The Story of Shiloh

"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 three-day-old Shiloh Yan-Shun Mok did not disappoint.  I will never be able to say no to her.

PC Sharon Ku

Time to buy a shotgun.  (Only half joking.)

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'm getting questions (again) about dropping off food (Erica has set up a care calendar for us) or checking out our registry (we don't have one) or donating toward's Shiloh's adoption (guess I'll piggyback off of the one created last year), and 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).

This is us.  We'll see what happens.

PC Sharon Ku

Big Eyes, Full Hearts

"His eyes are so big!"

Those are by far the most common five words I've heard in the past year, and for good reason.  Levi has a pair of eyes that you could get lost in, and the trouble is, he has already mastered how to use them.  He'll give you the side-eye when he's suspicious of you or the puppy eyes when he wants to be picked up.  And trust me when I say you don't ever want to see those bad boys well up with tears because you will be at his complete mercy.

But those five words also speak to a larger point.  While I still enjoy people telling me that little man's got my lips, if it's not already obvious, it's going to be blatantly obvious as he gets older that Ophelia and I are not his biological parents, which will only garner more comments and questions about his story.  I suppose the question most people want to directly ask but don't (well, some do) is:  Wouldn't it be easier to adopt a kid who looks like you?

There's no easy answer for that.  When we were praying over this whole adoption thing, there were countless factors to consider.  Domestic or international?  Infant or toddler?  Open or closed?

I've been out of school for almost a decade, but I still get the occasional nightmare where I show up late to a class completely unaware of the final exam.  Is that normal?  But let me tell you about the most unprepared set of questions I ever had to fill out.

The adoption agency gave us a questionnaire for our child preferences, and me being the efficient man that I am, I wanted to run right through it on my own.  You know, filling out the answers that I knew before reviewing the rest with the wife.

I got nowhere fast with that strategy, and all I ended up completing was our names.  But still very efficiently, obviously.

I'll tell y'all what, going through that questionnaire with Ophelia was one of the most bizarre experiences of my life.  It was just strange having those questions be multiple choice.  For a biological child, you don't get preferences as to gender or health or anything.  No matter what, you're going to love that child, and that child is going to belong to you.  Then all of a sudden we're talking about what medical issues we would be "okay" with, and things of that nature?  "Bizarre" is an understatement.

One question we immediately knew the answer for?  Which race we were open to: all of the above.

Label it a calling or cast it off as naivete, but the race issue was never really an issue.  In my mind, the entire adoption process was without a doubt in God's hands, so if He wanted us to have a baby that looked exactly like us, then He would give us a baby that looked exactly like us.

Most of you who know me best are likely aware that I was/am borderline obsessed with black babies.  I'm not sure if it was solely due to the trips to Africa or what, but those Kenyan kids sure did a number on my heart.  At the same time, though, I would be remiss if I completely ignored the current racial climate in this country.  Seemingly every single day there's another hate crime or another police brutality incident or another... the list is endless.

On the night we brought Levi home from the adoption agency, I was on the highest of highs.  My heart was so full.  I remember watching him sleep and going through all those new-parent feels... the "I can't believe I'm a dad" thoughts that finally had a chance to come to the surface after a 24-hour phone call notice.  But then, the shooting of the Dallas police officers happened that evening, on a day that was supposed to be focused on justice for the police killings of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling.  Reality hit real quick.

And now today, on the eve of my first Father's Day weekend as a dad, the officer who shot and killed Philando Castile has been acquitted of all counts a month and a half after there were no federal charges against officers in Alton Sterling's case.  Unfortunately, nobody is surprised, but people are definitely getting understandably angrier.

I hate to think about how my parenting might change depending on how dark my son's skin color ends up being.  I don't want him to grow up fearing or hating the police, and I shudder at the thought of something as simple as a traffic stop ending up like any of these worst case scenarios.  There's too much hate to the point that it gets overwhelming at times, and race is often a driving force behind it.

So today and every day I pray for my boy's big eyes.  I pray that they be able to take in everything around him -- the good, the bad, and the ugly -- and still shimmer with excitement and determination to make this world a better place.

The "Why" Behind Adoption

When I tell people about my son's adoption story, they are always shocked about how sudden everything happened.  And as I reflect back on the past eight months, I grasp just how wild it must really look to everyone else.

We attended the AIM Adoptions orientation on March 24.  We walked in for our couples interview on April 19.  We went to the group home study on April 21.  I had my interview on May 16.  Ophelia had her interview on May 27.  We hosted our home study on June 17.  Our son was born on July 5.  We got the phone call on July 6.  We met our son on July 7.

From start to finish, the process took 15 weeks.  105 days.  Most expectant couples are pregnant for 9 months.  We were "paper pregnant" for 19 days between being approved at our home study and picking up the phone call that left our jaws on the floor.

Those 19 days were an interesting time.  The wife and I had naively planned a bunch of mini weekend vacations scheduled after our home study thinking that we could take advantage of our last few months of DINK (Double Income No Kids) before becoming DIOK or SIOK.  Of course, things didn't quite go as expected, and the only trip we were able to take was a July 4 weekend in Dallas.

I remember discussing the adoption process with some of my closest family and friends, and there were always two main questions that popped up from their end.

1. How do you feel about becoming a dad... at any moment?

This one was easy -- I felt terrific.  Wonderful.  Amazing.  I don't know if it's just my personality to not worry or stress about much, but I'd like to think that in this case it was a combination of both my personality and my faith.  Honestly, there was just this overwhelming sense of peace about the whole situation.  In a poetic sense, having everything out of my control was the best reminder to me that I was never in control in the first place.  God was and is and will always be my compass, and I knew there was no reason to fret about the adoption because it wasn't a matter of "if" he would provide us with a child, it was a "when."  I have no doubt that He had Levi in mind for us well before the thought of adoption ever entered our consciousness.

2. Why are y'all adopting?

This question was much more loaded.

The Cliffs Notes version?  We felt like God was leading us to adopt this year.

The slightly longer version?  For me, the idea of adoption first started gnawing away at me in Kenya in 2006.  I was there on a church missions trip with my siblings and some other friends, and we met hundreds and hundreds of kids.  We visited several orphanages, and our time spent playing with those children is something that I will never forget.  It was so gut-wrenching to think about all the kids in the world who, for one reason or another, have to grow up without parents.  Someday, I thought to myself, someday I might be able to adopt.

I remember Ophelia and I talked about adoption at least a couple of times while we were dating.  The funny thing is, we talked about adopting more than we ever talked about getting married... which was just once.  (I was incredulous that men don't get engagement rings, and I was secretly trying to figure out her ring size.  Which I got wrong anyway, but that's another story.)  We both had a heart for adoption, and that's when I realized we would adopt at some point in the future... you know, assuming we got married and all.

Fast forward to 2015, four years of dating, one year of engagement, and four years of marriage, we began earnestly praying about the timing of a potential adoption.  Then Fort Bend Community Church launched an adoption sermon series, where we got to not only hear testimonies from people in our church community who adopted but more importantly hear the pastors drive home the parallel of our adoption into God's family.  Things took off from there, and we listened to the adoption sermon series from Austin Stone as well, and eventually, it hit us.  This was it.  Let's do this thing.

Now today is National Adoption Day 2016, and I'm finishing up this post with a beautiful 4.5-month-old baby boy on my lap, with both of us cackling at the sweater vest hoodie that covers his eyes.  Looking back over the 10-year journey that God has brought me on to this point, I can't help but wonder in awe at what the next leg of the adventure will look like.

The Story of Levi

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 a 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.

Many of you have asked about dropping off food or checking out our registry or donating towards Levi's adoption, 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 Levi's adoption, you can do so here.

Thank you all for the support as we became parents overnight.  Levi is so, so loved.