Red Threads ... and Road Blocks ... To Collins

My friend Rushton wrote a very memorable post after they were matched with their daughter last year, about all the "stones of remembrances" that God gave them for their daughter ... signs and ways they knew the little girl in the picture was their daughter. The "stones of remembrance" term comes from the Old Testament when Samuel set up a stone to remember where God had moved on their behalf in a miraculous way to defeat the Philistines.

In that same vein, in China, there is an ancient legend about a red thread...
"An invisible red thread connects those destined to meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstances. The thread may stretch or tangle, but never break."  - Ancient Chinese Proverb
 
So, here are the red threads ... the stones of remembrance ... the things that I want to remember about how it was so confirmed that this precious little one was meant to be in our family.

Stone #1:
We started this adoption in July of 2011. Normally, special needs adoptions from China take about 12 months from beginning to end. But not our adoption. The two friends I started this process with are already home with their children! We have hit some paperwork snags along the way and had a long wait for a referral. Our biggest snag was with U.S. Immigration. After waiting 78 long days for our case to get to an officer's desk, we were issued a RFE (request for evidence) because I spent a summer in Washington DC in college and failed to get a background clearance from there. Oops. I was very upset at first because our agency was waiting any day for the files of some precious little ones, any of which I was hoping to adopt. And I needed my papers to be in China so that we would be eligible to get one of their referrals. The minute I got the email about the RFE, I knew those children I had my eye on were not mine. I knew my daughter was out there somewhere, and, despite being sad, I had to trust that this roadblock happened in order that we would find our way to the sweet child meant for us. I immediately applied for a background clearance but DC is not the fastest place to get one from. Thanks to the dogged persistence of my adoption agency, it only took about three and a half weeks to get it. Record time. My social worker Karla emailed me on February 2 saying "I got it!".

Little did I know that on that same day -- February 2 -- halfway around the world, a tiny newborn baby girl came to live in an orphanage in southern China. Soon, that little baby will belong to me.

When I was so desperate to get my paperwork to China, our daughter hadn't even been born yet.  I am praising God for roadblocks.

Stone #2:
Back when we got Lia Kate's referral in 2009, I opened up her file and the very first thing I saw was her birthdate, which is July 31, which is also my birthday, which is also my younger sister's birthday. It was pretty much a done deal from that point on. So, imagine my surprise when Karla calls and tells me about Collins' referral, saying her birthday is also a 31st (different month). On top of that, she shares a birth month with our son, Britton, and my brother who just passed away and lots of other people in both of our families. It's a little thing, but considering that 3 of the 5 in our immediate family will have 31st bdays, it is significant. And I love how both of my Chinese daughters have a 31st birthday, and that their birthdays were part of the confirmation that they were ours.

Stone #3:
This is kind of a silly one, but I don't want to forget it. I rarely dream, but at some point this summer, I had a very real dream about getting our new child. We were in China, and they placed the littlest baby in my arms, not the toddler I was expecting we would get. She was precious with dark hair and beautiful skin and blue eyes. Yes, blue eyes. That part was strange, but the dream was so real and I woke up with my arms aching to hold our next child. It made the wait for a referral that much harder. When we got Collins' referral and saw that she was only 7 months old, I remembered my dream of the tiny baby in my arms. And just last week, as Lia Kate and I were looking at Collins' picture, she said "Mama, when you stand back a little bit, her eyes are blue!" She knew nothing of my dream and I'm not sure what she was thinking, because Collins' eyes are most definitely not blue. But the blue eyes comment meant something to me!

Stone #4:
This is the most significant one of them all. We had decided on the name Caroline Collins for our next child a while back. They are family names and we loved the way they sounded together. After we got our referral and called Danny's parents to tell them about her, his dad said, "I'm going to call her CC". Appropriate, I thought, because it rhymes with the pronunciation of her Chinese name, "SheShe". What I had forgotten about is that in Collins' province they pronounce things differently because they speak Cantonese, not Mandarin. For example, Lia Kate is from the same province and they pronounced her name "Jing Jing" as "Gang Gang." I listened carefully to the video of Collins that a sweet mama who visited the orphanage sent me. And as clear as day, they call her "SeeSee". Yes, CC. The sound of her Chinese name and her forever initials are one and the same. I am absolutely floored by this. She was so meant to be our Caroline Collins.

And it was February 2, when she came to the orphanage that they gave her this name ... the day that our "road block" was finally cleared up and our paperwork could be on its way to China.

Today, I am praising God for road blocks. I just love seeing how it all comes together. Yes, He has done great things for us and we are filled with joy!