The Difference That Our Adoption Consultant Made

 

It's hard to believe that it's now been about 13 years since my husband and I brought home our son through the gift of adoption and almost 8 years since we adopted our daughter. Reflecting on our experiences, I remain incredibly grateful for the impact that our adoption consultant made! I cannot imagine our adoption journeys without a consultant. Our personal experience of seeing the difference our adoption consultant made showed me how beneficial an adoption consultant can be to your adoption journey.

As someone whose heart was drawn towards adoption even as a child, over the years, I dug into learning about it. In my teens, during college, and after Josh and I got married, I read books, watched videos, checked out blogs, and asked questions. I talked with friends I knew who had been impacted by adoption, looked into different agencies, and intently listened to stories from adult adoptees. When I met my husband, I was at Wheaton College working on a Master's Degree with a plan to head to China to work at an orphanage.

Yet, when my husband and I got ready to begin our own adoption journey, I quickly found that knowing about something is much different than actually experiencing it. Enter: our adoption consultant.

As soon as we jumped into the adoption process, it became glaringly obvious that we had a lot to learn. All the information that I had gleaned over the years was helpful, but it could not replace the years of experience our adoption consultant had during her own adoptions and walking families through the process. She helped us navigate the complexities of agency dynamics, nuances of accurate terminology, and intricacies of walking out the specifics with integrity and wisdom. She prayed for us and helped us through her support and care. She educated us and equipped us to love an expectant mom in crisis. Not only that, she also connected us to a community of other adoptive families going through the process.

Even before I became an adoption consultant myself, I was telling everyone I knew about the benefits of using a Christian consultant. Looking back on our own adoption journeys, it was one of the best decisions we made.