Hindsight

“Hindsight is 20/20” they say.  Who is they, anyway?

I received a packet in the mail last week that caused me to pause long enough to look at Ty’s adoption story in hindsight.  And in 20/20 vision, I saw God’s handwriting all over it.  Remember how I already mentioned other ways that he’s a miracle baby here?  Well add this story to the list.

We had very little warning that by the end of April 17, 2008, we would be starting a year long (to the day) adoption journey to bring home a little boy. Unlike other adoption stories, our referral didn’t come after a long, excruciating wait.  It kind of fell God placed it into our laps.

Patrick had wanted to adopt since high school.  He figured why bring more and more children into the world when there were so many already here that needed families.  When we met and he mentioned adoption, it felt a little lot hypocritical to be against it since I consider myself a successful adoption story. 

Starting as far back as the spring of 2007, we started researching our options.  We considered foster care and international adoptions.  We came to the conclusion that fostering wasn’t for us, yet, AND international adoption was too expensive AND maybe God was calling us to start an adoption ministry and fee free agency instead.  (Sorry for that run-on and the ones that follow).  We figured after we had helped improve the system to be less expensive, we would then see what God had.

On the afternoon of April 16, I was looking a Brittany’s Hope’s website as part of our research on what we wanted our new ministry to look like.  They had a waiting children’s page.  Obviously, I went straight for S. Korea’s page.  I was suprised to see a couple children (2 boys, specifically) that seemed to have special needs we could handle AND were already matched with grants to ease the financial burden.  On a whim At God’s prodding, I emailed the link to Patrick.  He came home and said, “There were these 2 boys.”  We narrowed it down to a cute little boy who had been born 15 weeks early and had some developmental delays but otherwise seemed healthy.

On April 17, I set out (with Patrick’s blessing) to “find a little more information.”  I was only cautiously optimistic because I know that these listing are often outdated and I was pretty sure an almost-healthy child with grant money, such as this one, would surely be matched by now.  I was connected to E (who very well may have been an angel of the Touched By An Angel type).  She informed me that one can’t just get a “little more information” but the little boy’s file was not claimed AND we could have it and 2 weeks to decided whether we wanted him as only one family can review the file at a time. <insert similey face with eyes bugging out of head here>.  In 20 minutes, I had a very large email that contained pictures, background info, and full medical reports.  The little boy’s name was Tae Yang.  We affectionately dubbed him TY for short.

Over the next 2 weeks, we prayed a lot and had the file reviewed by a doctor who specializes in such thing.  I’m not sure what she could have told us that would have made us say “NO.”  We were pretty much sold–hook, line, and sinker (as only a fishing family could be).  Having a medical review just seemed like a wise thing to do at the time…probably still is.  Oh, and E informed me she was just an intern, would be moving on at the end of the week, and left us in the care of another staff worker. 

I’m not kidding about this angel thing.

Once we accepted the referral, we found out we had to transfer it to our state from the PA agency where it resided.  Because the referral was with Holt (a specific agency in Korea), we had to work with a Holt licensed agency in our state.  Ironically, this turned out to be the same agency (and many of the some social workers) from which my siblings and I were adopted.  It was like coming home (or at least full circle). 

About half way into our process, we found out were were actually not eligible for the grant that first wooed us to the waiting child referral because our agency was not an “affiliate.”  Only, in God’s infinite wisdom, right?  While we were fighting for our grant money, I found out that we never should have received Ty’s referral in the first place.  Apparently, Brittany’s Hope grant recipient children are not supposed to be transferred out of state.  This is when I started thinking E was a stragtegically placed angel who let Ty’s file “slip” into our hands.

Fast forward a year and 4 months after a lot of paperwork, waiting, more waiting, more paperwork, traveling, and adjusting.

I decided that I should have saved the blurb that appeared in Ty’s waiting child listing.  Of course, now it’s no where to be found so I try emailing the original agency in PA to see if they have it.

Jackpot, they had it and some MRI files that we should have had anyway.  Divine intervention is great, isn’t it?  Wait, I’m just getting to the REALLY cool part.  So the package comes in the mail and I pull out his waiting child flyer and read:

“‘Tyler’ is a handsome little guy from Korea.”

It takes a minute to sink in that someone (maybe E) nick-named Ty, Tyler, months before we ever laid eyes on him. 

I don’t know about you, but I love when God shows up like that.  I mean, I know he’s omnipresent, but you get what I mean…I hope.