A popular hashtag in the adoption community is #wecouldhavemissed this. Or for the non millinial fluent in reading hashtags it is “we could have missed this.” It embodies the feeling of looking at your sweet child who is adopted and saying Lord I may not have had this had I not stepped into this scary journey of adoption. It’s a sweet sentiment. But also a sobering one. That if we had chosen not to obey this amazing little life would not be in ours.

Well now that I have these pictures of Colton I cannot even bring myself to type that without tears in my eyes. Because you see we really did almost miss this. July 6, 2017 we journeyed home from a truly blissful family vacation in Colorado. My cousin was married in Del Norte, CO where we spent time as a family playing in the mountains with basically zero internet or phone service. It was amazing and we had so much fun. As we embarked on the 15 hours drive home with the three kids and 2 horses I was refreshed. Relaxed. Renewed. Then about an hour into the trip it happened. Internet came back. Which means Facebook was back and the adoption community was in a literal hysterical mess. I scrolled over pages of terrified adoptive parents all reacting to the bombshell that had been dropped. China changed its adoption requirements dramatically. I looked at Michael stunned unable to move. Read it! He told me. Income changes, ok we were good. Number of children in the family. Ok we are good. Amount of time before you can adopt another. Still safe. But then it happened. “The youngest child in your home must be three years old.”

I read this aloud as tears streamed down my face listening to our very loud 23 month old say “mommy” 756 times in the back seat.

Tears flowed and flowed. I called the agency. They explained no one saw this coming and they were waiting on clarification on what this meant for all those already engaged in the process.

I wept the remaining 14 hours home.

We waited and waited and waited. We saw hysterical post after post on Facebook. Families having their dreams taken away from them while we sat helplessly. My agency was a rockstar in these moments. I probably called them 30 times over the week. Asking pleading hoping.

We got on our knees and prayed. Our church prayed. Our families prayed. I was sick. You see it wasn’t just a matter of we were going to have to wait a whole year to proceed. But all paperwork we had done yet was not sealed therefore would expire before we made it to a year. So all the money in prep would be lost and we would just have to wait.

But then God. God did only what he can do. He allowed a government that doesn’t celebrate him find mercy on us and grand father is in. Joy. Oh the joy. We knew that God had such a special plan for our family. We rejoiced. Finished our paperwork and partied our guts out once we were officially on the waiting list.

We began our “long” wait for 8 weeks until I got that fateful call from our agency. Sun Zhan Peng’s file was in their hands and they wanted to know if we wanted to view it. 17 months old. Cute as a button. Repaired cleft lip. Unrepaired palate. It was a blur. We said yes. Got the file. Doctors, surgeons reviewed. Called the agency and said Yes yes a million times yes (more on this story in the next post.)

Sun Zhan Peng would now be Colton Michael Taylor. An orphan no more. A cherished son. We could have missed this. And we truly almost did.