven or more...  We saw no reason to limit the Lord's blessings. We had another pregnancy which ended in miscarriage a few months later. Then... nothing. Month after month we tried, prayed, hoped and failed. Months became years. Hope and anticipation were slowly replaced by fear and dread of each cycle. We tried herbs, foods, avoidances, exercise, begging, sobbing, fasting, procedures, medications, etc...  We also tried giving up, but found that a God-given desire can not simply be erased at will. So we adjusted and accepted the pain, knowing it was from Him, and trusting that it therefore was being used for good.

During our first few years of infertility a couple of domestic adoption options came our way. A young lady in our church fell pregnant with a child she could not care for and she and her family asked us if we would be willing to adopt the baby. I was all over the idea. My husband was hesitant, but after about a week of prayer he said, "Okay, let's do it."  The young woman miscarried a couple of weeks later. Someone we did not know came to us a few months later about adopting a baby with a mother in a similar situation, but in the end she decided to adopt her baby to a local pastor and his wife.

Honestly, each of these instances felt like a slap in the face, especially when coupled with the ongoing monthly disappointments. But we know now that the Lord was using those situations to give us a heart for HIS plan for our family. We were being stirred to pursue adoption seriously.  I looked in to a few options but quickly discovered that, given our low income, our chances of managing it were slim. This was one of the main reasons Greg decided to change careers after 13 years as a teacher. He taught during the day and attended school at night and through the summers. In December of 2006 we moved to Florida so he could study full-time at Palmer College of Chiropractic. Our plan was to get through the 3 1/4 year program, go back to Texas, start a practice, get to where we had a steady income, and then to finally pursue adoption. The Lord had different plans. (Doesn't He always?)

I had been praying that God would give Greg a desire to adopt sooner and that He would somehow provide a way for it to happen despite our unusual student status. In March of 2007, just after the 4-year anniversary of Jonathan's death, Greg suddenly decided, much to my surprise, that I should investigate adoption. It seemed crazy, but I wasn't about to argue. I began my research and was excited to learn that it would indeed be possible to adopt provided we could find a sponsor family to meet the income requirements. With our many friends who'd been praying for us for years we knew that getting a sponsor would be a piece of cake, but how in the world would we raise the money for the adoption expenses? I decided to start a dog & cat collar fund raising business which I was sure would solve all our problems. Ha! Every time we made a penny my sewing machine would break or something else would go wrong and we would lose all we had gained. Hours and days of work ended up yielding only a few hundred dollars in the end. Things weren't looking good financially, but I continued the research in (pitiful, weak) faith. I was quite shocked to learn of the millions of orphans around the world who needed families. I could not even fathom the kind of poverty in which many of them lived. The world was growing larger right before our eyes, and our desire to adopt began a transformation in to something much bigger and sweeter than our simple desire for a family. It became clear that God's call to care for orphans was of much greater import than our all-American dreams of watching our little ones clap with glee over a pretty shell on the beach.

We eliminated countries logically considering cost, travel requirements and the like. Finally, we were down to just a few. Haiti was among them. I contacted a Haitian orphanage I found by doing a random Google search. They never replied to my inquiry, so I just assumed we did not meet the requirements to adopt from Haiti and erased the country from my list in June of 2007. Yup, Liberia was going to be the one...  A few weeks later I received a blog comment from a stranger regarding two Christian Haitian Orphanages. I contacted these orphanages doubtfully and learned that Haitian adoption was possible for us. I then learned that Liberia was not. We considered the overwhelming number of Haitian orphans, the comparatively inexpensive cost of Haitian adoption, the close proximity to Florida, and the reasonable travel requirements- and finally decided that Haiti was indeed our county. 

I joined several Haitian adoption Yahoo groups so I could learn more about the two orphanages we were trying to choose between. This is where I met my dear friend, Cara B. We got to emailing one day and found that not only were we both named Cara and both interested in Haitian adoption...  We were living in the same town just 5 minutes away from each other! God was weaving a gorgeous tapestry we could not even imagine. 

We chose a Haitian orphanage (COTP) on the morning of September 14th. That afternoon Cara B. emailed me a photo of Justin (at Three Angels) which I forwarded to my husband. His reply was, "I like him. Let's move in his direction." So I contacted COTP apologetically and told them we'd had a change of plans. 

Greg and I (with Cara B present) met Gretchen on September 18 at Chick-Fil-A. It was there that I started bawling when she gave us permission to pursue adopting Justin. About an hour after I got home Gretchen emailed me to let me know that Peterson, another child I had inquired about during lunch, was also available if we were interested. I thought my husband would never, in a million years, say yes to adopting two children- although I'd been praying to adopt two at once for months. I was shocked when I showed him Peterson's photo and he agreed without a thought to put him on a 72-hour prayer hold. I was electrocuted when Greg walked in to the living room 5 minutes later and said he didn't want to put Peterson on a prayer hold. He told me to email Gretchen and tell her we wanted to adopt both boys! 

I began our dossier that afternoon. Money began falling from the sky...  from friends, our church, complete strangers, people we hadn't seen in years who magically "found" our blog. It was amazing! I learned that the Lord did not need my pet collar business. HE met our every need. We have, in fact, paid off our entire adoption, and have already raised a good portion of the money needed for our final trip to Haiti to bring them home- and in less than a year since we committed to the boys. I went to Haiti in December of 2007 to meet them, turn in our dossier, and have our DHS appointment. In May of 2008 we received a wonderful gift- an all expense paid trip to Haiti for both of us so that Greg could meet his sons. We stayed there as a family of four for one amazing week, and now we are just waiting for the Lord to complete what He obviously began. 

For years we worked to get to a place where WE could make adoption happen. But God isn't one to share His glory, so He lovingly placed us in a situation where we had nothing and could do nothing of our own power. He made us completely dependent on Him, so that there would be no question as to Whose adoption this really was... He then prepared for us a bountiful table in the wilderness. We chose a few years ago and then a few yeas from now. He chose today. We chose the USA and then Liberia. He chose Haiti. We chose COTP. He chose Three Angels. We chose to earn the funds ourselves. He chose to hand them to us on a silver platter. We chose non-specific children. He chose Justin and Peterson. His plan is perfect. We are finished meddling now.