We're Expecting

In May I was acquainted with the foreign-run Butterfly House, partnering with the Chinese state-run welfare center. It’s a children’s hospice operated by a remarkable British couple. Take your time looking around their website and blog, please. The Butterfly House takes babies who the welfare center has determined will die within six months. Half do die, in loving care, half go on to live because they've received proper treatment.

Long story short, that day in May I met a little boy who’d just had his second birthday. The British nurse and I had a conversation about foster care. I became pregnant…with the idea that one of the Butterfly House babies could become ours.

But we had to wait and see if we would remain in Changsha or move to Wuhan. As you know, Drew did not receive a scholarship to Wuhan University. We stayed in Changsha.

We had to consider if our family could handle a special needs child. Drew and I decided that we are incapable and not prepared. But it's the right thing to do. There is no way but to depend on God’s inexhaustible strength.

Then we needed to wait on the paperwork….we have the papers now.

All that remains is bonding with our newest kiddo, learning his schedule and temperaments, and giving him time to trust us before he moves here.

This is a foster care arrangement. We would rather adopt him, but Chinese law states that expat adoptive parents must be age 30 and have cash in the bank. There is no way around it. Our little boy will likely be adopted sometime in the next two years. I was advised:

Just remember adoption day WILL come, your heart WILL break. But you will know that you were selected to be one piece of the puzzle in this child's life and there is no greater satisfaction.

Now, relish adoption day, because it opens a bed and we can go to the orphanage and save another one.

There is so much more to tell you about our new boy, but I will share information in small servings. I want you to know that we intend to give him every bit of our hearts, even though we know our hearts will break when he goes to his family. Therefore rejoice with us as if I were physically pregnant. Please consider this child your nephew, grandson, second-cousin, friend’s kid…We are FULLY letting him into our hearts!

Celebrate and congratulate us because…We’re expecting!!!

And trembling with fear.

More later.

Love,

Drew & Rachel

(Took these pictures today and forgot to ask if I'm allowed to share his name and photo with you yet!)