my favorite adoption story.
I’ll never forget that night and that prayer.
It was October of 2010 and my friend and I were up late into the night praying in the prayer room on campus. I had called her in desperation, I didn’t know what else to do but pray. My sister Katie was sick and had just been re-admitted to the hospital, a major setback in a continued struggle against her mental health.
Two years earlier, my perfectly normal and healthy sister had been diagnosed with post-partum psychosis after the birth of her son. In the weeks that followed his birth her mind began to spin out of control, filling with anxiety and racing thoughts. We watched helplessly as Katie wrestled with her own mind, spending weeks in the hospital and taking scores of medication to try find a sense of normalcy. There was no explanation for its onset other than perhaps a lack of sleep, which is about the most expected part of being a new mother.
In the two years that followed her initial diagnosis Katie made great leaps forward, slowly gaining control of her mind again, though her heavy medication had other difficult side effects. During the summer of 2010 her doctor felt they could decrease her medication enough for them to try for a second child. It felt like the right decision and was a positive step forward in their journey – yet within weeks it landed them back at square one and in the hospital seeking more treatment.
I was devastated when I got the call. Not again! She had come so far, and it felt like she was starting over.
Through tears I begged God to bring healing clarity to Katie’s mind, I knew this was not the real her and I so desperately wanted my big sister, my hero, back.
My friend listened as I cried out and she sat in silence as we awaited a response from God. She prayed very little aloud that night, but I will never forget the one prayer she did verbalize – because God would spend the next 7 years (and beyond) of Katie’s life answering it in only a way He could.
God, we pray that you would heal Katie. But not so that her family can be “normal” again. Lord we pray that through her healing her family would never be normal again.
Almost exactly a year later, a knock at my sister’s door would change our family forever.
Katie and her husband had always wanted a big family, and as Katie’s health improved they both felt as if it was not the time to grow their family biologically. In order to safely carry a child, she would need to make some drastic changes to her medication and they didn’t want to take any chances. Instead, God had placed foster care on their hearts – with the hope of adopting a child or two down the line.
In October of 2011, they received a call from their social worker – there were two girls in need of a home for the next few days and she was wondering if they could take them in. My mother happened to be spending the weekend at their house and was there as they welcomed in a shy and hurting 9-year-old girl and her younger sister, whose body was covered in casts. They would soon learn 3-year-old Emmy suffered from a bone disease called “osteogenesis imperfecta,” also known as brittle bones disease. Even the simplest motion could break one of her precious bones. Up to this point they had been living with their mother, but she was likely headed to prison for several years and was no longer able to take care of them.
Weeks turned into months and every last one of us broke the “attachment” rule of foster care – we knew at some point we might have to give these girls back to their parents, but we couldn’t bear the thought of it. (Little Emmy had taken to calling me “Rachel with a hat on” because I was always wearing a backwards baseball cap when she saw me). They had found their way into their foster aunts, grandparents, parents, and brother’s heart and we knew it wouldn’t be easy to give them up.
There are many details that fill the years to follow, but Katie and Viet officially became the legal parents of Emmy and Angie right before Christmas of 2013. 4 years later and I seriously cannot imagine what our family would look like without them in it.
Their arrival at our doorstep spiraled our entire family into a new normal, a deeper and more meaningful normal than any of us had ever imagined.
As I think about my prayers in the early days of this journey, all I wanted was our old life back – I wanted Katie without the scars of mental health and the fear of an unknown future. But God had much greater plans than that, and He was able to use post-partum psychosis to accomplish it. He was writing a much greater story than the one we had in mind, even if we couldn’t see it at the time.
This past week the Fargo Jail Chaplain’s Ministry hosted their annual banquet, an opportunity to share with the community the ways that God was moving through their chaplains and volunteers in the local jails and prisons.
The keynote speaker was a former alcoholic and drug addict who had a few years prior given her life to Christ through a prison-led Bible study. The crowd of hundreds listened as she shared her story of hitting rock bottom, losing her kids, and spending several years of her life behind bars. She was out of prison now and with her newfound faith and healthy surroundings beginning a new life for herself, even to the point of mentoring others who were stuck where she used to be.
But she had one person she wanted to thank most.
My sister, Katie.
Katie. The woman who had taken on the role of raising her two daughters and teaching them about Christ. Through Katie’s example Miki had seen Christ incarnate, and it played a huge role in her decision to surrender her life to Jesus.
So often in the early days of Katie’s mental health struggles I would ask God “why Katie?” Katie was one of the most influential people I’d ever met, and she had done nothing to deserve such a terrible disease. There were times we didn’t know if she’d ever come out of it.
But all along, God was unfolding a much greater plan for her life.
Yes, he would restore her mental health in full. But the scars would serve a purpose. They would lead her and her husband into the foster system, and two beautiful girls into their family. Her obedience and steadfastness to Christ would speak volumes to their biological mom, who was looking for the hope that could only be found in Jesus. He would give her opportunities to share her story with groups of moms, and give them the freedom to confess and process their own struggle with mental health. She would show her friends that foster care was possible, not just for her, but for them too. (Including her little sister!)
The thing I once thought robbed Katie of her mission became her mission.
Katie, you are my hero. You were when I was just a kid looking up at you. And as I’m becoming a mom I thank God for women like you. Thanks for leading the way, you are truly changing the world with your story.
Katie Doan, my older sister, lives in the Fargo/Moorhead Area and keeps a personal blog here. She is also available for speaking engagements, which you can arrange through her website.
Reading Rachel 
Thanks for sharing this, Rachel. Well told. A perfect example of what the Good Shepherd promised–His strength is made perfect in our weakness. Praise.
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