The Lucky Few Read online

  The news I received that afternoon is life-altering news, the kind that cannot be taken back, the kind that enters through your ears and into your brain and somehow seeps into every drop of blood pulsating through your body. When I got home, I made my way to my room and collapsed onto my bed. I sank into the mattress, hyperaware of my empty womb and the string of hope I had let slip through my fingers. I felt numb, wishing for yesterday to come find and rescue me. Yesterday was full of plans and possible solutions, and false ideas about what I could control. Yesterday I had hope of a working womb, one ready and excited to grow a life and make me a mom.

  The book of Isaiah tells of a God who gives us “a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair” (61:3). That day after my appointment, I woke up with no new plans to fix my problems and gain control of my situation. I felt like a pile of ashes, my purpose and abilities consumed by a fire. And like a pile of ashes being blown in the wind, my hope for becoming a mother swirled around me, a dirty mess.

  But God’s Word whispered in my ear, “There is beauty here . . . yes even here.”

  2

  First Light

  As a kid, I loved to poke holes in sheets of black paper. I would sit on the carpet and use a sharp pencil to make a thoughtless, almost violent mess. But then I’d take the ugly paper and hold it up to a light, creating a beautiful piece of artwork.

  In our season of infertility, that is how I felt God was working on me. All I could see before me was a dark and messy situation. I stared at it day in and day out. I allowed the darkness to grow around me until it was all I could see in every direction. Then God used his super-sharp pencil to puncture my darkness. In the pain of that puncture, a glimmer of hope began to shine on me.

  For a few weeks after learning the loss of my fertility would be permanent, my husband and I had conversations about adoption. We would sit at the computer, educating ourselves about the different possibilities. With each conversation Josh and I had, God would take his pencil and poke another hole into the darkness I had let consume me.

  At the time we started to consider adoption seriously, we did not know one person who had taken that path to parenthood. We didn’t know where to begin or what to ask or whom to ask. But as God kept poking holes of glorious light into my emotional walls, we found out one of my coworkers had two adopted grandsons. She put us in touch with her son and daughter-in-law, and we set a date for dinner.

  “That’s the house, there on the left.” I pointed to the average-size, ranch-style house with the manicured lawn. Josh parked on the curb across the street. I got out of the passenger seat and walked around to the other side of the car. We stood side by side just looking at the house.

  Josh grabbed my hand, gave it a squeeze, and said, “Are you ready for this?”

  “As I’ll ever be.”

  We crossed the street, walked up the paved path, and rang the doorbell. From behind the closed door, we heard little feet running and loud voices, and then the door swung open.

  “Hey! You must be Josh and Heather. I’m Don.” The man who opened the door, my coworker’s son, radiated joy. His six-foot-six frame and firefighter build had the potential to be intimidating, but the spirit that shone through his eyes and smile was anything but. He reached out, shook Josh’s hand, and then pulled me in for a bear hug.

  “Welcome to our home. Please come on in.” We followed him through a comfy living space toward the kitchen. The house was welcoming and tidy except for a random foam sword and scattered Legos, evidence of their sons. “This is my wife, Diana.”

  “Hey, guys. Welcome. I’m so glad this worked out.” Diana had short blond hair and a kind and radiant smile like her husband’s. Her bright, blue eyes offered understanding and put me at ease. Immediately Josh and I felt at home in this place.

  “Thank you so much for having us.” Josh’s response was interrupted by the sound of yelling and pounding feet headed in our direction.

  “Whoa, whoa, boys! Slow it down,” Diana called out as Don scooped up the littlest one.

  “Say hi to our new friends,” Don said.

  The boys gave a heartfelt hello in unison as the littlest one wiggled out of his dad’s arms, and then they were on their way.

  “Boys are crazy.” Diana’s eyes twinkled. “But oh so fun.”

  Their eldest son, Nathan, was tall and lanky, with big brown eyes and light brown skin, and I’d swear he looked just like his dad. Their younger son, Roman, was small for his age, with fair skin and blond hair, and I’d swear he looked just like his mom.

  We sat down at the round table in the dining room. They had picked up a feast from a local barbecue joint, and we all piled our plates full of tangy and sticky grilled chicken, fall-off-the-bone ribs, and buttery corn on the cob.

  “My mom tells me y’all want to adopt,” Don said.

  “We really do. We just have no idea where to start.” I licked barbecue sauce off my thumb.

  “Well, we’re happy to share our boys’ stories with you and answer your questions,” Diana said as she leaned over her youngest son’s plate, cutting meat into bite-size pieces.

  “Is it okay to talk about this in front of the boys?” I felt uncomfortable, not knowing how much their boys knew about where they came from. I didn’t want to ask the wrong questions and open up a wound—or worse.

  “Of course,” Don said. “Our boys know exactly who they are. We talk about adoption openly and celebrate how our family came to be. We believe it’s best to make adoption part of their story from the beginning. It’s our normal.”

  “Yup,” Diana agreed. “No secrets or surprises.”

  “Okay, that makes sense.” I loved their approach. “So tell us how your boys became your boys.”

  We spent the next hour or so learning their sons’ adoption stories. We discovered that when adopting through a private agency, as these new friends of ours did, some kind of relationship with the birth parent is likely. Their boys received pictures and letters once a year. Some people who adopt have wide-open relationships with their children’s birth parents, meeting in person once a year or more. Don and Diana told us the cost of a private adoption could be $20,000 or more. The agency they used was one of the most affordable.

  As we asked questions and chatted, I watched this family interact like just that—a family. They were not unusual or awkward. The boys didn’t seem to care that they didn’t share DNA with their parents or each other. Don and Diana are their mom and dad, and Nathan and Roman are each other’s brother. We sat in their home and quickly realized that genes can have nothing to do with what makes a family.

  This home made up of people who each came from a different woman’s womb was divine and, well, normal. They were a genuine and lovely family, typical as can be. It was apparent to us that God’s good and perfect will covered them with a divine netting of love and desires and needs and calling and life. And this man and woman, this mom and dad, were happily tangled up in this beautiful and mysterious web.

  After hours of eating and talking and asking questions and witnessing the divine, it was time for Josh and me to go. For weeks, I had been flailing in darkness, my wounds from the news still fresh and tender. But as our new friends walked us to the door and sent us off with big bear hugs—Diana holding Roman on her hip, Don’s arm resting on Nathan’s shoulders—my heart began to lighten a bit.

  The door closed, and we turned toward our car. I gave Josh’s hand a tight squeeze. We stood on their front porch for a moment, silent, taking in all we had just witnessed.

  Josh broke the silence. “What a great family.”

  “Yeah. They seem so normal. I loved that.”

  “So, what do you think? What’s next?” Josh let go of my hand and put his arm around me as we walked toward the car.

  I wavered. Adoption is risky, with more unknowns than knowns. Even though what we had witnessed was great, I knew adoption meant letting go of all my
ideas about how motherhood would find me. I knew I would have to be open to a child born into brokenness. I figured the path ahead would be slippery and dangerous. Yet I kept hearing God whisper to me, “There is beauty ahead. Yes, beauty in this unknown.”

  So as we walked to our car that night, Josh and I held on tightly to each other and set our feet firmly on the path of adoption.

  A year later, in the summer of 2008, I found myself in a small motel room in Romania sitting at my computer and reading an e-mail that would change everything.

  Ten days earlier, Josh and I had landed in this beautiful country with a group of people to do a summer camp for youth in the Carpathian Mountains. We had spent a week pouring ourselves into these young world changers, sharing our hearts and falling in love with theirs. The camp we stayed at was in the middle of nowhere, way up in the mountains. Getting there required hours in a stuffy bus, driving over pothole-stricken roads with hairpin turns. But the destination was breathtaking.

  We were surrounded by fields and forests so green and lush I wanted to make a quilt from their splendor, pack it in my suitcase, and take it home to enjoy forever. Though it was the middle of a hot summer, nights in the Carpathian Mountains were close to freezing. The camp offered warm feather beds and down comforters, which we wrapped ourselves in as we lay in the grass and looked up at the stars. Oh those stars! I had never seen anything like it. In parts of the sky, the stars were so crowded that there was more light than darkness. I would look up at those stars, breathless and in awe, and thank God he was using this time in these mountains with these youths to crowd out the darkness in my life.

  I love that when God pokes holes in our darkness to let in his glorious light, he doesn’t stop until the brilliance overtakes the black. As I stared at those stars over Romania, I couldn’t believe I’d been hoping we’d be somewhere else.

  Before making the trip to this beautiful country, our third time here, Josh and I had selected a private adoption agency and were placed on a list of families waiting to adopt. We created a profile with pictures of us smiling and traveling, vacationing, and spending time with friends and extended family. Our presentation was being viewed by mothers creating an adoption plan for the children in their wombs. As we prepared to leave for Romania, a large piece of my heart was hoping our trip would be interrupted by a phone call from our social worker letting us know we’d been chosen. I had prayed that rather than hop onto an airplane, we’d hop into our car and drive to meet the baby we had been longing for all these years.

  By the time we left, I accepted the fact that I would have empty arms and a longing heart and a love for an unknown baby for at least a few more weeks. After packing my bags, I sat down at my computer and typed a short note to our social worker.

  Dear Lindsey,

  I hope this e-mail finds you well. While I’m not expecting anything to happen, I just wanted to let you know that we will be out of the country from July 23–August 7. We will be checking our e-mail a couple of times and may have access to our voice mail as well if you need to reach us for any reason.

  Thanks so much,

  Heather

  And that was that. The next day, we were on a plane, my arms full of suitcases and passports but my mind still full of thoughts about our future child.

  When our time in the mountains came to an end, we made our way to a small motel in the city of Cluj-Napoca. The motel was old and worn, and the smell of stale cigarette smoke seeped from the floors and walls. But it was clean and safe, and we were on a budget. When we arrived, everyone in our group was famished, so we made plans to walk to a restaurant up the street.

  “I have to run up to our room and grab a sweater,” I said. Others needed to do the same, so we agreed to meet in front of the motel in ten minutes.

  I ran up three flights of stairs to our less-than-luxurious room at the end of the hall.

  As I opened the door, I caught myself humming. My heart was full to the brim with all that our experience in this lovely country had to offer. I found myself grateful I was there, in fact, and not waiting in my house for a phone call from our social worker.

  I grabbed the gray sweater on the bed and noticed Josh’s laptop sitting there. I looked at the clock on the wall and decided to check e-mail. Then I knelt on the floor next to the bed and opened the computer.

  As I scanned my inbox, I saw the name of our social worker, and my heart skipped a beat. For a brief moment, I thought, This could be the e-mail, and then I remembered she was probably only replying to the message I’d sent before we left.

  Before opening her message, I looked around the room, maybe to be sure I was alone or perhaps in hopes of finding out I wasn’t. Something in the gut of my gut knew there was more to it. I clicked on the little icon of an envelope, and my life changed forever.

  Dear Heather,

  Thank you for the update. I hope you have a nice time. Just wanted you to know that your profile has been shown once. Things have been slow. We have recently had a few babies with Down syndrome placed with us, so finding homes for them is a little more difficult.

  Hang in there.

  Lindsey

  My heart began to pound so loudly that the sound seemed to come from outside. On the surface, this short reply seemed meaningless, but it wasn’t. I knew it. I just knew it.

  I read the e-mail again. My mind told me to just shut the computer and say, “That’s nice,” and head downstairs for a fun-filled dinner. But my heart held on tightly to the words a few babies with Down syndrome. I found myself foolishly begin to argue with my heart. I never wanted a child with Down syndrome, I reminded it. That was not the plan. We were paying the big bucks for this adoption in hopes of getting a healthy child.

  But as my heart beat in my chest I could not shake the words I had just read:

  . . . a few babies with Down syndrome . . .

  . . . babies with Down syndrome . . .

  . . . Down syndrome . . .

  I knew God was at work, and I was so disappointed.

  I slammed the laptop closed and said out loud, “Dear Lord, what are you doing? Please don’t change my heart. This is not in my plans.”

  I walked downstairs to the lobby. My head was spinning. For a moment, I blamed my dizziness on the odors of cigarette smoke mixing with the smells of foreign foods coming from the kitchen. Everyone was ready and had been waiting for me. I felt envious of the fact that their lives were the same now as they had been fifteen minutes ago. I wanted that to be the case for me, but already I knew that the life I was living fifteen minutes ago was a thing of the past.

  I faked cool, calm, and collected. “Sorry about that. I’m ready. Let’s go.”

  Josh saw through me. He grabbed my hand, and as the others moved up the street, he asked quietly, “You okay?”

  I gave him a “what in the world could you mean?” kind of look. But when there was enough distance between us and the group I said, “I got an e-mail from Lindsey.”

  His blue eyes lit up. “Does she have a baby for us?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Well, she said there are babies needing homes, but they have Down syndrome.” The words sounded so foreign coming from my lips that I may as well have been speaking Romanian.

  He met this piece of information with silence. Honestly, I wanted Josh to tell me there was no way we were going to adopt a baby with Down syndrome. I wanted him to take the lead here, and I wanted him to lead us far away from this.

  “Wow! Okay. Well, what do you think?” Not the response I was hoping for. I tried again.

  “I think it’s crazy. What do you think?”

  “I think we need to pray about it.” He looked me square in the eyes and said, “And I think crazy is how we roll.”

  Oh, dear Lord, what are you up to now?

  The next day we left Romania. We tearfully said our good-byes to the young people we had camped with in the mountains, our hearts now tied to theirs. As I sai
d good-bye and told them I would do my best to return the following summer, I thought about the babies back home, the babies with Down syndrome who had so suddenly disrupted my life. I wondered if one of them would like this country as much as I did. Then I quickly changed my thoughts and told my heart to stop being so foolish. Why make plans for the future with a child we never intended to adopt?

  After our time in Romania came to a close, Josh and I spent another week together in Europe. The next week we found ourselves getting from one destination to the next via small planes, city buses, fast trains, bumpy boat rides, wild taxicabs, and rickety bikes. We ended up on a tiny Greek island called Agistri. It was the kind of place that took some getting used to, like that perfect pair of shoes: a little awkward and uncomfortable at first, but soon you slide right in and never want to take them off.

  While on this cozy and interesting island, we found ourselves walking on deserted beaches and crowded sidewalks, sipping cloudy and chilled ouzo at street-side café tables, and dining in lively restaurants. We ate fresh octopus that we had watched the fishermen bring in off the boat only minutes earlier. We feasted on plates overflowing with hummus, salty olives, fresh fish, and crisp cucumbers. We indulged in huge bowls of thick and tart Greek yogurt drowning in local honey. And during all these times, we found ourselves talking about just one thing: adopting a baby with Down syndrome.

  “Okay,” Josh would start as he reached for a pen from the backpack. “Pros and cons.”

  “Pros and cons? You seriously think we will make this decision with a pros and cons list?” I raised my eyebrows, full of sass. “We are talking about a child, not a new car.”