next shared list

Next shared list will be released June 22, 2010.

Which also means that the files that were newly released on May's list (who have not been locked by an LID family), will now be released for non-LID families to consider...

Exciting news for all waiting families!

Please do share if you have received your referral through the shared list... we'd love to share your link here and celebrate with you!

Referral received last month:
Amy at A Red Thread Connection

how do you know?

What will my child look like?

Will I recognize my child when I 'see' them for the first time?

These are questions that I think all adoptive parents ask at one time or another, especially in the special needs program. If you're anything like I was, you manage to find sweet little faces, faces that need a mommy and a daddy. And as you pour over the pouty lips, round faces and somber expressions, you wonder, "Is that him?" or "Could that be her?"

There have been several times over the years that I could have sworn I was looking into the eyes of my child. And yet, I was not theirs. They were not mine. And while I'm not certain why this happens, I believe that God uses these children that capture us, if only for a time, as an opportunity to teach us something. To stretch us. To make us consider something bigger and often better than we might have imagined on our own.

Adoption isn't easy. Adoption through the special needs program definitely isn't easy.

And one of the hardest things a prospective adoptive parent has to do is determine if indeed a child is meant to be part of their family forever.

As parents to five children through the SN program, my husband and I have experienced the spectrum of referral scenarios. Isabelle, our first daughter, was referred to us after a mid-stream switch from the NSN program to the SN program. This was way back in 2004, when there really wasn't a line in the SN program... and a wait for a NSN referral from China was only 6 months. Unbelievable, huh?

When we filled out the SN checklist, we had a very specific list of needs we were open to, more than a few, but certainly not the entire list. And we were very specific on the age range we would consider. My husband really wanted to stick with our original 6-12 month age range, despite my best efforts to convince him otherwise. We were backed up against a wall time-wise as well, and knew that if we didn't receive a SN referral in a short amount of time, our dossier would be too far gone and we'd receive a NSN referral. Which would have been fine, wonderful really, except for the fact that my heart was telling me our daughter was SN.

So when, with just a few weeks to spare, we got 'the call', we knew she was ours. Without a doubt. When we finally looked into the eyes of the child we'd waited for... did we 'know'? No, not really. It was the circumstances that confirmed to our hearts that she was ours.

And indeed she was.


Our second daughter, Sophie, came into our lives in a decidedly different manner. I saw her tiny, angelic referral picture in a newsletter, emailed to me by a small agency. And I fell hard.

Honestly, when I saw her cherubic face my stomach dropped, my hands started sweating... I couldn't even think straight. It was a very surreal experience, to be sure. We had only been home for a few months with Isabelle, though, and I just could not fathom how she could possibly be ours. But I emailed the SN coordinator anyway... and God worked out every single detail. Even a husband who happened to be deployed to the desert at the time. I traveled to bring her home just 8 months later.


We started for Jude before we had a referral. In fact, when we started for Jude, all we knew was that he was going to be a he. My heart had been broken for all the little boys in China, and we agreed that a little guy would be the perfect caboose for our family (yeah, right!).

I had contacted several agencies and filled out as many SN checklists. Several weeks later, out of the blue, one afternoon we received a call: "I have the files of two very little boys. One with a cleft lip and palate, and one with clubfoot." We asked her to send us the file of the boy with clubfoot... we were so anxious to see his little face!

When the pictures opened up we both. just. sat. there. Please don't misunderstand, Jude is (and was) darling! It's just we didn't recognize him. There wasn't that immediate familiarity that we had expected. And without the dramatic circumstances to point us toward a yes like we had with Isabelle, we just weren't sure.

Was his SN manageable? Yes.

Was he cute? Adorable.

Did he need a family? Absolutely.

But was he ours? We just didn't know.

So we waited and prayed and prayed and waited. I was so conflicted, I insisted my husband make the final decision. He woke up one morning a few days later and, after reading Hebrews 11, said "Let's bring him home." And that was it.

Slowly and steadily I fell in love with that referral picture. I slept with it by my bed and carried it in my purse. And now that Jude has been home for three years, I can't tell you how grateful I am that we didn't insist on fireworks when we first saw his face. He is our son. We just needed to wait on God to confirm it in our hearts.


Shepherd came to us through a series of events that was undeniably God at work. We had determined that we were open to adopting again, and most of all open to another child with uncorrected clubfoot. Knowing that being stuck on any particular special need might keep us from seeing His plan, we filled out a checklist for Lifeline with lots of 'yeses' and 'maybes', and 'either gender' circled. We were told it would probably be several months until referral, due to the long list of families already waiting.

Imagine my surprise when just a week or so later, I got an email from the SN coordinator asking me to give her a call. Turned out that all the families, of the 40 in all that were waiting, none were open to boys. And it just so happened that they had an 11 month old little guy with, amazingly, uncorrected clubfoot. Who very much needed a family.

We didn't even have to think about whether he was 'ours' or not, God had already confirmed it by the circumstances, and in our hearts.

And the cherry on top? He was the cutest little bug we'd ever seen.


And then there is Vivienne. Who managed to find her way into our hearts before we really even knew it.

I had been doing some research for No Hands But Ours and had been in touch with WACAP about their Promise Child Grants. And, because I just am who I am, I checked in every now and again on their waiting child page.

One day I came across a picture that I sent along to my husband... and the rest is history. He knew she was our daughter from the first moment he saw her. He later told me he was so certain "because she needs us."

Looking back I'm not sure who needed whom more... Miss Vivienne has certainly found her niche in our besotted family.


So, when I am asked, "How did you know they were yours?" I don't really have a solid answer. None of our children came to us in the exact same way. What I do know is that God confirmed each child in our hearts as we waited to hear from Him.

Sometimes He speaks in a shout, and sometimes in a whisper. Our job is to be sure we've got our mind, our eyes and our hearts open to what He has to say.

"And as Elijah stood there, the LORD passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain. It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper." 1 Kings 19:11-12

How do we choose?

One of my biggest concerns in adoption was choosing our child. I worried that allowing us to be involved in picking a child would bring my fears and anxieties into the mix and somehow mess things up. When we adopted our oldest daughter through the non-special needs (NSN) program in 2005, China did the matching. I never even considered saying no to her referral. In my eyes, the process seemed like a very "divine" way to choose a child since it was out of our hands.

When we switched to the special needs (SN) program for our second adoption, we knew the referral process was going to differ greatly from our first adoption. Although we had a more proactive role in our second adoption, we discovered that our daughter Lydia had also been chosen for us by God’s providence.

Although the special needs checklist had initially seemed daunting, we found we were open to quite a few conditions. However a medical definition takes on a whole new meaning when it is connected to a specific child with a unique history. But I still wondered how we would be able to choose when the very nature of the shared list required speed and certainty.

A month after switching to the SN program, we got our first referral call. It went NOTHING like I expected. There was no warning of being "on deck" for referral. Instead I was caught completely off guard. After three long years of waiting, I was surprised to find little impulse in accepting this referral, and we declined. Our agency completely understood and set to work matching the child with another family on the list.

We were content to wait until the next month when more children would be released to the list, which explains why I was again caught off guard when the second referral call came the very next day! But before our agency could even send us the email, the file disappeared off the list to another agency.

I could now see how different this process was going to be from our first adoption. But despite how unpredictable it seemed, God was using these circumstances to guide our decision.

Just when I thought I was prepared for everything, we got a third call. Unfortunately the call came as I was driving my husband home from the hospital. He was sick as a dog and completely unable to talk with me about this very important decision. The little girl was older than we'd expected and had multiple needs... some being very unclear in her paperwork. We asked for 24 hours to review her file even though we knew that her file could disappear at any moment.

By the next day, after my husband’s fever broke and we could talk and pray, we had resolved to say yes. We called our agency to accept her file, however just 5 minutes prior to that, she was locked in by another agency. Instead of disappointment, I was so thankful for every second of that day we had spent reviewing her file and praying over her. Instead of seeing it as a loss, we rejoiced that she was going to be adopted! But we did begin wondering if we would EVER find OUR child on that list!

The day after our 14th wedding anniversary, our agency called again. I guessed who was calling at 6:30am, but was hesitant to answer the phone. This time together for the call, my husband and I poured over the file of an 8 month old girl in Jiangxi province. I didn't allow myself to even look at her pictures until we thoroughly read her bio. Her special need was unilateral microtia and aural atresia. She also had a diagnosis of possible Hepatitis B. After a quick call to a doctor friend, we made a decision to accept her file within 15 minutes. There was not the same doubt and hesitation we felt with the first three referrals. We knew this was our daughter. Although the path to finding Lydia had been a very new and different experience, we had as much confidence in accepting her referral as we had with our first adoption.

In a few weeks, we will celebrate one year with Lydia! We rejoice daily for this wonderful child growing in our home and in our hearts. We see more and more how she was designed for our family... and we for her!

I wish there was some formula I could give you to explain how to confidently choose a child from the special needs list, but there is no formula. It’s such a varied and complex process because each child and each family going through this process are unique. Some may not feel an affirmation in their decision until after the child is home. Others will “just know” the moment they lay eyes on a picture (perhaps the story we hear most often).

My conclusion is that deciding on a child is a very personal and unique process that combines both practical and emotional considerations, assessing one’s motives and most of all trust.

All I can offer is our unique story of how we trusted God to guide our decision. Regardless of how our children come home… on the special needs list or NSN list… domestic or international… birth or adoption… we have been chosen to be their parents.

Whether they are healthy or in need of care… whether they love us readily or struggle with attachment… God has chosen us to be a family. We can find confidence in knowing that he has been purposeful in bringing us together.

You Belong

Several years ago I visited an elderly great uncle in California. Uncle Frank was one of my Grandpa Kelley's 4 brothers. I'm sure I'd met Uncle Frank when I was a young girl, but it had been many, many years. When he opened the door to the adult woman who'd come to visit, he stood silent on the doorstep for just a moment, and then gathered me up in a hug saying, "Oh, sweetheart. I'd have picked you out of a line-up as a Kelley." He knew me instantly.

When we were in the waiting phase of our adoption I probably saw hundreds of referral pictures. Each time I'd think, Could I look at that baby and say, Yep, she's mine? When we finally got Cholita's referral, Lyle and I first read through all of the written information that had been e-mailed to us. We knew that her pictures would be at the bottom and I wanted to kind of sneak up on them, casually take her in starting with the tip of her head and then I could work my way down, stopping to process each bit of information. Somehow I scrolled too fast and suddenly there she was--a round-faced, healthy-looking 6 month old, sitting in a walker, jauntily kicking up one little bare foot into the air.

She literally took our breath away. I knew her. It was like looking at the face of a long-lost friend. I would have picked her out of a line-up, I know it. I noticed her beautiful Chinese features, but I also thought she looked like her siblings. I put our 4 kids' baby pictures together and made friends and family tell me they saw the resemblance too. Don't you see it? She so belongs with this group.


Cholita has been with us for three years now and has noticed that not everyone sees the resemblance. When she was two, she was told by a little girl in Kinko's that I was NOT her Mommy. The girl's father was obviously mortified and told her, "No, honey. That is that little girl's Mommy," but his daughter would not be swayed. "No, I KNOW that's not her Mommy." Cholita's chin quivered and she pointed to me and said, "Dat my Mommy right dare." For a good week afterward, Cholita would tell complete strangers, even before they had a chance to say hello, "Dis is MY Mommy. MY Mommy." She wanted to make sure they knew from the get-go, just in case they didn't happen to notice.

As Cholita grows older, my hope is that she'll feel like she belongs exactly where she is and that she can always find something of herself in the faces around her. Right after she came home, I had my two youngest girls in a double cart at Costco. A man in line asked five year-old Rose if she liked shopping with her friend. Rose told him that Cholita was her sister. "Sister?" said the man. "She doesn't look like your sister." Rose crinkled her eyes in a confused expression, shrugged her shoulders, and answered, "Well, we're not twins."

I snapped their picture just moments after the exchange. Nope, obviously not twins, but we would have picked her out of a line-up just the same. She's one of us. She belongs.