Adoption: The Twit Family

My story begins during our first year of marriage. I joined a women’s bible study group from my church.  Most of the women in the bible study had children and many had older children.  Mary Beth Chapman was in my small group that year and I remember her asking us to pray for her, because her 13 year old daughter, Emily, was trying to convince them that they needed to adopt a baby girl from China.  They had no plans to add any more children to their family.  I was so encouraged by watching God change Mary Beth’s heart and seeing their family adopt Shaohannah from China.  When they brought her to church for the first time, I ran into them in the hall and was very pregnant with our first son, Cooper.  I had no idea at that point in our life that their story would influence part of our story.

Cooper had to be delivered by c-section. In the middle of the c-section, the epidural did not work at all.  I felt them cutting me and screamed for help.  They gave me more meds in my IV and I struggled to stay awake to watch my son come out. 

They next time I got pregnant, with our second son, Isaac, I told them that the epidural did not work the first time and that I wanted the attending doctor to put it in to make sure it worked. He did and it seemed to work.  Then they started the section and I felt the same horrible pain return.

After two sections with failed epidurals, I just could not imagine going through that pain again.  I knew I had always wanted a girl, but right now that dream of having a girl from my body was fading. 

Then one day, I walked into the garage to get something and noticed two things.

The first was my baby doll crib that I had saved for my daughter one day.  The other was a box of my old ballet recital costumes.  Both of these my boys would never use.  It just struck me that I really needed to explore these longings to have a girl more fully.  I had always thought the idea of adoption was beautiful and really wanted to talk someone about it.  There was an adoption seminar at a local church coming up so I talked to my husband and convinced him that we should attend.  He was not sold on adoption, but was open to exploring it.  So I signed us up and we spent the day hearing stories about adoption. 

One of the stories was from Mary Beth and Steven Curtis Chapman who talked about their adoption.  There were other friends we knew there that had already come home with their baby.  It was a big day for us.  I was already sold before even going, but I was praying that Kevin would be convinced by the end of the day. For him I think his reservations were a lot more about the money.  We heard over and over that day about the money you spend to get your child should be thought of as their “ransom”.  It was a good image for us to think through.  Jesus gave his life to be a ransom for many.  The money it would take to bring our girl home seemed like a small price when you think of what Jesus had to give up for us.  The images of babies in orphanages were powerful and very emotional. 

I will never forget us talking in the car on the way home.  I asked him what he thought now about us adopting.  He said, “Let’s do it!”  My heart about jumped out of my chest!  I dropped him off at home to see the boys and went out to get two things.  I got a journal that day to start writing to my little girl about this process and Chinese food to celebrate!

I started my journal that night in Oct. 03.  Amelia was already in her birth mother’s belly that day.  It is wonderful to have a record of what I was feeling and praying for her.  We took a trip to Paris in March of 04, just the two of us, to celebrate and get a much needed break from two small boys.  We took Amelia’s journal with us.  I wrote several times to her on that trip.  Little did I know, that week was the week she was born and abandoned.  I love looking back through my journal and figuring out that I had prayed, and what I had prayed for her, the week she lost so much.

This process was different than being pregnant. In the adoption world, the paper process is referred to as being “paper-pregnant”.  The next several months were full of taking care of two little boys and also gathering the many things needed for our dossier.  We could not turn in everything until I turned 30, so we had some time.  We turned in all the final paperwork and sent it to China Sept. 04.  Now all we could do was wait.  At that point in China, we had some idea of the timeline.  People were waiting about 6 months from the time they turned in their paperwork (dossier) to the time they got a picture (referral).  If that remained true for us, we expected to see our daughters’ face by early spring and then go get her sometime in May 05. 

We did a few things to prepare for her.  I planted some bulbs that fall and told the boys that when these flowers started to bloom, we will be close to seeing your sister’s picture.  This gave them something tangible to watch for.  It is hard to explain the long wait time to such little boys.  I painted her room pink and started to dream about the way I wanted to decorate it. 

I also joined a yahoo China adoption discussion group.  I learned all kinds of information about the trip we were preparing for.  I also got to follow others and watch their lives.  I loved getting to see others go through this process and I think it helped me so much to see others get their baby.  It gave me hope that this process was leading to my daughter.  It was still very hard for me to wait. 

I had to lean on Jesus during that time so much.  This was a good thing, because most of my life, I had things under control and loved Jesus, but I really had to trust Him now.  I knew my daughter was in China, and probably born, because if we only had to wait 6 months for a picture and she had to be 6 months old before she could be adopted.  That meant that by the time I started the official “wait time” (after my dossier was sent), she WAS somewhere in China.  I really started to feel connected to her at that time.  I know that sounds strange, and my husband did not feel connected with her until she was in his arms.  I started to think about her in the orphanage and pray that Jesus would meet her needs even if I could not.  I had to believe God was big enough to be with us in the US and be wherever she was in China.  I had to believe that He would be her comfort at night, even if she cried and no one picked her up to comfort her.  It was out of my control and hard, but I knew that God had everything, even her heart, fears and tears, in His hands.  Here is a something I wrote in Amelia’s journal Nov. 04 while we were waiting:

“ Dear Sweet Amelia,

Today at church, we took communion.  We do it every week, but this time when they said to come down, I was one of the first to jump up and flee to Jesus.  That is what my heart was doing, fleeing to Jesus.  I don’t live in that place of always wanting and needing Jesus, so it was a wonderful kiss from heaven. God leads me from His kindness, to that sanity of needing Jesus. 

My heart is heavy tonight with the thought of you, my daughter, somewhere in China.  Who is holding you today and rocking you to sleep?  Are you happy or sad?  Do you feel loved or peace tonight?  What makes your eyes light up?  These questions haunt me and will for months.  I asked myself at the table tonight, “Is Jesus big enough to meet me in this sadness and yearning?  Does He know these feelings, truly?”  As the tears rolled down my face and a few fell into my mouth, I tasted the saltyness.  This seemed right to have another vivid taste in my mouth.  This is what the Lord’s Supper is doing…waking us up with a tangible reality to the love of Jesus.  As I had the brief taste of salt, I wondered about the Garden and if Jesus tasted His own blood-stained sweat that was dripping down.  If not at the Garden, then certainly at the Cross.  There was sadness and yearning in his heart.  There was also the full knowledge of God and HOPE.  There is hope for me to walk through this story with Jesus.  He knows you and He is weaving our stories together.  May the God of hope give us both hope and peace tonight.

Love,

Your mommy who waits for you”

The cold winter months dragged on until finally one day the boys checked the bulbs.  The little green shots were poking out of the the ground.  The “chatter” on the yahoo groups was that the next wave of referral pictures was getting close!  I knew that our group could be on the bubble of getting cut off until next month, so I tried not to get my hope up too high.  I was still a ball of emotions!  The morning that we heard the referrals were coming in for others on the yahoo groups, we heard another agency had only gotten referrals up to the first week of Sept. log in date.  We were logged in mid-sept. and I left the house to go to the Y to meet a friend.  I could not bear to watch the excitement with this news that we might not get the “call” today.  At the end of my work-out, my husband call and said that he had walked past my computer still on and wanted to give me an update.  Someone in our agency posted they had gotten referrals through the END of Sept!!  “That means I need to come home, because they WILL call us today!!!”  I got off the phone and looked at my friend and said I had to go and started cryng in disbelief!  I cried all the way home and most of the day, until we got the “call” about 2:30pm.  I can’t find a word to express how happy we were. 

The next day, the Fed-Ex guy was bringing our picture of our daughter.  We called the Fed-Ex guy “the stork”.  I was shaking when he handed us the thin paper envelope.  This was going to change our life forever.  I felt like I was in a strange “delivery room” about to see my baby’s face for the first time.  Tears flooded my eyes when I ripped the envelop open to see the most beautiful little girl I had ever seen.  I just could not believe God had given us such a beauty!  Part of her Chinese name the orphanage had given her was “Mei”, which means “beautiful”.  We thought Amelia Mei was a perfect name for her. 

 The next month and a half we spent getting ready to go to China to pick her up.

I just about stared a hole in the picture we got.  I could not wait to hold our baby!  Another thing we did was contact Research China to see if he would find Amelia’s “finding ad”.  This was a tiny picture that China was required to put in the local paper after a baby was found.  It had a brief description of the place they found the baby, day, and approximate date of birth.  They did send us the finding ad before our trip to China.  I remember how I cried that day.  I mourned the fact that this was such a hard part of Amelia’s story.  For me, the hard part was waiting.  For her, she had to be abandoned.  She had to go through the sorrow of losing the voice she knew in the womb.  She had to lose so much at such a young age.  I knew this was how God was going to get our daughter to us, but I wish she did not have to go through so much.  I also mourned for Amelia’s birth mom.  It was so hard to imagine what that woman went through to give Amelia a chance at life.  I am sure her birth mother loved her.  She could have aborted her, like many chose to do in China.  She chose to give Amelia a chance.  I am always grateful for that. 

When we finally got to China, we were both so excited!  It is hard to put into words the emotions we felt that day.  We made part of our trip into a movie that you can watch online and you can read about our daily journal there too.

Adoption taught me so much about love.  I learned more of the love of our Father in heaven to give up His Son so that He could rescue us.  Jesus paid our ransom with His life.  This was the payment needed so that we could be adopted into God’s family and have all the full benefits of  being sons and daugthers of  a Father that will never let us go.  It was beautiful to see Amelia change during the year after we brought her home.  We saw how love can open someone up and change them to be more secure.  We have seen through the years the fears disappear as the love of our family for her becomes more real.  My prayer is that you experience that love of Jesus setting you free from your fears as you see the power of His transforming love…

Once we got back, my husband secretly copied Amelia’s journal and gave it to our talented friend Sandra McCracken to turn it into a song.  He surprised me that  Christmas with the sweetest present.  You can hear.  

Here are the words: Sweet Amelia

How long my restless arms have ached for you

Here on the ocean’s edge I wait for you

A ransom and a child

A letter in July

I wanna take you home

Sweet Amelia

I pray tonight that I could be the one

To show you love like you have never known

Where do you sleep tonight

Who holds you when you cry

I wanna take you home

Sweet Amelia

How I have somehow loved you all my life

I want to take you in my arms tonight

Your picture in the post

The days are coming close

I want to take you home

Sweet Amelia

Your name is like a song I’ve known before

When I first saw you coming through the door/

Washed in like the tide

Across a thousand miles

I wanna take you home

Sweet Amelia

Let’s go to Paris for an afternoon

I wish that I could show the world to you

Paintings and ballet

Take you on an airplane

I wanna take you home

Sweet Amelia

I taste the salt of these longing tears

The bitter cup that brings communion near

Our stories strung/tied like rope

The wonder and the hope

I want to take you home

Sweet Amelia

I'm looking northwest in the sky tonight

Dreams of your almond face

Your pretty dress of lace

We paint the walls in pink

I’m standing on the brink

Across the waters I will wait for you.

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