Isabelle

It was the week of Thanksgiving 2010. We were waiting for a very important phone call from our agency, telling us that we had been matched with a child. The paperwork that we’d begun to compile for the previous 11 months had led up to this. When the call came, we were thrilled! Before reviewing the second set of files for a possible match, our agency told us that she had a more serious heart condition than what we indicated we could handle. (That’s another story in itself: part of the paperwork that we had to fill out was filled with all sorts of medical conditions that we could check “Yes” or “No.” Since all the children available for adoption through this particular program are either older children or kids with health issues, we had to agonize over what our family could realistically take on, especially living overseas.) 

We opened the files and first set eyes on a picture of our little girl on November 23, 2010. Closely cropped in on her face, the photo revealed dark circles under her eyes–probably from her heart condition–and a slight look of fear. Strangely, I think that’s a part of what drew me to her. 

Over the next few days, we sent out her medical files to doctors in the States. A total of six different doctors looked at her files. There was much to process, but some phrases from the prognoses stuck out in my head: “failure to thrive,” “risk of sudden death,” and “surgery should’ve been performed yesterday.” One doctor said that, if she didn’t receive surgery to fix her heart, she would die before reaching the age of ten. 

That week both of us grieved and wept at what might happen to her and what that might mean for our family. For six years, we’d mourned through infertility and the dashed hopes and dreams that go along with it. And add a long adoption process on top of that. Was God really calling us to a possible life in which the daughter for whom we’d waited for so long could be taken from us at an early age? 

Yet a mysterious thing happened that week. Somehow, instead of being scared away by the news from doctors, our hearts became increasingly drawn to her. It wasn’t out of pity. It wasn’t because someone gave us false hopes. God was giving us an unshakable sense of His leading; He was giving us an ability to see her as our daughter and to trust Him to follow Him down this road even though the path was scary and unsure. 

It wasn’t logical, and it didn’t make sense. But one day we’ll get the chance to tell Isabelle how the God of the universe brought us together.