Our Red Threads To Lina

"An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but never break."

Chinese Legend

As I think back to a year ago today, the day we got the “call”. I can’t help but notice many red threads that connected us to Lina.

I remember the social worker (our social worker was not in the office that day) actually called Ken to tell us of a possible referral. She called Ken because they assumed I would be teaching, though I was on spring break at the time. This referral was not a sibling group (as we wanted), but Ken still told the social worker that we would need to talk to me first. I know that, indeed, if the woman called me, I would have said no thank you right away. Her calling Ken would be one of many red threads that connected us to Lina that day.

After Ken had called me with the (as he put it) interesting phone call, we decided that it would be better to stick to the original plan of waiting for a sibling group. I called the social worker back and declined the referral. After that, I called my parents who ultimately convinced me that we really needed more time to think about this longer. With the possibility of this becoming very real, the butterflies fluttered in my stomach. Perhaps they were carrying another connecting red thread to my heart.

I called the social worker back and told/begged her that though we said “no” already, we actually needed more time to think about this referral. She told me that since they had not yet called another family with regards to this child, we could still have some time to think and decide. When speaking of red threads, this was the point of the day that made me think “it was meant to be.”

All we knew at the time was there was a child who was 16 months old waiting in Russia for us to be his/her parents, and that we had 2 hours to decide. We were told by a friend that either decision we made that day was going to be the right decision, and with a blessing from another friend and our parents, we finally decided to accept this referral.

Perhaps the thickest red thread of all was knowing that though we would never be able to announce we were pregnant, from that day on, it did not matter anymore. Even though all we knew of our child was that he/she was 16 months old, we felt as connected to him/her as if they grew inside me.

For red threads, I will forever be grateful. They connected us to Lina, who as destiny would have it, would turn us from a couple to a forever family.