My Li'l A

Last spring I met a boy.  And I fell in love.

I couldn't stop thinking about his sweet face, his big eyes, and his God-love-em goofy ears.  I thought about him when I woke up and when I couldn't fall asleep at night.  I let his name roll off my tongue and imagined what it would feel like to wrap him up in my arms.  I came so close to that actually happening that I started to let myself taste the hope that he was going to be mine.  Forever.

Want to meet him?   

Here he is: my Li'l A.

(You're in love too, right?  I totally get it.  How could those blue eyes not slay you?)

 Li'l A was born in Eastern Europe to a woman who was HIV+.  She might have been very sick or addicted to drugs or living in prostitution; I don't know.  For some reason she decided that she couldn't take care of her new baby.  

So Li'l A went to live in an orphanage.

Li'l A learned to walk without his mama holding his hand.  He said his first words without his papa cheering him on.  Was he loved?  I hope so.  But what I know is that he didn't have what every child needs: a family.

As he grew, his caretakers discovered that Li'l A was one of the approximately 35% of children born to mothers with HIV who develop the virus themselves.  (This is only true for mothers who do not take antiretroviral medication.  If his mother had been on the proper medication, there is only a 1-2% chance that Li'l A would have contracted the virus.  No, not a 12% chance - a one to two percent chance.)  Had he been healthy, Li'l A would have quickly been adopted by a family in his home country.  But, because he was HIV+, he was overlooked for domestic adoption.  

International adoption became Li'l A's best chance for a family  Adoptive parents who traveled to his orphanage did what they could to find his mama and papa.  One mom wrote a blog post advocating for his adoption; another fell in love with him herself and took tons of adorable pictures.  Li'l A's photo and bio were shared on at least one major photolisting.  

So why didn't someone come to get this sweetie?  While I can't answer that with 100% certainty, I know some of the reasons Li'l A might have been left waiting.  

-He has HIV.  That diagnosis is a big deal and sounds scary to many people.  (If it sounds scary to you, please take a minute to read this.)  

-He shows some signs of having been exposed to alcohol in the womb.  

-He's a boy, and statistics show that 70-90% of adoptive parents request a girl.

As I "got to know" Li'l A, all the things on this list started to matter less and less.  When I looked at him, I saw a little boy who liked cookies...

...made silly faces...

..and looked beyond adorable with his hat on backwards.

I saw a child who needed a family.

Even now, almost a year since our dream to adopt from Eastern Europe died, I can't write this post without crying. If you've recently started reading my blog, you might not know that when our paperwork arrived in EE last summer it missed the deadline for a law change by two days.  That change made children under five with HIV ineligible for international adoption.

My Li'l A will be four-and-a-half at the beginning of next month.  In April he'll turn five.  Of course, in my mind for the past year, I've seen us there for his fifth birthday.  I've pictured the oh-so-painful rollercoaster ride of last summer fading into a distant memory.  I've ever so hesitantly imagined the chaos that would be our life with four kiddos five and under.  And, my husband would tell you, I've pretty much told him started dropping hints that maybe he should be imagining that life too.

Last month I stopped imagining.

Last month we found out that Li'l A had been moved from his babyhouse and taken to a new orphanage.  Children in this orphanage are not available for international adoption.  Ever.

Is he loved?  I hope so.  But what I know is that he still doesn't have a family, and he's not coming home in April.

Why am I sharing this story?

Because my Li'l A is a real person.  His name is Sasha (short for Alexander).  He's four years old.  He doesn't have a mom.  He doesn't have a dad.  He doesn't have a grandma or a grandpa or a big brother or a little sister or a crazy uncle Max.

"There are 15 million children in this world who have lost both of their parents."

 That's a statistic.

Sasha is a child.  A person.  A little boy without a family.

There are 14,999,999 more children like him.

I challenge you to look into the eyes of a child waiting for a family.  Look beyond the list of potentially scary diagnoses that someone might have attached to that child.  See them as a little person who desperately needs someone to fall in love with them.  A little person without a mommy or a daddy.  A little person who, like my Li'l A, might not have many more days or months or years to wait.

Am I telling you to make a rash decision?  Absolutely not.  I'm asking you to put big blue eyes and God-love-em ears on a statistic that might just sound like a statistic to you.  I'm asking you to stop thinking about 15 million and start thinking about 1.

Yes, falling in love with my Li'l A broke my heart into a million pieces.  But I wouldn't have it any other way.  I don't want my heart to be unbroken.

In fact, I want his story to break your heart too.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"No one could make a greater mistake than he who did nothing 

because he could only do a little."

-Edmund Burke