Waiting for Lightning

(For background to this post, read Part 1 and Part 2 of our "switch from international to domestic" story.)

Josh and I had lots of conversations back then that went a lot like this:
Me: "So...are you thinking we should do domestic?"
Josh: "Well, I'm not sure."
Me: "Me either.  What would have to happen for us to be completely sure?"  
Josh: "Good question.  I don't exactly know but I think we should keep praying and talking with other people about it.  The Lord will lead us."

(Photo taken by the lovely Misha Seger)

I'd like to say I left those conversations with an angelic peace and confidence that God would direct our paths. But in reality, what I really felt was frustrated with the process, confused, and antsy for God to just send us a lightning bolt message from heaven saying "ADOPT FROM _______."

So we waited.  We prayed.  We talked with family and friends and got lots of advice and counsel and prayer.  We waited some more.  I got more antsy (read: impatient and discontent!).  At some point, I emailed my friend, Christy, about my confusion.  I specifically asked her "Why in the world would God give us such a heart for transracial adoption and then bring us to this point where Africa isn't an option for us?  That just doesn't make sense."  She reminded me (compassionately) that God's ways are much higher than ours and it's normal not to understand His ways.  Then she just threw out the question, "Why not adopt two African American kids?"  Well...good question.  Why not?

I started learning more about adoption here in the U.S. and was shocked to find out how huge the need for minority adoption is. The majority of couples that seek to adopt are white and the majority of those couples want a baby that looks just like them.  But there's a vast number of minority children in need of adoption and not as many couples willing to adopt trans-racially.  (Note: I am not saying that it's wrong to adopt a white child.  Every single child deserves a family and God calls each family to different things.  If no one adopted white children, that would be awful!  This post is just about what He's called our family to.)  

My heart went out to these birthmoms, courageously choosing life for their babies yet sometimes having very few adoptive parents willing to adopt their child.  Each day, I found myself more and more excited about the idea of adopting domestically. I was ready to run full speed ahead.

Josh wasn't quite in the same place I was, though...at least not yet.  After more months filled with more talking, praying, and waiting on the Lord, we both finally agreed that it seemed like God was leading us to adopt domestically.  There had not been a lightning bolt, but it did seem that His still small voice was leading us in that direction.  So, we stepped out in faith and signed in September with Christian Adoption Consultants.  We would not have anticipated that our story would have taken this turn, but we're so glad that it has!

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Adoption Hierarchy Craziness

(To read part one of how we entered the domestic adoption world, click here.)

As Lord Grantham says on Downton Abbey, "We all have chapters we would rather keep unpublished."  This is a part of our adoption story that I'd rather just forget about.  I've debated sharing it but it's a part of how God brought us to this point.  Plus, I've grown increasingly dissatisfied with anything less than authenticity.  (Facades are a really huge waste of time and I want people to know the real me, not a dressed up version of who I really am.)

(image courtesy of habituallychic.blogspot.com, a blog I have never read)

So, the honest truth? I have been completely resistent to the idea of adopting domestically for many years.  Josh did try to bring it up a couple of times, but when he did, I firmly (and probably rudely) said, "NO."  I told him that I couldn't handle the risk of a birthmom possibly changing her mind; that seemed unthinkable to me.

Then, out of the blue last summer, we suddenly found ourselves in a position where we couldn't escape thinking hard about adopting from the U.S.. We were approached about a pregnant woman in our area that was considering adoption.  If a family wasn't found for this baby, the child would likely be placed in foster care.  Everything changed for us.  There was a real woman with a real baby that was in real need of a family.  Was I willing to surrender my idea of what I thought adoption would look like for us?  Was I willing to risk the possibility of the mom changing her mind?  Those were agonizing questions to ask.  Suddenly, adoption became much less "what do I want to do" and much more "what is God calling our specific family to do"?  

Not long after we learned of that local situation, the family decided to parent their child.  But my heart began to change.  The risk of a birthmom changing her mind had (in a very small way) already happened to us and I lived through it.  But I was still really resistent to giving up the dream of adopting from Africa.  Why?

I couldn't have articulated this at the time, but I was walking around with this false notion of a hierarchy in adoption.  It went something like this: children living in orphanages are the ones who need a family.  Adopting internationally is more important than adopting domestically. Everyone wants babies here in the U.S. and the waiting list is huge so that's not really a need; toddler or older or special needs international adoption is really more needed than any other adoption situation. 

God does NOT view people that way.  The truth is that every single person is made in God's image and so every single person has value and dignity before Him.  Every single child that comes into this world deserves to have a family.  Before God, every soul is equally in need of love and salvation and hope, whether they live in Africa or in America.  There is no hierarchy in God's economy when it comes to orphans, or to anyone for that matter.  When Jesus walked the earth, His love reached out to all kinds of people with all kinds of stories.  As someone loved by God, I'm called by Him to love others, and not just the orphans in third world countries but everyone everywhere.  

Repenting about my thinking was a huge turning point for me.  Still, there had been no lightening bolt vision from heaven, showing us where to adopt. And I was really hoping for one...

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What About Africa?

"I thought you were adopting from Africa."  Yep.  So did we.  But here's the thing about adoption (and life in general)-it's unpredictable.  Even when you think you know what's going to happen, you don't.  There have been many many times when I was absolutely confident beyond a shadow of a doubt about something and then that something did not happen.  Surprisingly enough, God's plans are often way different than mine.

For instance, back when I was in high school, I was absolutely certain that one day I'd adopt from China. That certainty continued through college and as I started graduate school, planning to head to China to work in an orphanage.  I read books about the orphan crisis there and I wrote research papers about it.  I was certain that one day I would go there and help orphans.  Fast forward to the day that Josh and I began talking more seriously about when to adopt-it seemed pretty clear to us that God was leading us to adopt from Rwanda and not from China.  (We didn't meet all of China's requirements.)  Fast forward a couple of months; the country of Rwanda closed its doors to international adoption.  (Pretty clear that God doesn't want us to adopt from there right now.)  Fast forward a couple months later; we thought that Ethiopia was the place where our children were.  We learned about Ethiopia and dreamed about going there to add to our family.  Fast forward a couple more months and my thyroid continued (and continues) to be an issue.  It became pretty clear that travelling twice to a third world country to adopt wasn't in the best interest of our family given my health.  We went from China to Rwanda to Ethiopia and were left completely unsure of where God was actually calling us to adopt.

So when I hear, "I thought you were adopting from Africa" I can't help but shake my head.  That's what we thought, too. But God had other plans.

***This is the long version of why we switched from international to domestic adoption.  I'm planning to chop it up into several posts.

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Somewhere Tonight

Somewhere tonight, she is there.  I don't know her name.  I don't know what has brought her to this place.   I don't know what she looks like or what her background is or what makes her laugh or what her dreams for this baby are.  But I know that she's out there.  She might be scared.  She might be confused.  She might feel alone or angry or completely unsure of where to go or what to do.  Maybe she's not sure if she can continue with this pregnancy.  Maybe she's trying to just ignore the life inside of her.  Maybe she has been abandoned, forsaken, kicked out and without a place to go because of this baby.  Maybe she feels like all hope for her future has ended.  

Maybe she's considering ending this life or maybe she wants so badly to keep this baby.  Maybe she is doing all she can to feed the mouths of the little ones she already has and knows she can't add another.  Maybe she has a supportive OB or maybe she's never seen a doctor because she doesn't have insurance.  Maybe she has a husband who's standing by her through this decision or maybe she has a boyfriend who has left her when he heard or maybe she doesn't even know who this baby's father is.  Maybe she's a teenager or maybe she's a woman or maybe she's somewhere in between.

I've never met her.  In truth, I know virtually nothing about her.  Still, I lay awake at night thinking of her, praying for her, crying for her. I know that she is an amazing person because choosing to go through nine months of pregnancy knowing you will not be there for the first smile, first steps, first words, first everything is grief unimaginable.  She is brave and she is making an incredibly selfless choice. Again and again, I'm asking God to bring her to someone who will stand by her through this, someone to show her the love of a God who does not let go...someone who will show her Jesus.

Somewhere tonight, she is there.  We don't know her name.  We don't know what has brought her to this place but we know that she's out there. Whatever differences she and I may have, what we've got in common cannot be measured.  We both want what's best for this baby and our lives will never be the same because of this child.

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These Kids Get It

One of the most beautiful things about this adoption process has been watching the effect it's had on our kids.  We have three sweet children that are pretty amazing in many ways but they are also...well...kids, which means that they generally think a lot about themselves.  Being a family that's adopting hasn't magically erased their self-centeredness (or mine for that matter!) but God is using it to do something amazing in their little hearts.  Here's just a taste of some recent conversations around our home:

Owen:  "Can we pray for the mommy that has our baby in her belly?  Let's pray that she will take good care of the baby and that if she can't, someone else can take care of the baby until we get him."

(Side note: Owen has never heard those exact words from us.  Josh and I do talk with the kids about birthmoms, but not in great detail. Still, she is obviously very much on their minds.)

Babysitter: "Addie, your daddy and mommy are on a date but they'll be home soon.  What do you think they are doing?"

Addie Beth: "They're adopting a baby!"

Tali: "Mom, I'm going to save and save my money so someday, if I don't have any babies from my belly, I can adopt!  Well, actually, even if I do have babies, I can still adopt because there are still lots of children that need mommies and daddies, right Mom?"

They might be little, but you know what?  They get it.  Our kids know that there are kids their ages without parents and merely knowing about it isn't enough for them.  They want to do something about it.  Lord, give us all hearts like these children!

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So Excited

Hey, people!  Wanna' hear something pretty cool?  (You're probably thinking it's hard to get cooler than this little hot-shot and her rockin' dress up outfit, am I right?  Understandable.)

WE FINISHED OUR HOMESTUDY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now, for those of you wondering, "What in the world is a homestudy and why in the world does it matter?" let me fill you in. :)

The first big part of the adoption process is the homestudy where it's determined whether or not you can be legally approved to adopt.  So since November we have been filling out lots of paperwork, getting physicals and TB tests, writing a short autobiography, having friends fill out reference forms, reading some assigned material about birthmothers, watching some adoption education videos, doing 10 hours of adoptive training, paying the homestudy fee (about $2800) and spending time with our social workers answering lots of questions about our marriage/parenting/family background/etc.  The final part of the homestudy is a visit where the caseworkers come out to your house to make sure it's a safe place and that's what we did today soooooooooo...we are legit!

I'm sure everyone's experience with a homestudy is different, but we found it to be fairly easy and enjoyable, just time consuming.  But the reason why this is so awesome is that now we're one HUGE step closer to bringing home our baby/babies!!!! Super exciting stuff!

Our next steps are to apply for grants (we need about $10,000 before we will start applying to agencies...I'll explain that in another post), then apply to agencies, then wait to be matched with a birthmom!  We really have no idea how long these next steps will take but we're excited to be one step closer today!

God's been so faithful to get us here!  We are so excited!!!!!!

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A Big Sister's Heart

It was around bedtime when she ran in, eyes sparkling with a shy little grin on her face.  Her hands were clasped tightly and she jumped up and down with excitement.  "Mommy?  I have a belated Christmas gift for you!"

"It's for your adoption fund, Mommy!"  She opened her hands and placed into mine the twenty cents she'd been hiding.  "The sooner you have the money, the sooner we can adopt, right Mom?"  Her arms wrapped around me tightly and she squeezed, this sweet girl wanting desperately to be a big sister again.

It wasn't the act of generosity or her childlike faith that started my tears...it was her love for this little person that she doesn't even know yet-her love for her new little brother (or sister...or twins) that melted my heart.  She isn't worried if she'll love a sibling that looks different from her or concerned that the new child's family history is different than hers.  She doesn't even care about those things.  She just knows that babies are a blessing and she can't wait to have another one in the house.

I love my girl and the beautiful big sister's heart that she has.  Twenty cents has never meant so much.

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