One amazing story

You’ve got to read this.

I SAW the scar the first time I changed Natalie’s diaper, just an hour after the orphanage director handed her to me in a hotel banquet room in Nanchang, a provincial capital in southeastern China.

Thus begins the story, and the saga, of this couple’s first encounter with the child they went to bring home and take into their family. It is wrenching, about abnormalities and medical complications, the torture of watching and enduring suffering, the promise that it would only get worse, and ultimately….the choice. ‘Put this all behind you, and get another baby.’ ‘We can make this all better.’ How agonizing.

And how amazing that it’s in the New York Times, regardless of the fact that it’s the ‘Fashion & Style’ section. This is the kind of news feature that made the Times great. It’s such a personal story of human drama, and it’s about choosing to love and give life to the vulnerable, against the odds.

Months before, we had been presented with forms asking which disabilities would be acceptable in a prospective adoptee — what, in other words, did we think we could handle: H.I.V., hepatitis, blindness? We checked off a few mild problems that we knew could be swiftly corrected with proper medical care. As Matt had written on our application: “This will be our first child, and we feel we would need more experience to handle anything more serious.”

Now we faced surgeries, wheelchairs, colostomy bags. I envisioned our home in San Diego with ramps leading to the doors. I saw our lives as being utterly devoted to her care. How would we ever manage?

Yet how could we leave her? Had I given birth to a child with these conditions, I wouldn’t have left her in the hospital. Though a friend would later say, “Well, that’s different,” it wasn’t to me…

I knew this was my test, my life’s worth distilled into a moment. I was shaking my head “No” before they finished explaining. We didn’t want another baby, I told them. We wanted our baby, the one sleeping right over there. “She’s our daughter,” I said. “We love her.”

This story has amazing twists and turns…and miracles. The greatest, in the end, being the power of love.

Our decision was right because she was our daughter and we loved her. We would not have chosen the burdens we anticipated, and in fact we declared upfront our inability to handle such burdens. But we are stronger than we thought.

We all are. And we only realize that when we’re tried to the limits, and then exceed them. Not because we think we can, but because we believe we just have to.

Thanks to the Times for this lesson, and to Helen for passing it along.