I love the story I found at Amy’s blog.
Day 20 – A little seed…
I vividly remember the exact moment I knew I wanted to adopt a baby girl. I was eight years old. I was at a friend’s birthday slumber party and we watched the movie Annie…over and over again. I never really thought about what this little girl would look like until I was in college. I learned about the precious baby girls in China that were (and still are) being abandon on the side of the road. It broke my heart. I knew at that moment, my daughter would be Asian and come from an orphanage.
Fast forward a few years. When hubby and I started our first adoption, we quickly discovered that we were WAY too young for the China program (minimum age limit of 30) 
) Haha! The only other Asian program open at that time was Korea. After much prayer, we decided to start the paperwork for a daughter from Korea. Things never seemed quite right. I don’t know if it was the fact that the babies come from foster care (which is usually a huge plus for adoptive parents) rather than an orphanage or something else. In fact, it was something else…OUR daughter was not in Korea. Rumors started circulating that a Vietnam program was opening soon. We both KNEW in our hearts that our daughter was in Vietnam. We waited for the okay from our agency and we switched all of our paperwork from the Korea to Vietnam.
I know I am rambling, but there is a point to all of this ) Several months after we switched to the Vietnam program, our caseworker called and told us that we had been matched with a two week old baby girl in Vietnam. We were over the moon excited! We drove to our agency’s office and our social worker told us the very limited information they had about this baby girl (our Sophie Le). We thought it was very special that this little girl shared a birthday with my grandmother (who passed away 10 years earlier)…October 24.
October 24. A special connection.
Earlier this week, I was looking around on Facebook and I found that friend that I spent the night with when I was eight years old. As I mentioned before, it was a birthday slumber party. My eyes glanced over her information and what I saw blew me away!
My childhood friend’s birthday…October 24th.
Exactly twenty years to the day before MY daughter
was born in Southern Vietnam,
God planted a seed in my heart.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
This story gave me the chills, and it made me remember my own “seed planting” regarding the adoption of an Asian child. I was in college in New York City, riding home on the subway one day, and reading an amazing book called “They Came To Stay.” The book was about an American newscaster who was the first single woman to adopt from Korea. She subsequently went on to adopt a second child from Vietnam. I thought to myself, “I hope that someday I can adopt an Asian daughter, whether married or single.” Seventeen years later, I became the first single woman to adopt from China through FCA’s China program.
How well I understand the innate knowledge that my daughter was in Asia (for me in particular; China) waiting for me – in HER time. It’s wondeful reading about others that have had/have that same realization.
As a middle schooler/high schooler I read and reread a book ‘The Family Nobody Wanted’, about a minister and his wife who longed for a child/family which they could not have biologically. She applied to different orphanages as they were transferred around the country, regularly being dismissed because of their lack of income. But as God ALWAYS has a plan; they were soon ASKED to take different children nationwide and soon had a family of 12!!! Their adoptions were free!!
I have since been so blessed w/ 3 biological children and 1 heart & soul daughter. Our joy is that she was made in China, but made ‘Ours’. Always and forever.
i also read “they came to stay” as a teenager! i loved it:) it was a readers digest condensed book~my cousins (the honorable linda ludgate and robert ludgate and their 3 sons) adopted my cousin laurie kathryn from Korea in 1974~because america was still active in vietnam at the time, many ppl thought she was vietnamese and they recommended Holt to everyone who asked about her and how they could get “a baby sister” my cousin was a stayathome mom at the time, she didnt graduate law school (temple) till 1980, she had 3 difficult pg with her sons (gestational diabetic) and was told not to have another pg yet wanted a baby girl so badly~i am also the baby of my family and the only girl, so laurie kathryn and i had a special bond from the start~i think the red thread runs thru all asian adoptions~i marvel at all the ways ppl are called from america/europe/scandinavia to open their hearts & homes to asian babies (boys & girls) i do notice the babies from vietnam can be newborns, whereas in korea or china its rare to get a baby under 9months~different adoption laws i guess~