Our journey to Seth began in April 2007. I was listening to a man speak that we had met a few weeks earlier at a dinner. He was missing part of his arm. As he was speaking I had the thought, "Maybe you'll have a son who is missing his arm." It was such an odd thought, and I wondered if perhaps it wasn't just my own random thought, but perhaps inspiration from the Lord. I wrote it down in my impressions journal waiting to see if anything came of it.
A few weeks later in May, I received an email about a little boy, who couldn't find a family and his file was being sent back to China. I emailed the agency, they sent pictures. When I saw SiYuan's picture for the first time, saw his missing arm, I felt a tug of familiarity. I thought for sure, he was ours. I named him Seth. We desperately wanted to adopt him, but financially just couldn't do it. We tried several ways to make it possible, but nothing worked out. I cried and cried wondering why I would have such strong feelings, only to have it not work out.Another family was matched with him, and I tried to be content that he had a family. But there were times when we'd be sitting at the dinner table and I would feel overwhelmed with sadness that he wasn't sitting there with all of us. I called his agency several times to double check that the family was still moving forward with him. They were.
My father-in-law passed away in September 2007 and we ended up with a small amount of money, not tons, but enough to do another adoption. We started looking at little boys files again. I looked for boys with a missing arm, but didn't find any that I felt any sense of connection to. In November I did find a little boy with a blood disorder that I fell in love with. For a month my husband and I prayed and soul searched. I wanted to move forward, but Derek just didn't feel right about it. I was so frustrated and couldn't figure out why we couldn't be on the same page.Then in December 2007 Seth's agency (BAAS) emailed us saying that SiYuan was available again. The family that had been matched with him, had completed their paperwork and were approved by China, but had changed their mind. I was elated. I called Derek up at work. He said let's talk tonight, but he called me back a little while later and said, "I'm scared, but let's move forward, I feel like this is right." We feel that Seth is meant to come to our family, and we have seen the tender mercies of the Lord bless our lives to finally make that a possibility
