Letting Go

This has been a really, really, really hard week. We haven't been through these kind of emotions in a very long time and they aren't very fun. We were on our way back home Monday and opened our email to find the responses we had been waiting for from our pediatrician. We also received a response from another doctor friend. Both of them shared their opinions on Qi Long's condition, which unfortunately revealed issues what we *thought* were in the clear.

Without going too much into detail, both of our pediatricians feel like he has some serious issues that we were not seeing. A couple of them, his file clearly stated that he did not have. But after hearing from the doctors, all of the signs add up and all of the signals are pointing to the fact that he does.

Going into this process, Justin and I both felt like we would be very open to many special needs that we have seen listed. But the more we thought about it and thought about our job and our family, we realized that as much as we want to, we just simply can't do some of the things that we normally could. First of all, we live in a very small town in East Asia and our medical care is not great. So anything that might potentially need emergency assistance is pretty much out of the question. Of course accidents can and will happen, just as with any kid, but when you know for a fact you are dealing with life and death, it's just not a possibility for us right now.

This diagnosis is literally rocking our world. We have to give our decision on whether we want to keep his file for good, or let it go back into the list for other families to view. And at this point we are really struggling to find our answer. Yesterday, we were all in, and today we have no idea what to do. They never tell you how hard it is to have to think about saying no to a child here. No one tells you about how quickly your heart can become attached to a picture. We all look at pictures of orphans and feel pity, but no one tells you about the grief that you go through in actually considering one of these precious children to be your own. Or maybe they did, and I just didn't listen.

At this point, we aren't quite ready to let go, but we can't say yes yet. There is still a strange small hope that it's not what it seems. But, we are letting his file go back to the list and are begging God to show us what to do. We know that if we aren't the family that was meant to bring him home, that we have to trust God to bring him the right family.

In the meantime, we are still going to send our questions to the orphanage and see what they say and just pray for guidance.