My husband and I first entered the world of adoption in early 2001. We had a seven-year old, five-year-old, and two-year-old twins at the time, and we began to feel there might be another child for our family. Because I had experienced very difficult pregnancies (for more information about my particular problem, you can read about Cholestasis of Pregnancy here), and because we had recently moved to a smallish town with little specialized health care, we had a pre-pregnancy visit with a local obstetrician to discuss whether another pregnancy was a smart idea. Much to my delight, he was familiar with my diagnosis and alleviated my fears about the level of care I would receive, so we went home feeling we were on the right path. How odd it was, then, that just two weeks later, we found ourselves popping a China adoption application in the mail.

Enter one of the things I love most about the Gospel: personal revelation. It's a beautiful thing. :o)

As with all matters of great importance, we began to pray about whether to go ahead with our pregnancy plans, but I was utterly confused at the message I seemed to be getting. At first, I felt like I might as well be getting direction from a Magic 8 Ball.

"Is there another child for our family?"

"Yes - definitely."

"Should I get pregnant?"

"My sources say no."

My closest link to the adoption world at the time was a cousin who had adopted two children through LDS Family Services. I knew (vaguely) that we had too many children to adopt through the Church, and a one-hour special about children in Romanian orphanages constituted my entire knowledge base on the subject of international adoption. Subconsciously, I “knew” that adoption was for people with fertility difficulties, for wealthy people, for those with smaller families, for the adventurous. Not for a family like ours.

Fortunately, the Lord has a safety net for the dense: eBay.

While I was struggling with conflicting feelings about the future growth, or not, of my family, I began selling our kids outgrown clothes. (Stupid mistake number one. Keep up. It’s a long list.) One of the buyers of some baby girl clothes sent a message with her payment indicating she’d be taking the clothing with her to China to pick up her new daughter. You may laugh when I tell you the Lord spoke to me through eBay, but I will go to my grave insisting that He did. When I read those words, it was like a bolt of lightning went through my body, and I KNEW. I just knew.

Unfortunately, the eBay experience proved to be a Tower of Babel stuck in the middle of adoption discussions between my husband and me. Whatever language I was speaking, my husband suddenly wasn’t picking it up. And strangely, my husband’s language became a mess of jargon, and I caught only occasional garbled words.

crazy… money… bills… maybe later… can’t afford… nuts… house… too small…

I shot back my own words, words like “faith” and “prayer.” And I cried. I cried a lot. I pondered approaches, practiced speeches, worked on my pout, and left love notes in his car and at his office. (And no, that is not the definition of manipulation, thank you very much). Sometimes, I would get MAD. Mad that he couldn’t just “catch the vision.” And then I’d cry some more.

Fortunately, with the help of the Spirit, our communication began to improve and hearts began to soften. Although it only took two weeks to reach a consensus of opinion, this two-week period ranks up there as one of the most amazing faith-building experiences of our entire marriage. Good thing, too, because it turned out faith was something we’d need in large supply! We grabbed each other’s hands, closed our eyes, and took the first step onto the road the Lord had laid out before us.

(continued)