Why We're Adopting

Adopt by Rumolay, Flickr.

I was in high school or college when I knew that I wanted to adopt. I was old enough at that point to think beyond school years and into the future of if/when I would be married and able to have children. And this decision was largely influenced by the fact that my mother was adopted. I saw the beauty and good that came from her adoption (though we still yearn to meet her birth family) and wanted to participate in that gift of adoption.

When John and I were dating/engaged (because, really, we only dated for a month before we were engaged:), we talked about children and I shared with him that I wanted to adopt at some point in the future and he was okay with that. Yay! 🙂 We, however, never talked about specifics when it came to adoption (ie: when do we want to adopt? How many, if any, biological children do we want to have? etc).

So before we knew it, we were pregnant three months after getting married and the chaos of life began from there. We finished up our final year of teaching that year (in South Korea), flew back to America the final month of my pregnancy, and gave birth at (my parent’s) home to our first baby girl. I became a stay at home mom and a doula, and John got a job at a Christian non-profit that worked with the homeless. A year later, we ended up moving out of my parent’s house and into our own home, and several months later got pregnant with Eden. Life just got busy and we ended up having two kids in the process(!) and the topic of adoption just naturally and all too quickly got pushed to the back burner.

It was during my pregnancy with Eden, however, that something changed. I don’t know what it was except that I was reminded of my desire to adopt and couldn’t stop thinking about it. John and I started talking about it, and the more we talked about it, the more I yearned to adopt. We met with some friends of ours who’ve adopted their two kids and after meeting with them, I was a mess of emotions. Our conversation rekindled my heart for adoption, and I so badly wanted to adopt and yet here I was pregnant with my second child! So I knew it would be quite a bit of time before adoption could really become a possibility for our family.

So we waited. And prayed. And waited some more. We met with another friend who’s adopted two children, and every time we finished having a conversation with someone who’s adopted, it would just be another affirmation that adoption was right for us.

Once Eden turned 18 months, John sat me down and said, “I’m ready for baby #3.” I can’t tell you how my heart leapt for joy! It means the world to me that John loves children and is the one who’s always ready for another kid. So this meant we needed to decide if this was it – if this was the beginning of our adoption journey. And we decided that yes, it was.

Shortly after, we sent out an email (and then a blog post) announcing our desire and plan to adopt, and it’s been an exciting journey since then!

While my mom’s adoption has greatly influenced our decision to adopt, here are a few other reasons why we’re choosing to adopt:

– There are 160 million children in need of families; we want to be a family for one of those children

– Just as God has adopted us into his family, we want to extend that same love to a child in need

– And on a smaller note, by adopting we are able to free up some of the Earth’s resources that we would use on our own biological child and put those towards our adopted child (being the ‘green’ people that we are:)

– And lastly, we just want to expand our family, and there’s nothing more we’d like to do than to take in a child who will do just that – bless and expand our family. <3

Several friends of ours have expressed that they too have talked about adoption and would like to do that at some point in the future. This excites me so much! I love hearing of so many young couples/families considering adoption, and it is my hope that adoption will be a tell-tale mark of our generation. That we see a need and meet it. That we offer our love of a lifetime to anyone, anywhere. That families would become more and more blended and beautifully diverse. That our generation would see each other as brothers and sisters and take care of each other as family does. Let’s be that generation! Let’s be the generation that loves radically!

Have you considered adoption for yourself or your family? If so, is there anything stopping you from pursuing adoption? What other questions do you have about adoption or the adoption process?