The day we went from "people who might adopt someday" to "this is actually happening NOW" was Saturday, March 5th. It was cold, it was snowy, and I was drinking coffee in my jammies at 9:30 a.m. I love Saturdays :) I got a phone call I'll never forget from a family member who had no idea that Tim and I had ever considered adoption. NOBODY knew! Wait, scratch that... GOD knew. And He was about to work through our family's love and generosity to bring our dreams sharply into focus. After a bit of catching up and small talk, we discussed how my doctor's appointments had been going, and then my heart skipped a beat as she asked me what we planned to do next. We hadn't told anybody yet... should we?... what will everyone think? My mind was just spinning. Crickets chirped on the phone line. And then hesitantly, respectfully, she spoke the words that answered my prayers, "...because if adoption is anything you'd ever consider, we want to help."
Instantly I knew it was happening. We were FINALLY in this. I knew her literal words meant financial support, the big question mark and the final hurdle that was keeping adoption just out of arm's reach for us. But the love and selflessness with which the offer was made also meant that we had the full support of our family... that they shared in our dreams... that they were ready to go along for the ride. Since that day, SO many of our family members and friends have pledged similar support - financially, emotionally, or both. We would not be where we are today without the grace of God, ESPECIALLY demonstrated to us by our dear family and friends this year.
After hanging up, I began the most wildly distracted day of my life. Tim was gone all day at a conference. I was sitting at home alone with a to-do list a mile long, a smile that wouldn't leave my face, a song in my heart, and a HUGE secret. I was ready to explode. I spend most of the day pacing from room to room, singing random songs at the top of my lungs, crying (joyfully), avoiding my housework, and plotting creative ways to tell Tim the news.
Yup, pretty sure I ended up bursting into tears and blubbering out the news the moment he walked in the house . Nothing special :)
This wildly distracted day became a full-flung frenzy within the next two weeks. Now that the fire was lit, I was in a huge rush to soak up every bit of information I could find. I was DYING to tell people, but felt like we needed to make some of the big decisions on our own before opening our lives and our plans up to public opinion. This wouldn't be like the time I asked people on Facebook what kind of vacuum I should buy (although that question generated some extremely helpful comments and I DO love my vacuum very much). At the very least, we wanted to decide on international, domestic, or waiting children adoption before making our news public.
The first program we ruled out was Waiting Children. To this day, my heart sinks and my eyes well up as I type that out. It was both the easiest and the hardest decision we'll go through in this whole process. The Waiting Children Program, offered by each of the agencies we initially researched, places children in adoptive homes out of foster care. It's safe to say that ALL of these children have deep emotional needs, and many of them have additional medical or behavioral special needs, as well. Many of the children are looking to be placed as a sibling group of 2, 3, or more. Many of the children are school-age, elementary through high school. I say the decision was easy, because we knew we wanted a baby for our first child, but that's about the ONLY thing that was easy about it. It broke my heart to think of the Waiting Children in Minnesota and all over the country, ready to be adopted NOW, old enough to comprehend their circumstances, wondering when someone will take them home and love them. Sigh. Someday... Tim and I think someday we might love to return to this decision and prayerfully re-evaluate it.
Deciding between international and domestic adoption was a loooooong process. Lots of wavering back and forth, thinking we had our minds made up, even telling close family members that we had our minds made up... my poor mother :) I had my guard up about domestic from the start. Today, 95% of domestic adoptions are open, with varied forms of ongoing communication between the birth family and adoptive family throughout the child's life. That scared me BIGTIME at first. Also, the birthmom CHOOSES the adoptive family. Meaning I'm not going to be on a chronological waiting list, standing in line to hear my number get called. It means somebody is either going to like Tim and me, or they're not. My dreams are in her hands, and I don't know a thing about her. I'm not a spot on a list... I'm a choice that somebody else makes. I didn't think I was emotionally up to the challenge.
International seemed impossible, too. Pick a country. Take classes and read books. Do a load of paperwork for the agency. Pay a lot of money. Produce an obscene amount of further paperwork for the two governments involved. Wait and wait and wait your turn. Travel once if you're lucky, but often twice, even three times, for weeks at a time, leaving your child behind in another country between trips. It was terribly overwhelming and had me out of my freaking mind during the week I thought we were going to go with international. Each agency offered adoptions through different countries. Each country had different requirements, restrictions, travel times, ages of children available, costs... There are programs for healthy infants, toddlers, and older children. Just like in our own country, there are also thousands and thousands of Waiting International Children who have mild to severe special needs, the greatest and most desperate of which is a loving home and the opportunity to learn about their Savior.
Finally, I just had to take a step back, hide my Giant Adoption Binder under the bed for a couple days, and pray. If I was looking for the "easy" route, I was never going to find it. Both of the roads leading away from this fork would be windy, steep, and dark at times. So pray, breathe, and call upon the Lord in the day of trouble... and stress, and worry, and utter insanity. Pray, pray, and pray some more. After a couple of days the answer was finally clear. After a couple MORE days we still hadn't changed our minds, so that was a pretty good sign, being the impulsive people that we are.
We chose to pursue a domestic infant adoption. In our hearts, we desperately wanted our first child to be an infant, and the domestic program enables us, under normal circumstances, to be in the hospital with the birthmom and bring the baby home as a newborn.
I still struggle with some guilt over the fact that "age of baby" was the deciding factor. It feels selfish. There are ORPHANS out there that I am choosing not to help at this time. ALL children are a gift and a blessing, whether 9 days, 9 months, or 9 years old. Whether healthy or sick. Whether here or abroad. A family that adopts internationally and can't get their child home until 11 months old because of bureaucratic red tape will love their child NO LESS than a family that brings baby straight home from the hospital. And let's not open the "waiting children" can of worms again, that's just a whole MESS of guilt I am still working through.
But a wonderful sense of peace had come over us, as well. We had both "come around" to this open adoption concept and the potential blessings that could come out of it for us, for baby, for the birth family. It's completely amazing. I can't wait to write more about it someday. And although we wouldn't be bringing a child home from an orphanage or foster care, we would be giving a Christian, loving home to a beautiful child and ensuring that they never have to experience either situation. And we would BE THERE from our child's very first breath... or maybe their second or third, depending on how far away Birthmom lives and how fast we drive.
The decisions had just begun. Even more were still to come, and they won't stop once paperwork is done, or even once baby arrives. That's when things really get hard, I imagine, because they impact the life of the precious child already breathing in your arms and filling up your heart. But for now, we had made our first BIG DECISION. And we were free to tell the world...
No comments:
Post a Comment