As many of you already know, WunderWife and I are adopting a baby girl from China. We are well into the process and are about to send off our dossier to China. Once it is in China, it will be about 6 to 8 months before we are referred our daughter. Then it will be another month or two before we go to pick her up.

Yesterday we were in Atlanta for an International Adoption Seminar that our agency put on. It was a very informative day. We were able to talk to other parents who are adopting from China, Russia and Guatemala and we were able to talk to parents who had recently returned home with their children. The highlight of the day was in the morning when each of us stood up and introduced ourselves, explained where we were in the process and how it was that we came to the decision to adopt. There were people from all across Georgia and the surrounding states. Some were pastors, some were engineers, some were apparently very wealthy, some were very middle class, some had biological children of their own, while others were not able to have children. It was amazing. The families ran the full spectrum of backgrounds and outlooks, but there was one common thread. It is that thread that is the most amazing part about this whole adoption process.

I never wanted to adopt a child. When my wife and I were dating, she mentioned that she wanted to adopt a child. I looked at her like she was crazy and told her that I just could not see how I could love another child as much as one of my own. After all, I would always differ to MY children and that would not be fair to the child we had adopted. It is amazing how arrogant and ignorant you can be at 20. So we went on with our lives, got married, finished school and had three wonderful children. We were so sure that we did not want any more children, that after WunderKid3 was born, my wife had her tubes tied. Then an amazing thing happened.

Sometime last fall, around September or early October, I woke up with a start one morning with to things in my head. They were China and May. I was uneasy. I could not pinpoint why, but my spirit had been stirred and I had to figure out what it had all meant. A month went by and we were watching a TV show about a large family, like 8 kids, and we got to talking about it. It wasn’t that we were even thinking about our lives, just talking about it. A few days went by and one night I was tossing and turning because of drinking one to many Mt. Dews during the day. I started thinking about adoption.

It made no sense. After all, I had said those terrible things before I got married. We had three wonderful kids. We were/are basically living paycheck to paycheck. Do you have any idea how much that would cost? I thought about all the things. What if the kid has problems? Emotional and/or physical. By the morning I had those two words still stuck in my head: China and May. But there was something else. There was a deep, and I do mean deep longing.

What did it all mean? What was the longing?

I mentioned the possibility of adopting to WunderWife. Needless to say, she thought I was off my medicine, but she was ecstatic. We sought council from her family and decided to wait a bit before launching our adventure, but by June of this year, the first half of the funds were in and we started with the paper chase. That chase led us to that room yesterday morning. A room full of people, like me, who had that longing.

That longing. It is hard to explain. I have explained it to my friends and family many times. I do not think that they always get it, but they nod their head politely as if to say, “I understand and I do not think you are weird.” But, it is easy to see that they do not understand. Saturday morning I heard 20 couples explain the longing and they all explained it the way I had been explaining it. They got it. They understood. Finally, I was around people who understood what was going on in my spirit.

The easiest way to explain it, is to just say it. There is a longing in my spirit for MY daughter. It is a relentless longing that drives me to do all I can to find her. For those of you who have children, it is like one of your children is lost. The feeling is almost one of hopelessness. You strive and strive to find them, but you have to jump through so many hoops. So many hoops. So many hoops. You can not imagine how many hoops. She is not a baby that I am adopting, she is mine. My flesh and blood. I know she isn’t, but in my spirit she is connected to me. That is how I explained it to my family when they looked at me like I was crazy first for wanting more children and second because we wanted to adopt. I explained that the Lord had given us another child. She is not here and we have to find her. It will be a long journey, but in the end we will hold OUR daughter in our arms and bring her home to her brothers and sister.

That is what I heard over and over again Saturday morning. We are all on the same quest. We all view them as our child, just waiting for us to find them. We are NOT on a mission of mercy to save these poor unfortunate things. We are NOT doing something honorable. We are NOT being generous. We ARE bringing home OUR babies.

The only way to explain it to those who are not called to adopt is to say that it is a calling. God changed my heart. Darn near overnight. He changed all the other couples in that rooms hearts as well. The change was a void. A void where my daughter is supposed to be. How we feel is that this is as natural as WunderWife getting pregnant and giving birth. I never saw it that way before and I never imagined how I am feeling now. It is amazing.

It is also awesome to see that everyone in that room was feeling the same way we were. Some had pictures of their babies and children (some were adopting 10 and 11 year olds from Russia). They were as proud of them as I have been with each of my three children. We listened to one man tell about hosting a child from Russia. Apparently you host them for 5 weeks before you are allowed to adopt them. At the end of the 5 weeks they had to put them back on a plane to Russia until the paper work could be completed. That could take up to a year. He said that putting him on that plane was the hardest thing he ever had to do. And then he simply and tearfully said, “I miss him.” How can a man and a woman who never had children of their own feel such love for a child? It is that longing that was placed in their heart. When that child came to live with them for those 5 short weeks, the longing went away, but when the child had to leave, the longing returned. They recognized the longing and it hurts. But it will go away soon. They will get their child home.

It is amazing. I tried to put into words what is in my heart. Reading back over it, I feel that I have not even begun to do it justice, but it is a start. Some may be reading this and say that is not for me and I will never do it. More power to WunderKraut for doing it, but not me. That is fine. We are all called to different things. My calling is different than yours. It is not nobler or better than yours, it is just different. But remember what I have written. One day you may wake up with strange thoughts that will not go away and with a restlessness and longing in your spirit. It is scary and the most exciting thing, all at the same time. I can not wait to hold her in my arms.

So here we are. About to send our dossier to China to adopt our daughter Mei (I changed it to that spelling after we learned that Mei Mei means little sister). It will be next May or June, but we will be there holding you in our arms.

I miss you.