Cedar N' Steel

“I know it’s going to work for you. You just have to be patient and wait for God’s timing. And if it doesn’t work out, you can just adopt.”

I have no idea how many times I heard that very phrase during our struggles to get pregnant. I know it always came from good intentions and kind hearts, and so I just smiled and nodded. If you’ve never experienced infertility, such a phrase would seem harmless, encouraging, and hopeful. That very notion allowed be to forgive over and over the people who uttered it and not let bitterness take root. I know they wanted to help.

Just. It’s a seemingly innocuous word, translating to “merely” or “simply.” As if it’s easy to put my body through hundreds of shots and pills in an effort to sustain a pregnancy, and still miscarry over and over. As if it’s easy to patiently wait in a painful season for God’s plan and purpose to be revealed. As if it’s easy to get a baby from another family on a whim. I find the word “just” minimizes a situation or a feeling, making it seem unimportant or no big deal, when in reality it’s actually huge and hard and scary.

What does it mean to “just” adopt? Adoption isn’t something you “just” do. It can’t be entered into lightly, without a stout mind and stalwart spirit. It takes hard work, it takes sacrifice, it takes perseverance, and it takes patience. And that’s all before you even get a child. I have no idea what will be required of us once that child is in our family. No, adoption is not “just” anything. Adoption is enormous and complex and life-altering. What does adoption really mean?

It means a woman has to give a child she’s carried and grown for 9 months to another woman to raise. This fact alone was the first mental hurdle I had to navigate before I could start feeling OK about adoption. I couldn’t fathom that for me to gain something so precious, another woman had to lose something even more precious. No matter the circumstances of the woman’s life, it’s still a loss, still a selfless sacrifice for the good of her child. I hope whatever our birth families stories, we can show them God’s big love and express our unending gratitude. Adoption creates a family.

It means giving up the dream of carrying a child in my own tummy, giving up the dream of a biological child with physical characteristics of me and Michael. We can’t have children naturally. I don’t have any Fallopian tubes, which means my eggs can’t get to my uterus. I’ve heard so many times the stories of couples who adopt and then find out their pregnant. That is not a hope of ours and we are fine with that. Adoption shows us it’s not our plan, but God’s plan that prevails. And it is perfect.

It means having our home and lives put under a microscope, observed and scrutinized by countless people who determine our fitness as parents. It means sucking up our pride and graciously answering question after question as we’re interviewed by social workers, agency workers, doctors, lawyers, judges, and various other people gathering every minute detail about us to assess the safety of our home, the strength of our marriage, and our readiness and motivations to be parents. God definitely revealed my pride and arrogance through this process. Adoption humbles you.

It means doing hundreds of pages of paperwork and signatures, FBI, state and local background checks, letters of recommendation from family and friends, at least 100 pictures for a profile book, medical reports, drug screenings, HIV and Tuberculosis testing, agency applications, pet vaccinations, copies of drivers licenses, marriage licenses, birth certificates, social security cards, and passports, employment verifications, financial statements showing exactly how much money you bring in and spend every month, tax returns, health and car insurance verification, and anything else you can think of to show we are US citizens, in good health, law-abiding, gainfully employed, financially stable, and a safe environment for children. And if one thing doesn’t look right, our dreams of having children would be dashed. Adoption has made us thankful for all His blessings and shown us how God has been preparing us for this journey our entire lives. He is the weaver.

It means writing pages and pages of self-study questions answered by both me and Michael separately about our parenting style, discipline techniques, motivation to adopt, childhood experiences, family history, general health, marriage, infertility struggles, experience with kids, job satisfaction, goals for the future, hobbies and activities we enjoy, plans for our kids future, perceived strengths and weaknesses, religious beliefs, etc etc. We also have to give ideas about how we would handle situations that may arise from parenting children of a different race. Adoption forced us to discuss how we want to parent and discipline, our goals for the future, and brought up racial issues we’ve never had to think about. Adoption prepared us for parenting.

It means entering into an agreement with a birth family, knowing they could change their mind at any moment before the papers are signed. It means having to parent a child we didn’t have 9 months to get ready for, who doesn’t share any DNA with us, and who may have a heritage very different from our own. It means letting other people determine our fitness as parents and when our child becomes our child. It means not knowing when our child will enter the world or if he or she’s already here. It means not knowing his or her age, gender, ethnicity, family history, conception details, womb environment, and prenatal care. It means waiting a day, a week, a year, several years, some unknown period of time for our child to find our arms. Adoption means loss of control, something I’ve wrestled with God over my entire life. Adoption requires complete dependence on God’s timing and God’s plans to prosper and not to harm, to give hope and a future.

It means having to answer questions about where our adopted children came from, why they were given up for adoption, and their heritage. It means putting our own desires aside to provide for a child who’s completely dependent on our love and care to survive and thrive, no matter the circumstances that brought them to us. It means raising them up to know their identity comes from God, and in Him all people are loved and desired and accepted and valued. It means absorbing every hurtful comment, every thoughtless action that comes our way as we advocate for our children and give them a safe, secure environment to grow up in and launch from as they navigate this chaotic, judgmental world. Adoption means fighting battles we didn’t know existed, spreading love, courage and acceptance in a world that thrives on violence, and standing firm in the foundation of our God who provides for our every need.

Adoption is not “just” me and Michael getting a baby. Adoption takes an army of people, a mountain of time, and a torrent of sacrifice to achieve. Adoption has taken as much blood, sweat, tears, perseverance, patience, and growth as IVF did. I’m not making that up. We’ve been at this since June, and we still aren’t presenting to birth families yet. It’s a long, difficult process with all the same uncertainty as IVF, except in this case we could end up with failed match after failed match (meaning the birth family decides to parent at the last minute), rather than miscarriages.

Through all of it, we cling to our hope in the Lord. Everything we’ve done for our adoption journey so far has worked out, doors have opened, and so we know we’re following God’s plan. We have no doubt that He designed us to parent adopted children, and when fear and uncertainty creep in from the enemy’s attacks, we remember Philippians 1:6 where Paul writes “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus.”

God began this work in us the second we decided to start a family. He comforted us through our IVF failures, grew us in our pain, matured our faith, strengthened our marriage, deepened our compassion, and turned us into the kind of parents adoptive children need. We’re excited to see how He “brings it to completion,” knowing that the end of this journey will “just” be the beginning of a new one.

Isaiah 40: 29-31, Matthew 11: 28-29, Romans 8:28, Jeremiah 29:11