Shiloh and Levi's Adoptions
Donation protected
Shiloh's story - November 2017
"We'll see what happens."
When you're a married Asian couple, you learn to develop a conditioned response for whenever your parents or family members or friends or complete strangers ask you when you're going to start a family. We handled the first round with relative ease, but lo and behold, the questions don't stop after the first child. So those five syllables were our defense mechanism to inquiries regarding baby #2.
If you know me and Ophelia, you know it was only a matter of time. We love kids. She would argue that I am still a kid. In fact, one of her most repeated phrases during our first 6+ years of marriage is "I married a child." (Which is actually kind of a weird thing to say, given her job.)
Where we differed a bit was in terms of the timing of our family planning. I thought the ideal age gap between Thing 1 and Thing 2 was two years. Ophelia's timeline was a bit lengthier, which can be attributed to the fact that she's a decade older than her sister.
Long story short, with Levi being a wild handful at 16 months old, we hadn't really talked seriously about bringing another pooping human into the equation just yet.
So it was the Thursday before Thanksgiving, and we were hosting our small group for a feast of food and feelings. There was, as always, much to be thankful for, and then in the middle of dinner, Ophelia pulls me aside and says "we need to talk."
From my experience in both real life and pop culture, those four words are rarely followed by good news, so I followed her to the kitchen expecting the worst. I'm normally pretty talented at reading people, especially my spouse, but I had this one pegged all wrong -- the look of shock on her face was not one of tragedy, but one of... well, shock.
She told me that Denise, our adoption case worker, had just called her.
Okay, I thought. So far, so good.
Levi's birthmother...
Uh huh...
...had just given birth to another baby...
Woah...
...and it's a baby girl...
Slow down...
...and Denise wants us to pray it over and let her know what we think.
What.
We rejoined our small group at the dining room table and were able to give off the impression that our lives had not just potentially experienced a dramatic change. But a short time later, we broke the news to them and asked for prayer.
Everyone else soon scurried home, and Ophelia and I prayed some more. It was tough ignoring all of the outside factors. Timing wise, it was a busy time of the year for both of our jobs, especially with me not yet hitting the one-month mark at the new gig. But in my opinion, there's never a perfect time for any monumental life changes. I mean, it's change -- and we're creatures of habit. But you just have your faith and each other and you make it work.
We called Denise back and said yes.
Then we phoned our parents and siblings to pass the surprise along. I was feeling a whole lot of deja vu from July 2016... except they all knew we were expecting to adopt a newborn baby back then, and this time nobody knew, not even us.
We spent the next day trying in vain to prepare a babbling toddler to be a big brother, but what can you say, really? (Even now, not yet a month later, we'll read "big brother" books to him that don't make much sense. "I'm a big brother. My little sister has to wear diapers, but I can... wear big kid underpants!" Wait, no you can't...)
On Saturday, after 40 hours or so of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual preparation for a second child, we walked through the AIM Adoptions door with a full backpack, an empty hand-me-down car seat that had been stashed in our garage, a crazy toddler, and open hearts ready to explode.
And 3-day-old Shiloh Yan-Shun Mok did not disappoint. I will never be able to say no to her.
I've said it before, and I'll say it a million times more: God is so good. Thank you everyone (again) for all the love in every form imaginable. I can't stress enough how blessed we feel in the midst of the chaos of being parents to 2 kids under 2 (2 under 17 months, but who's counting).
Many of you have asked about dropping off food or checking out our registry or donating towards Shiloh and Levi's adoptions, and we are so grateful at just the thoughts behind the inquiries. We have amazing friends who are working on setting up a care calendar and a registry for us, but if you would like to help donate towards the adoption costs, you can do so here.
This is us. We'll see what happens.
-----
Levi's story - July 2016
Normally when the phone rings and I don't recognize the number, I let it go to voicemail. But it was 9:30 PM, and I was just sitting on my bed, debating between going to the gym or finishing the Astros game, so I went ahead and took the call.
The voice was one I recognized -- Denise, our social worker from AIM Adoptions, who had just been at our house nearly three weeks earlier to complete our home study. She had declared us "paper pregnant" at that point, and Ophelia and I had celebrated by planning a bunch of weekend trips over the next couple months while we had the chance to visit old friends and new places.
Denise asked if Ophelia was there with me, so I went to go get her. I didn't want to get my hopes up, but my heart began to race, as I anticipated Denise telling us that she had shown our book to a birthmother, and we had been matched for an October or November birth. Ophelia joined me in our room, and I put Denise on speakerphone.
"Are you ready to pick up your son?"
We were both speechless. We looked at each other. Back at the phone. At each other. At the phone.
"Hello...?"
We recovered from our shock long enough to respond and decipher the rest of the conversation. He was born the day before, and the birthmother had called the agency to place him for adoption that same day. We were asked to pray about it and let her know our decision that night.
I hung up the phone, still stunned. But we prayed. It's a good thing God knows our hearts and our prayers before we even utter a word because I don't know if either of us made much sense. After saying "amen," we were convinced. This was it. He was the one.
First we called our families to relay the good news, and then it was logistics time. The only baby-related items we had at our house was a crib that we had assembled the week before and the accompanying mattress that was still sitting in its comfy Amazon box. We spent the night at Walmart, and Ophelia spent the next morning at Target to buy everything we needed.
We kept praying and preparing and working and cleaning until 4:00 PM, when Denise told us that our son was being discharged from the hospital, so we could make our way to the agency. An hour later, we walked through the AIM door with a full backpack, an empty car seat, and an indescribable sense of joy.
After filling out some paperwork, we went to the next room, ready for the introduction.
Then we heard footsteps around the corner, and Denise came in with a car seat at her side. And there, wrapped up in a white blanket, was our son. 20 hours after a phone call we'll never forget, our son, Levi Lai-Shun Mok, was in our arms.
It turns out that the profile book telling our story to potential birthmoms hadn't even been printed yet, but the last line of the book reads: We know that God has a child in mind for us, and we wait patiently for His perfect timing.
His timing is indeed perfect. God is so good.
We have been overwhelmed with both God's love and the love from our families and friends. Thank you all so much for all the messages, texts, calls, gifts, meals, prayers... the list goes on and on.
Thank you all for the support as we became parents overnight. Levi is so, so loved.
"We'll see what happens."
When you're a married Asian couple, you learn to develop a conditioned response for whenever your parents or family members or friends or complete strangers ask you when you're going to start a family. We handled the first round with relative ease, but lo and behold, the questions don't stop after the first child. So those five syllables were our defense mechanism to inquiries regarding baby #2.
If you know me and Ophelia, you know it was only a matter of time. We love kids. She would argue that I am still a kid. In fact, one of her most repeated phrases during our first 6+ years of marriage is "I married a child." (Which is actually kind of a weird thing to say, given her job.)
Where we differed a bit was in terms of the timing of our family planning. I thought the ideal age gap between Thing 1 and Thing 2 was two years. Ophelia's timeline was a bit lengthier, which can be attributed to the fact that she's a decade older than her sister.
Long story short, with Levi being a wild handful at 16 months old, we hadn't really talked seriously about bringing another pooping human into the equation just yet.
So it was the Thursday before Thanksgiving, and we were hosting our small group for a feast of food and feelings. There was, as always, much to be thankful for, and then in the middle of dinner, Ophelia pulls me aside and says "we need to talk."
From my experience in both real life and pop culture, those four words are rarely followed by good news, so I followed her to the kitchen expecting the worst. I'm normally pretty talented at reading people, especially my spouse, but I had this one pegged all wrong -- the look of shock on her face was not one of tragedy, but one of... well, shock.
She told me that Denise, our adoption case worker, had just called her.
Okay, I thought. So far, so good.
Levi's birthmother...
Uh huh...
...had just given birth to another baby...
Woah...
...and it's a baby girl...
Slow down...
...and Denise wants us to pray it over and let her know what we think.
What.
We rejoined our small group at the dining room table and were able to give off the impression that our lives had not just potentially experienced a dramatic change. But a short time later, we broke the news to them and asked for prayer.
Everyone else soon scurried home, and Ophelia and I prayed some more. It was tough ignoring all of the outside factors. Timing wise, it was a busy time of the year for both of our jobs, especially with me not yet hitting the one-month mark at the new gig. But in my opinion, there's never a perfect time for any monumental life changes. I mean, it's change -- and we're creatures of habit. But you just have your faith and each other and you make it work.
We called Denise back and said yes.
Then we phoned our parents and siblings to pass the surprise along. I was feeling a whole lot of deja vu from July 2016... except they all knew we were expecting to adopt a newborn baby back then, and this time nobody knew, not even us.
We spent the next day trying in vain to prepare a babbling toddler to be a big brother, but what can you say, really? (Even now, not yet a month later, we'll read "big brother" books to him that don't make much sense. "I'm a big brother. My little sister has to wear diapers, but I can... wear big kid underpants!" Wait, no you can't...)
On Saturday, after 40 hours or so of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual preparation for a second child, we walked through the AIM Adoptions door with a full backpack, an empty hand-me-down car seat that had been stashed in our garage, a crazy toddler, and open hearts ready to explode.
And 3-day-old Shiloh Yan-Shun Mok did not disappoint. I will never be able to say no to her.
I've said it before, and I'll say it a million times more: God is so good. Thank you everyone (again) for all the love in every form imaginable. I can't stress enough how blessed we feel in the midst of the chaos of being parents to 2 kids under 2 (2 under 17 months, but who's counting).
Many of you have asked about dropping off food or checking out our registry or donating towards Shiloh and Levi's adoptions, and we are so grateful at just the thoughts behind the inquiries. We have amazing friends who are working on setting up a care calendar and a registry for us, but if you would like to help donate towards the adoption costs, you can do so here.
This is us. We'll see what happens.
-----
Levi's story - July 2016
Normally when the phone rings and I don't recognize the number, I let it go to voicemail. But it was 9:30 PM, and I was just sitting on my bed, debating between going to the gym or finishing the Astros game, so I went ahead and took the call.
The voice was one I recognized -- Denise, our social worker from AIM Adoptions, who had just been at our house nearly three weeks earlier to complete our home study. She had declared us "paper pregnant" at that point, and Ophelia and I had celebrated by planning a bunch of weekend trips over the next couple months while we had the chance to visit old friends and new places.
Denise asked if Ophelia was there with me, so I went to go get her. I didn't want to get my hopes up, but my heart began to race, as I anticipated Denise telling us that she had shown our book to a birthmother, and we had been matched for an October or November birth. Ophelia joined me in our room, and I put Denise on speakerphone.
"Are you ready to pick up your son?"
We were both speechless. We looked at each other. Back at the phone. At each other. At the phone.
"Hello...?"
We recovered from our shock long enough to respond and decipher the rest of the conversation. He was born the day before, and the birthmother had called the agency to place him for adoption that same day. We were asked to pray about it and let her know our decision that night.
I hung up the phone, still stunned. But we prayed. It's a good thing God knows our hearts and our prayers before we even utter a word because I don't know if either of us made much sense. After saying "amen," we were convinced. This was it. He was the one.
First we called our families to relay the good news, and then it was logistics time. The only baby-related items we had at our house was a crib that we had assembled the week before and the accompanying mattress that was still sitting in its comfy Amazon box. We spent the night at Walmart, and Ophelia spent the next morning at Target to buy everything we needed.
We kept praying and preparing and working and cleaning until 4:00 PM, when Denise told us that our son was being discharged from the hospital, so we could make our way to the agency. An hour later, we walked through the AIM door with a full backpack, an empty car seat, and an indescribable sense of joy.
After filling out some paperwork, we went to the next room, ready for the introduction.
Then we heard footsteps around the corner, and Denise came in with a car seat at her side. And there, wrapped up in a white blanket, was our son. 20 hours after a phone call we'll never forget, our son, Levi Lai-Shun Mok, was in our arms.
It turns out that the profile book telling our story to potential birthmoms hadn't even been printed yet, but the last line of the book reads: We know that God has a child in mind for us, and we wait patiently for His perfect timing.
His timing is indeed perfect. God is so good.
We have been overwhelmed with both God's love and the love from our families and friends. Thank you all so much for all the messages, texts, calls, gifts, meals, prayers... the list goes on and on.
Thank you all for the support as we became parents overnight. Levi is so, so loved.
Organizer
Jonathan Mok
Organizer
Sugar Land, TX