Sarah’s Adoption Story

Sarah joined our family in July 2005 from Korea when she was sixteen months old.  While all of our children have a unique adoption story, Sarah’s is probably the most notable.  

We first found out about Sarah when a friend e-mailed me her profile from Rainbow Kids.  Jacob, who was almost 4 at the time, looked at the picture with me and said “I want her to be my sister”.  I laughed that statement off, because in my mind there was no way we were adopting again anytime soon.  Jonah had not been home very long and was only two years old.  Plus, financially we had exhausted every resource we could to fund his adoption.  Nope.  Now was definitely not the time.  Besides, my plan was to adopt a little girl from China in a couple of years.

I printed off the profile of Sarah and decided that we would pray for her to find her forever family.

I put the piece of paper on the counter to show Bob when he came home from work.  That particular night we were going to a Right to Life dinner to hear Dr. Ray Guarendi speak.  My parents were coming over to watch the boys, so it was a busy time from when Bob arrived home until we walked out the door.  Bob saw the piece of paper and made a quick comment, but we never spoke of it for the rest of the night.  When we arrived home my mom wondered about the profile on the counter, apparently while we were gone she asked Jacob who the little girl was and her said casually “oh that’s just my sister”.

Making the Adoption Decision

And we did diligently pray for a week or so for this little girl to find her forever family.  Finally, one of us mentioned to the other that maybe we were Sarah’s forever family.  I know, it takes a while for us to catch on sometimes!  So, while we had an inkling that maybe we were Sarah’s family, we still had a few obstacles, mainly our finances, and the fact that we were going to have three children 4 and under.  It seemed so crazy for us to be considering adding another child to our family at this point.  I remember telling Bob that I really needed a sign from God that this was the right decision for our family.

We contacted the agency that had Sarah’s referral, Children’s Home Society, and started the ball rolling by requesting her file.  Way back then they didn’t e-mail the file to you, we actually had to wait for DHL to deliver it to us!  We quickly said yes in our hearts to Sarah joining our family, yet we still had no idea how we would swing it financially.

Our Adoption Miracle

During this time we received a call from our tax accountant stating that our taxes were ready, we only needed to come in and sign so they could finish processing the documents.  One afternoon, the four of us headed to the accountants office.  Because the boys were with us, we went in one at a time to sign the documents and I went in first.  The secretary had our documents waiting for us.  I assumed that we would owe money, as we had every other year, however when the secretary pointed out the amount of our refund, you could have pushed me over with a feather ~ it was the almost the exact amount we needed to bring Sarah home.

Sarah joined our family just four months later.

In Korea Sarah was diagnosed with something called Russell Silver Syndrome.  This diagnosis had caused her to be considered a special needs adoption.  Shortly after she came home a geneticist confirmed that it wasn’t an accurate diagnosis.  While she had a few of the characteristics of RSS, such as short stature, she did not have the syndrome.

Sarah was a late walker, she didn’t start walking until about 2 years old.  When she did finally start walking, she had a slightly odd gait that didn’t improve.  She was finally diagnosed with low muscle tone and hip dysplasia.  Basically her hip bone was not in her hip socket correctly on either side.  In September 2009 she had surgery to fix this issue.  The surgeons had to cut both of her femur bones and then they could insert her bone into the hip socket properly.  The surgery went well, Sarah was an excellent patient (amazing actually!!), and all has healed.  She will need another surgery at the end of March to remove the hardware that was inserted to make sure her bones healed properly.

She was such an unexpected and unplanned blessing.  Her thoughtful, patient, and kind heart continues to bless us all everyday!