Why we chose adoption

Adopting a child came into the forefront of our minds while going through 3 very looOOOOng years of infertility. After a dozen artificial inseminations, a couple of exploratory surgeries, way too many doctor visits and months of meeting with infertile groups...oh, and the final in-vitro fertilization, which was successful (Brandon - whah-la) after 60 injections and inability to walk without excruciating pain (get the picture?), we finally became pregnant at the end of the 3 years. During those years, we'd always knew that somehow, someway we'd have children. It didn't matter so much how they came rather than THAT they came at all. So Brandon was born 12 years ago, and then we became pregnant with Evan 13 months later like those deals "Buy one, get one free". Us women love free stuff, so this was good.

I've always thought of adoption as a very unique gift for everyone involved. Maybe not so much the birth mother as this would have been an incredibly painful choice. I'll never know what that feels like. But the positive side of this for the birth mother is that she has a choice to keep her child or offer her a better life, opportunity. It's a gift for the child for obvious reasons and for the adoptive parents. There are actually some heavy duty sites on the Internet that promote that adoption is wrong and no one should ever do it. I had no idea...but when you enter into a different world of "something", it's amazing how you never knew certain groups or opinions were out there. I stay away from those negative forces as they have no value to me or anyone else. An adopted child will know and should understand that they have been chosen! They are wanted and purposefully picked out by people who have put a lot of thought into that decision.

I'm really liking the fact that more and more interracial adoptions are taking place because it brings culture to our nation as well as diversity in all areas. I'm married to an immigrant for goodness sakes. And that can't be bad ;) For whatever reason, orphans and babies who are given up for adoption are unable to be raised by their biological parents, and they both need and deserve loving, committed, permanent families. Consider this vision...sometime next year, David and I step off a plane in Addis Ababa, the capitol of Ethiopia, and get driven to the orphanage where our 2 toddlers will be waiting. When Caucasian people show up to an orphanage, it only means one thing...that they are there for picking up a child. All of the other children run to the windows or the doors slats because they wonder if it is for them. Is this their "Forever Family" coming to finally pick them up?

From what I know of some orphanages, the nannies do a really fantastic job of picking up babies and caring for toddlers and giving them as much time as they can, but they can never give them what a Father and a Mother can give them day in and day out. They just can't. So imagine their little hearts as they come to realize that this time, is not their turn. They wonder if it will ever be their turn. They don't know this, but I do........that the government offices that handle the paperwork that will unite an adopted with their new "Forever Family", are not motivated by what is happening in the orphanages. They are just sitting at their job, doing what they do, with no inkling or much concern of the pain, death, heavy hearts of waiting parents, disease, malnutrition, lack of interaction etc...that these precious little souls are going through. Every day that a file does not get looked at to move forward is another day that an orphan does not get to go home, and another day that a child or baby left on the side of the road is not going to have the chance to get into the orphanage to have that chance. It breaks my heart. There have been parents blogs that I've read who have been waiting to bring their new child(ren) home for 18 months now and it is the most painful thing to know that they are already your child, but are waiting on the "paper chase" in that country. Every day that they are not with their "Forever Family" is another day that they aren't being held enough, their bodies are not receiving proper nutrition, their hurts are not fully attended to...I could go on, but I don't want to go "there". It's heartbreaking.

We just have very heavy hearts for these children in 3rd world countries. They didn't choose where they were born...they were just born. Ethiopia, China, Russia, Vietnam, Haiti...these countries don't belong to "their" people, they are all "our" countries and they are our world, our children. When we adopt internationally, it doesn't solve the problem. But it makes us feel like we're doing something rather than just feeling really bad. We feel as though God has placed us in such a position to be "able" to do this in every sense of the word. We feel so blessed with full hearts and resources to be able to do this and at the end of the day...our family is the one who is blessed with what we are doing. This I know for sure.

So...the subject was "Why we chose adoption". And for us, it is all of the above!