Gibas Family Adoption Story

You Qi Quan was born November 27, 2004 in Youxian County located in Hunan, China. She was left at the gate of the Youxian County Welfare Institute on November 28th with a little red, crinkled note. As I surveyed the site nine months later, I saw a dumpster off to the side where I was sure her mother hid watching and waiting for her to be scooped up to safety. Just two days earlier, Qi Quan, now Olivia Grace was placed in my arms in Chengsha; the city that was four hours away.

I was trying to take it all in. This was the place my little one had spent the first nine months of her life without me. It was open, stone, and rustic. Flies were everywhere. After not being able to get approval from the Chinese government to see where our child lived, our facilitator said to the group of us in her excellent, broken English, “we go anyway.”

We traveled in China with 22 families. Eight of the babies were from Youxian and several of us went to see the institute where our babies were from. Hurricane Katrina had just made landfall the day we left for China and the Director of the orphanage asked our facilitator to ask us how the babies were in Florida and Louisiana who had left his care in previous years. Though we did not have the answer, I was comforted knowing this man loved the babies. The surroundings may have been humble with limited resources, but they genuinely cared for my baby. This was an answer to many of my nightly prayers.

Two years earlier we had begun the lengthy process to adopt. We had tried for a few years to have a child. Sadness set in when I realized we would probably not have a child. Many people had prayed for me to be healed and well. Medical treatments and natural treatments failed. My prayers seemed to be unanswered.

Mothers Days were hard.

One year, I remember wanting to disappear when they honored moms at church. They asked all the moms to stand and my friend grabbed my hand and said, “You should stand. You are a step- mom and a great one!”

She was so sweet. I wanted to hide under my chair. I smiled and held my tears back and stood with her. Standing in silence was easier than sharing my pain.

I am grateful to be a stepmother. My stepdaughter Megan cannot be replaced. She is amazing. She has a wonderful mother. And I knew I held a different place in her life.

One morning, in 2003, I was praying, and I got a picture in my mind of a little dark-haired baby. I knew God was prompting us to adopt. I was doing some contract work recruiting foster and adoptive parents for our county and had considered adopting. But that morning prayer changed my life. I knew God was answering our prayers to become parents. After talking it over and more prayer, Frank and I took steps in our own adoption journey.

We announced to our family and friends we were adopting from China. We did not know anyone personally who had done this before, but we were determined to follow God’s leading and carve our path to parenthood. It was a two-year process that seemed to drag on. Papers, home studies, case workers, inspections, federal background checks, homeland security, immigration, more paperwork, praying for every dollar and trusting God through it all.

Then in July of 2005 a brown envelope came in the mail. It was a report including a picture of our baby they matched us with. She had dark hair and looked a little grumpy. She was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. I studied her face in the picture. I looked at it again and again.

When I closed my eyes at night, I would ask God so many questions.

“Is she warm?”

“Is she healthy?”

“Is she crying?”

“Who is holding her right now?”

And with every question, God gave me peace. He was holding her.

We left for China at the end of August. We spent a few days in Beijing before flying to the province of Hunan. On September 5, 2005 we nervously waited in a government building in the city of Chengsha for our babies. One by one, nannies entered the room as we waited for them to call our name.

The instant they brought her in, I started walking to the front before they called, “Family Gibas.” I had studied her face so much that I knew her immediately. As I walked over, the nanny with tears rolling down her face kissed her and handed her to me and said, “Qi Quan; your mama,” and quickly walked away.

We were both stunned. Olivia had never seen a blonde lady and I had never seen such a precious and determined face.

The rest of our time in China was spent finalizing our adoption, going to court, and going to the U.S. Embassy to take the oath of citizenship for our daughter. Touching down on U.S. soil in Detroit, Michigan was the final step to our adoption and her American citizenship.

In China, people would say to us, “lucky girl,” remarking on our adoption. At home, people would tell us how wonderful it was for her to be adopted. Frank and I always set the record straight. We are the blessed ones. We are the ones who get to parent her. We are the fortunate ones who grew our family through adoption.

Our baby is now sixteen. She has taught us so many things. We are truly blessed to be a family.

The journey to become parents had many ups and downs. When we began, we did not know how we would pay for the cost of adoption. Little by little, each dollar came. We are proud to support Dave Wallace in his quest to help families fund adoptions.

Psalm 68:6 tells us, “God sets the lonely in families.” Becoming Olivia’s parents healed the longing of our hearts. We bless this effort Dave is making to bring families together and heal lonely hearts through the gift of adoption.