We have been sitting in silence.
Waiting to hear of our court date to go and meet our daughter.
This has been the most difficult part of this process.
It has been about 7 weeks of leaving it to the Lord. We know we are next in line to be scheduled and wait in anticipation.
God is giving me a lesson that I did not want to see.
A weakness that is hard to admit and claim.
Patience.
As a mother, I thought God automatically preloaded that into you when you gave birth or welcomed a child into your family.
Not so for me.
I have learned that patience and the need to control has been one of the hardest things for me to let go of in this adoption.
Early in the fall when I was in control of filling out paperwork, pushing our social worker(nicely coaxing... ok... kinda pushing) and getting physicals, psych evals, fingerprints..etc... it was hard but so much more calming because I had a checklist and was able to manage it.
Once all of the things I could do was over and I had to just let the process ride, I have been having to sit in trust.
Trusting that the government would give us clearance, that our agency would be sending in our documents at the correct time, the courts would be handling our file and notifying birth family, and mostly trusting God that if she is to be ours, He will move the process forward.
You guys. I love Amazon Prime. I can have google eyes, ibprofen and batteries all delivered to my house in 2 days. I love knowing that there are new iPhones coming out every year, sometimes TWICE a year. I heart having pizza delivered to my house in 30 minutes. This life affords us such materialistic comforts in an instant.
This is a lesson I never thought I would be learning in this. But it is the lesson my family and especially me needs.
Waiting and sitting in God’s trust has slowly worked through me. I have no control in this. I have never had control. I always like to think I have control but the reality is, it’s not God’s design. For my relationship to work with God I need to feel safe and trust His hand in my life. I just have to keep remembering that Jesus waited. He waited and prayed. . . Before he was crucified. I can only imagine the wait and trust God for such a sacrifice. I am not even close to that wait. I can do this if He did that for me.
So we wait and pray.
I hope you are praying. (Thank you)
Because I have not perfected this patience thing.
For all of you in the middle of a wait. I hear ya. I am with ya.
Thursday, July 27
Thursday, March 9
Let's talk about D-N-A
Today is the day we celebrate my birthday.
March 9th was issued as my birthday when I was found in South Korea.
I always try to capitalize on the fact we do not know the exact day I was born, thus making my family celebrate me for at least a week.
When we began our journey of adoption, it became clear to me that I was going to be facing a parallel emotional journey of my birthplace.
I could not let the joy of the adoption of our daughter be overshadowed by feeling overwhelmed all of the sudden by my own abandonment and adoption.
The first thing I did was request all of my adoption paperwork from Holt US and Holt Korea.
My files didn't really offer much more information than I had expected.
They did offer me the exact location of my "finding place" and it showed that I was taken into custody of Holt when I was about 5 months old and I was in an orphanage up until that point. I was adopted in October.
Holt could not offer me much more information than that. What they did offer me was closure in my curiosity on if there was any "hidden" documentation.
While I was waiting for my files I also did a DNA test through 23andme. My two main focuses was to find out if I had any genetic indicators for health threats (especially ones I would pass on to the boys) and to find out my racial origins.
I had to have a 30 minute period of not eating and drinking. That doesn't seem like it would a difficult task but as soon as I tried to set the timer my tummy would start rumbling and my throat felt parched. Embarrassingly, it took me more than a day to accomplish this.
I sent the kit back and it took about 6 weeks for my results.
The results came back showing that I didn't have any genetic markers for any of the carriers of inheritable diseases.
And as for my ancestry.... Big surprise here...
I am 56% Korean, 28% Japanese, 8% Chinese, 7% Broadly East Asian, and 1% Sub Saharan African.
The other reports had interesting information like my lactose intolerance and DNA markers for earlobe types.
Now that we have the factual information, here is the feelings part.
For those of you who have adopted children please take this information in and I hope it helps you relate to them.
For those of you also adopted, maybe you have similar feelings or can relate in the same way.
God provided me a family, I never felt a need to search out my biological family because I have always been so loved. But there is a clear difference in the feeling of a need for family and always having a curiosity of your origins.
There is a narrative that always run in the background of my mind. It doesn't overtake my life but it is that soft murmur that comes and goes. "Did my mom die when she was giving birth to me? Was she in trouble? How long was she in labor? Did she crave certain foods when she was pregnant? Did my dad know about me? How much did I weigh when I was born?...."
Parents of adopted children, I implore you to keep with the facts for your adopted child. I know it takes all of you to not want to comfort them and tell them things that you feel will help them. I know it hurts your heart to see them struggle with their unknowns. Not one parent wants their kids to hurt. But the issue is that they already have their own narrative running and to add to that does not quiet those words. It confuses them and offers them a sense of betrayal when they find out that their story was embellished. What they need from you is to sit with them in their feelings and allowing them to vocalize their narrative and let them know that NOW they are loved and NOW they have you and God to help with healing. When you cannot fill in the THEN tell them what they have NOW.
What helps me is meditating on what God, and knowing that He will reveal to me what I need.
This causes me to RELY on Him.
It hurts guys. It was not easy for me to confront that I will never have the opportunity to know the answers. I have been surprised by the amount of emotions that bubbled up. Receiving my files from Holt that said ABANDONEE with no other information had finality. I am not going to tell you that it doesn't sadden me. If there was more information, I know it would have caused another file of emotional hoops, so I realize that journey would have been difficult as well.
Fellow adoptees, I sit with you in the quietness of our lives that will never be answered. I grieve with you over the unknowns.
I have begun taking the day I celebrate my birth in praying for my birth mother, whether she is still alive or has passed. I thank the Lord for her and hope she has peace, I pray that God takes her in His arms as He has held me and she seeks the same comfort from Him.
When Dave and I go to Korea, I plan on visiting the orphanage where I spent time before I went to Holt. I plan on going to my finding place, taking a picture and praying with Dave at that site.
23andme has me registered so if a biological relative pops up, I may have that connection if I choose.
But mostly, I am so thankful for this journey and that I have been able to mourn my losses and be thankful for how healthy and loved I am. I celebrate the fact that I will hopefully be able to sit with my daughter and pray with her for her birth mom.
God comforts. God celebrates with us. He has never failed me.
March 9th was issued as my birthday when I was found in South Korea.
I always try to capitalize on the fact we do not know the exact day I was born, thus making my family celebrate me for at least a week.
When we began our journey of adoption, it became clear to me that I was going to be facing a parallel emotional journey of my birthplace.
I could not let the joy of the adoption of our daughter be overshadowed by feeling overwhelmed all of the sudden by my own abandonment and adoption.
The first thing I did was request all of my adoption paperwork from Holt US and Holt Korea.
My files didn't really offer much more information than I had expected.
They did offer me the exact location of my "finding place" and it showed that I was taken into custody of Holt when I was about 5 months old and I was in an orphanage up until that point. I was adopted in October.
Holt could not offer me much more information than that. What they did offer me was closure in my curiosity on if there was any "hidden" documentation.
While I was waiting for my files I also did a DNA test through 23andme. My two main focuses was to find out if I had any genetic indicators for health threats (especially ones I would pass on to the boys) and to find out my racial origins.
I had to have a 30 minute period of not eating and drinking. That doesn't seem like it would a difficult task but as soon as I tried to set the timer my tummy would start rumbling and my throat felt parched. Embarrassingly, it took me more than a day to accomplish this.
I sent the kit back and it took about 6 weeks for my results.
The results came back showing that I didn't have any genetic markers for any of the carriers of inheritable diseases.
And as for my ancestry.... Big surprise here...
I am 56% Korean, 28% Japanese, 8% Chinese, 7% Broadly East Asian, and 1% Sub Saharan African.
The other reports had interesting information like my lactose intolerance and DNA markers for earlobe types.
Now that we have the factual information, here is the feelings part.
For those of you who have adopted children please take this information in and I hope it helps you relate to them.
For those of you also adopted, maybe you have similar feelings or can relate in the same way.
God provided me a family, I never felt a need to search out my biological family because I have always been so loved. But there is a clear difference in the feeling of a need for family and always having a curiosity of your origins.
There is a narrative that always run in the background of my mind. It doesn't overtake my life but it is that soft murmur that comes and goes. "Did my mom die when she was giving birth to me? Was she in trouble? How long was she in labor? Did she crave certain foods when she was pregnant? Did my dad know about me? How much did I weigh when I was born?...."
Parents of adopted children, I implore you to keep with the facts for your adopted child. I know it takes all of you to not want to comfort them and tell them things that you feel will help them. I know it hurts your heart to see them struggle with their unknowns. Not one parent wants their kids to hurt. But the issue is that they already have their own narrative running and to add to that does not quiet those words. It confuses them and offers them a sense of betrayal when they find out that their story was embellished. What they need from you is to sit with them in their feelings and allowing them to vocalize their narrative and let them know that NOW they are loved and NOW they have you and God to help with healing. When you cannot fill in the THEN tell them what they have NOW.
What helps me is meditating on what God, and knowing that He will reveal to me what I need.
This causes me to RELY on Him.
It hurts guys. It was not easy for me to confront that I will never have the opportunity to know the answers. I have been surprised by the amount of emotions that bubbled up. Receiving my files from Holt that said ABANDONEE with no other information had finality. I am not going to tell you that it doesn't sadden me. If there was more information, I know it would have caused another file of emotional hoops, so I realize that journey would have been difficult as well.
Fellow adoptees, I sit with you in the quietness of our lives that will never be answered. I grieve with you over the unknowns.
I have begun taking the day I celebrate my birth in praying for my birth mother, whether she is still alive or has passed. I thank the Lord for her and hope she has peace, I pray that God takes her in His arms as He has held me and she seeks the same comfort from Him.
When Dave and I go to Korea, I plan on visiting the orphanage where I spent time before I went to Holt. I plan on going to my finding place, taking a picture and praying with Dave at that site.
23andme has me registered so if a biological relative pops up, I may have that connection if I choose.
But mostly, I am so thankful for this journey and that I have been able to mourn my losses and be thankful for how healthy and loved I am. I celebrate the fact that I will hopefully be able to sit with my daughter and pray with her for her birth mom.
God comforts. God celebrates with us. He has never failed me.
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