BROKEN AND RESTORED

Friday, October 19, 2012

 Down this road has been so many jaw dropping events And I know we are not even finished but there has also been brokenness!  I guess we thought that our families would know us well enough, that it just wouldn’t surprise them that we are adopting? Everyone knows we are broke….. lol so maybe I would have expected “They are crazy” but never would I have expected “embarrassment” and “disgrace”. Through much heart ache the Lord teaches you so much and draws you in so much more nearer! I felt the same as if my mother would draw me in as I cried when I was hurt and disappointed when I was young. I needed him to be the same and he was, showing me that so many do not know His love like a do and if that cant feel his love how can I expect them to love like HE does?? It helped me change my focus of angry and pain towards them to grace and forgiveness! I pray that their hearts will be broken open so their Father can enter in show them what love is and then they will be able to love as well.

How will anyone be able to turn around from this beautiful and innocent little girl and not fall in love with her? God will use her!!    

So my sweet Lord only let this lay upon me for a short time. He knew how to restore my heart and store like only HE could!

Friday, October 26^th

8 am I am trying to rise and getting going for the day and I lean over and pick my phone up to check on the sweet heart babies group I am on and see how their mornings were going? I have lost myself in all the details of all the others that had their children home already because that was a blessing that we just couldn’t be given! I had prayed so hard for little Ivy that had under went three open heart surgeries in three weeks time.

I saw that I had a post from a yahoo support group and it was titled “ Looking for a Child” I knew that this went out to hundreds of people and I figure it was going to be about parents looking for a specific special need search for a future child to adopt. Usually I would have deleted and never though of it again but for some reason at that moment I opened it and this is what it said:

If the family that has been matched with the following child is on this
list, please contact me off list. There is a family with a photo and some
info on the child that would like to share it with you. Here's the
description of the child:
Jiang, Xin Qian, dob 10/28/10, identifying mark on right eye,
has repaired ASD

I read this three times thinking “well this is looking for someone that has been matched with this child? That is so weird to be looking for the parents!

That birthday is just in a few days! Wait that’s Bella’s birthday !! That  her name wait!!!! That’s us!

I was figured out and in that minute I knew that my life would never be same and I haven’t even gotten out of bed for the day! LOL

I msg the sender back quickly and told her that I was the match mom to this child and she told me that someone had emailed her from Shanghai needing to get in touch with this child matched parents and she did know but to post it just to see? I told her yes and started talking to God like he was right there in that bed with me. I kept saying “This is a gift from you!” No matter what I find out this it a gift. Good or Bad at least we know! I realized next that it was already after midnight there and I thought God DON’T LET THAT WOMAN DARE FALL ASLEEP!! I could not have made it through the day not knowing…..

What were we about to find out? Twenty minutes later I receive this email:   

Dear Ms Strickland

I am the mother of two adopted daughters from China and I live in Shanghai, where I found an abandoned infant in the street on Dec 18, 2010 whom I believe is your new daughter, Jiang Xin Qian. The infant I found will turn 2 years old on Sunday, her dob is circa 10/28/10 and she has a heart defect (ASD) which has been repaired and an unrepaired angioma on her right eyelid. If she is your daughter, I cannot tell you how happy it would make me to give you the photo I took of her the night that I and a friend found her outside a Dunkin Donuts in Shanghai. I can also tell you the details of the bag of baby things that her birthmother left her with, and the circumstances of how she got to the orphanage that night.  unfortunately I do not know the birthparents, but I believe they left her there because they wanted her to be found by foreigners. 

That night I cuddled her for a long time while we waited for the police formalities and I surely will never forget her as long as I live. I organised money to pay for her heart surgery and offered to handle all of her medical costs but the government was able to pay for her care. I visited her twice at the orphanage when she was around 5 months and 8 months old and I took photos. The Shanghai orphanage does not welcome visitors so I was not able to visit after that. Last year on her first birthday my children and I celebrated with a cake, even though we were not allowed to visit her. 

I want to stress that I never wanted to adopt her as I already have two children, am single and 57, too old for more babies. But as the mother of two daughters who are now teenagers, I know know how precious is any scrap of information about their earlier life. I do not want to invade your privacy and will of course understand if you do not want to have any contact with me about this. But if you are wiling i would like to pass along the photos and info I have about her discovery and life in the orphanage. If you want, I can take you to theplace where I found her while you are in sHanghai to pick her up. I will do whatever I can for you, nothing is too good for the parent of Jiang Xinqian! And i would really love to see a recent picture  of her as a toddler since I last saw her as an infant, before her heart operation so she was a bit sickly then. 

I am a journalist and I was so moved by the experience that I wrote an article about it for my newspaper, the Financial Times. So as not to violate her privacy i did not use her full name. I can provide a copy of that article if you like. 

Very best of luck to you. She is a very very cute baby!

You are right! I lost it! I could not believe the words that I was reading and the miracle of my very own daughter that I was just learning about! A GIFT!

I emailed her back quickly ….short and sweet because I wanted her to send that picture before 1am came and she was passed out asleep! I did not brush my teeth nor my hair. I through whatever clothes that lay in front of me on and I ran out the door, jump in my car and headed straight for Jeremy’s work. This lady was about to send the first photo ever taken of our baby at six weeks old and we had to share this together.

I know he thought something was bad wrong when I got there but I tried my best to explain what had just played out in my morning and choked back the tears to read him the email. The picture of his face will never leave my mind! We opened the next email together and there we saw newness like it was her birth in our hearts!!  OUR GIFT!