How do you make the tough decisions?

My heart has been heavy and my mind has been spinning the last few days.  As I previously blogged about, Jo, from Wacap, contacted me to let me know that Ramya, the four-year-old little girl in India that lit our adoption fire was now back up for adoption.  Great, right?  Well, sort of.  When we heard that she had a family, we then agreed to pursue Manasa, the one-year-old girl in the same orphanage that also has spina bifida.  We started our home studies, we took our classes, we talked to families, and we started to prepare ourselves... to bring home Manasa.  Of course, since our home studies and the such were not complete, and because there is another family now looking at Manasa, we knew she may never be ours, but we started to plan, unintentionally but also intentionally. 

I talked to Jo on Tuesday and asked what we do in this situation.  We now have two little girls who could both really benefit from joining our family.  Jo was not sure what we do because she has never dealt with a situation like ours before.  We cannot take both girls because 1- We do not think it is a wise choice considering their medical needs and the age of our children and 2- even if we did, India will not let us.  I asked if we are going to have to choose and she said possibly eventually, but not yet.  How in the world DO you choose, though?  We have been praying that God will make it very clear what we are supposed to do and who we are meant to adopt.  Here's the kicker, though.  Ramya is older and has more medical needs, so it is more important for her to find a family that is prepared to help her.  The problem?  She has more medical needs, and quite possibly very serious ones. 

I talked to Dr. Zuniga, Madi's urologist, about Ramya when we first considered her.  When I told him she was already having kidney failure, he told me that we can do a vesicostomy and go from there.  Ok, no biggie, we can do that!  Then David talked to his mom (who is a nurse) and she started throwing out things like kidney transplants and dialysis, as well as a short life-span.  Whoa.  Now that is a little scary.  I mean, if it was just David and I, or my children were grown, I would take her in a second, and love her for every second, as long as I could, whether that time frame was 3 years or 30.  But we have young children.  How do you explain to your children that their new sister will die, sooner rather than later?  I mean, we all face death, that is our reality.  We all have had people we love pass on, but how do you go through that with your children, and do you CHOOSE to go through that?  And how do you pay for those kinds of medical bills and keep food on the table?  But, on the other hand, how do you let her die without knowing the love of a family?  How do you look at her little face and say no?  It is SUCH a tough choice to have to make.  We knew that at some point we might have to make a choice like this, but it is so easier said than done.  We may be getting ahead of ourselves a bit, because we do not know if those are things she would face, but they have really made us stop and think and have sent us in to a tizzy. 

Dr. Zuinga has all of Ramya's medical records and is reviewing them for us.  I asked him to not just tell me what we would do now if we brought her home, but also what we would do in two years if she continues to get UTIs and her kidney failure gets worse.  We pray God makes our choice clear, and we ask for your prayers in that direction as well.  We know the right choice is not always the easy choice, but we don't know what that means right now. Though we are not sure what God has in store for us, or for the two little ones in India, we do have peace knowing that He knows and He has a plan.... a perfect plan.

Our fun today at a Hope Kids event that took place at Bumble Bee Ranch