To Adopt or Not to Adopt

Recently I have met more and more people who have adopted and it’s awesome!  But I’m also learning to remind myself that people adopt for various reasons.  Some feel called to provide a home for a child who otherwise would not have one.  Some feel called to add to their family and choose adoption to do so.  And some, like Ben and I, have been unable to conceive our own biological children and turn to adoption as the only means of starting a family.  Each reason is valid and important, but also very different.

Lately I’ve been struggling with explaining to people why we chose to adopt.  Adoption was not our first choice.  When I dreamed about starting a family adoption was not part of that dream.  I assumed I would have three or four biological children of my own (all born at the perfect time and evenly spaced apart-ha!) and that would be that.  God obviously had a different plan in mind!  Don’t get me wrong—I am in love with our son and am forever grateful that God’s plan was bigger and better than my own, but it was still a different plan than my own original one!  (And if you know me well I’m quite the planner!)

Now that we have Nathan and he’s getting “older” (although he’s ONLY 8 months I’ve been told he looks more like an 18 month old!) I find myself having to answer a new set of questions.  Many people want to know when we will adopt again.  For those outside of adoption, it’s not that simple!  I wish I could snap my fingers and bring another sweet baby boy or girl home but there’s so much more to it than that!  Part of me resents the fact that it’s not easier.  I do not have the liberty of planning when my next child will be born (i.e. in 9 months).  Ben and I have always wanted a big family but now that we’ve been through an adoption we are still deciding whether we could do it all over again.  Thankfully we were able to fundraise the majority of our adoption expenses but to ask our family and friends to support us again, for the exact same reason, seems like too much to ask at this point.

After explaining this I then am often times asked, why don’t you go through the foster care system—it’s FREE! 

Again—is it really all that simple?  I don’t think so.  You still have to become licensed to foster a child in the state you live in.  And foster care has its own set of issues—and after everything we’ve been through infertility wise I’m not sure if I’m ready to open my heart to a child that I may end up letting go of.  That may sound selfish, but it’s how I feel at the moment.  It doesn’t mean that I don’t think foster care is an amazing and important thing—I’m just not sure if it’s the right fit for us.  And I don’t mean forever—I just mean right now!

When we were struggling with infertility I found myself grieving over the fact that I may never have my own biological child.  Now that we’ve adopted and have a child I find myself going through a new kind of grief.  Part of me is grieving over the fact that I may never have the big family I had always dreamed of.  I’m enjoying every moment possible with Nathan—and it’s already going by way too fast!  Will this be the only child I get to watch grow up?  Possibly….and before I can say what our plans are for growing our family I feel like I need to take this time to ponder what I have and what I may never have.