I (don’t) know better — Reflections on #Summit9

May 13, 2013 By 4 Comments

“I know better” is where I started, two years ago.

Someone sold me a bill of goods (except I was both seller and buyer), a mythology about adoption and what it all means in God’s big kingdom, but then I adopted and now I know better.

People get into adoption to join a movement and “rescue” a child, but I know better.

The orphan care movement stirs emotion and misguided action at best, and reinforces racial and socioeconomic stereotypes at worst.

But thank God I know better.

Thank you God, that I am not like other people…
-The Pharisee in Luke 18:11

 

Christian Alliance for Orphans’ Summit 9 taught me many things.

Christian Alliance for Orphans

Image by @orphanalliance: http://ow.ly/i/21w3H

I heard the voice of the adoptee stronger and clearer than ever, a light to lead the way.
I heard the story of a man who grew up in an orphanage in Kenya and described how his heart broke over and over when white people would visit and then never return. How he wasn’t considered one of the cute ones, so he was never picked up by these visitors. How his heart formed a shell after a while, how he never cried until he was an adult.
I soaked in the wisdom of Karyn Purvis, who swore at a Southern Baptist church to get her point across (and gave me another reason to love her forever): You have to deal with your own sh*t before you can help your child deal with theirs.

I learned about my son. I learned about my brother and my sisters-in-law. I learned about my family and my beginnings. I learned about myself.

 

* * *

This was my first Summit, and I’ll admit now that I was fearful before going. I’m writing this book about adoption, and I worried I’d be surrounded by people who knew so much more, had so much more experience and insight. I was afraid it would reinforce my self-doubt, my who-do-you-think-you-are thoughts that come when I sit down to write. I thought that instead of inspiration, I’d get paralysis when I came toe-to-toe with my own inadequacy again.

But it was different than that.

I did encounter people who knew so much, but it wasn’t so much that they knew more as it was that they knew differently.

Adoption is such a complex act. In it you experience a depth of loss you may have never felt before. You come face-to-face with some of your worst qualities. You find out how desperately you try to hold onto a semblance of control, and what a mirage it is. You see how deeply personal the entire thing is.

Because we’ve been through it now, and those illusions have been torn down. Now we know we are the ones being redeemed.
That when God sought us out, he knew that our children would be part of our redemption story.

* * *

It’s taken a couple of years, but I’m finally starting to see that it’s not as simple as I’m right and you’re wrong. In fact, I’m seeing that I’m chief among offenders. I see so clearly now how I need other opinions and varied perspectives to be able to zoom out and take in the big picture. It’s hard to write this, but I need to confess: I thought I knew better than you. Will you forgive me?

I’m arriving in one of those places you feel like God has been waiting for you for a while: It’s OK, my sweet girl, he whispers to me. It’s OK that it took you a while to get here, but I’m so glad you’re here. Humility is a better road for you.

It’s a road of asking hard questions but then really listening for the answers, or finding peace (and humility) in the not-knowing.

 

Adoption is about making all of us more human. Growing up in a family is a basic human right. Connection is what gives us our humanity. And I’m so thankful that because of Summit 9, I can see myself reaching out to those with whom I disagreed before. I can tell that I have something to learn from them, and we have something to give to one another. That together, we can give the world a holistic picture of adoption and orphan care and really at the foundation of it all — the love of Jesus.

Because when I say that connection is what makes us human, I mean love. God is love, and apart from him we can’t connect with each other, we can’t love, we can’t be human.

* * *

I don’t know better.

At Summit, I was both humbled and validated, because God confirmed that he has given me a fire in my belly about adoption and especially during- and post-adoption support for adoptive parents. That’s just where I land. That’s the need that I want to meet.

But I desperately need the adoptee voice.
I desperately need the prompting ministries that help people see their calling to adopt.
I desperately need the organizations working on the ground for family reunification and global orphan care.

I need all of them.

And I was validated that although I don’t know better, I know differently, too. I have a unique voice and part to play in this community.

And we might not always agree or get along, but that’s OK, too. That’s why God made us a family.

See you next year, Alliance family.

Filed Under: adoption Tagged With: , ,

Why I’m going to Summit this year — and you should, too

April 22, 2013 By 1 Comment

Next time we go to Uganda (which could happen sooner than I thought it might, stay tuned), it will be different.

On my third trip there, I will see it through new eyes. Specifically, my 9-year-old daughter’s.

Her empathy is deep and wide. Her heart will fall in love with the country and the continent, and I have a feeling it’ll be broken a bit by it, too. Like mine was. Like mine is.

I told a lovely group of women last week that we mothers are the vision-casters for our children’s lives.

Audrey has seen my dedication to Uganda and love for its people, and she wants to join the mission, too. I couldn’t be prouder. Not because I’ve done something in her, but because God has.

Africa is already part of our family, but after she experiences it for herself, I’m sure it will be part of her heart, too.

* * *

I have a confession: I judged too soon.

Thinking I knew the spirit and intent of the Christian Orphan Care Movement, I have written that I’m not sure I can support Orphan Sunday. That I’m not sure it’s a good idea to cast ourselves as the heroes and the “poor orphans” as the rescued. That I’m wary of what I viewed as too heavy a focus on the beginnings of things. (Or maybe that was my focus before actually adopting.)

I’m still conflicted about the movement as a whole, because I know that some families might want to join the movement and enter into adoption-as-mission, which makes children into projects, and that’s not healthy either.

But now I know something else: The Christian Alliance for Orphans is doing it right.

Next week (!!), I’m attending Summit 9, Christian Alliance for Orphans’ two-day conference on adoption, foster care and global orphan care initiatives.

I’m going to soak in the presence and calm that is Karyn Purvis and learn all I can about attachment. I will attend workshops on being a multi-racial family and hear from adoptees and orphan care/adoption advocates. I’m excited to see a screening of the documentary STUCK, and even get some ideas on how to use photojournalism in my creative work. I’m even going to a special Blogger Breakfast!

But one workshop I’m probably most excited about? Is called ‘Ministry is a Family Thing.’ About how families can cast a vision for service and mission across generations. Taught by Mary Beth Chapman and her daughter, Emily. As in, Steven Curtis Chapman’s Mary Beth Chapman. As in, adoptive mother, author, non-profit founder and one of my heroes. I’m so excited to sit and learn from her and her daughter.

And then maybe just a little while later, I’ll be taking my daughter to Africa.

* * *

Summit 9 has something for everyone who is touched by orphan care, adoption and foster care. They have a session for adoptive mothers coping with the emotional turmoil that often comes with adoptive parenting. There are workshops on special needs adoption, older child adoption, and even adoption disruption. If you’re looking to build an orphan care ministry in your church or community, there is plenty of information and resources here to get you started. There are tracks for pastors, adoption service professionals and child welfare professionals, too.

Besides connecting with some good friends in Nashville during my stay, it will be magical to connect with other adoptive families and advocates — just to breathe the same air with people who share my passion for adoption.

And maybe in a few years when she’s exploring God’s call on her life, Audrey will come with me to Summit, too.

 

Are you attending Summit 9? Leave a note in the comments and let’s meet up there!

Filed Under: adoption

The miracle I cannot see

April 1, 2013 By 7 Comments

She leaned in, touched my arm, opened her mouth and God spoke to me.

Right there in the middle of the party. Right there, drink in hand, after I had told her how difficult the last two months have been.

Praying so hard for the girl we thought was ours, asking others to pray, feeling the burden press down on my chest until my heart broke in the week before we heard it was over.

And I had to ask Jesus: What was that all for?

Why should I pray if this is the result? And what was that burning I felt to intercede if not for the miracle?

And then I shared just a sliver of this with a wise friend, and the Holy Spirit whispered to her and she said His words aloud: “You don’t know what your prayers did in her life. You just can’t see the difference they made.” She suggested that maybe we were matched with her, maybe all of it happened so that we could pray a miracle into her life at the moment she needed one.

Maybe the miracle happened, but it wasn’t for me.

And then we heard that the girl has been resettled, unexpectedly, with a family member. She is out of the orphanage. She is with family. And that’s all I wanted for her anyway.

Now instead of pain, gratitude. Instead of distrust, hope. Instead of disappointment, peace and awe that we could be part of her life at a time that mattered. That God would call us to love until it hurt, to intercede and see another sliver of his kingdom come.

And I wonder how many other miracles I miss because they don’t manifest the way I imagine? Because they’re not about me or in me or for me? How much more beauty and redemption could I be part of that won’t ever be about me? What a lovely, freeing thought.

Today, my friend Addie is right. The Resurrection is everywhere, if we just open our eyes to see its light touching everything we see.

Filed Under: adoption Tagged With: , , ,

Where I found God when my heart was breaking

February 4, 2013 By 4 Comments

Those things we thought we were holding so lightly, they’re so fragile, aren’t they?

And then if it comes to your worst fears, if your hopes are dashed and your heart is broken, you realize how you’d loved the dream of it all. Maybe you loved a person now gone. Maybe you’d imagined a life not yet there, but it was real to you.

Have you had a dream die, too? Have you seen it crumble and fall through your fingers? Have you wondered
Where are you, God?
How could you?
How can I trust you again? 

If you have had to admit and own failure, you know. If you are adopting and you’re forced to change course, you know. If you’ve had a marriage fall apart before your eyes, you know. If your heart is longing for a child and you hope against better judgment month after month, you know. If someone so close, someone who feels like they’re in every part of you, is taken away, suddenly or even if you knew it was coming, you know.

I know.

God knows. He saw his dream fall apart, too, his design diminished, his perfect plan spoiled when his first babies turned their backs on him, lied, hid. Jesus knows what it’s like to feel abandoned by God, the God who’d sustained him, the God who had spoken to him, the God who had felt closer than his own skin. Jesus knows exactly how loud silence can be when all you want is the smallest whisper.

But in your pain, it’s hard to believe that God knows. In your bludgeoned heart, you most desperately want to be held by a God you can’t feel, a God you don’t understand anymore.

I know.

My heart was shot through last week, too. A dream died, and I think God could have done better with this one. I don’t believe that “it’s all for the best” necessarily, because sometimes it just isn’t. I’m still wrestling with him, swearing at him, beating my hands on his chest, asking him the hard things, the questions that will follow me for years. I’m asking even though I know they won’t all be answered. I’m asking to find peace in the not-knowing. I’m asking and crying because I know he grieves with me. I know he’ll hold me and weep with me. He’s sad for the brokenness that broke my heart, too.

Do you know how I know? Because he showed me. Over and over again.

He was in the hug of a friend I just happened to run into. He was in the messages from people I’ve never met, who have been through it, who are holding part of my sorrow, who are praying for me constantly. He was in the texts and encouragement of friends after I showed them my broken heart.

He was in it when I felt loved, and when their hearts were heavy with me, I knew His heart was heavy, too.

He was hugging me.

He was encouraging me with his Word.

He was making plans to give me something to look forward to.

He was texting me.

Because when they loved me, I could see how desperately He loves me.

I can see how their love — His love — is carrying me even now. I can see how His love will eventually, piece by piece, start to heal me.

___


I haven’t really talked about it here, but we’re in the process of adopting again, and last week we lost a referral. Pray with us that this sweet child’s future holds more than we could imagine or give.

Filed Under: adoption Tagged With: , ,

Fear, Inadequacy and True Strength, or, How I’m Not Cut Out For Adoption

November 21, 2012 By 2 Comments
Snuggling

A moment of love. Because I typically don’t take pictures when he’s hitting.

It’s the three hundredth time he’s hit his brother today, or pulled his sister’s hair, and I repeat again that we don’t hit, we hug, and give him a time-out, and show gentle touch, and sometimes when I’m exasperated I give his hand a little swat. As if by hitting I will teach him not to hit? I don’t know.

He’s an active 2-year-old, just crazy and loud, really, obstinate sometimes, honestly, and now sometimes when he hits or turns the oven dials I see a trace of a smile on his face and I am all out of ideas. I don’t realize just how loud and active things are in our house until the social worker visit, or bringing him to the swim meet, when we get all kinds of “he’s got a lot of energy, doesn’t he?” comments and I agree but begin to wonder if he’s out of control. (And what does it mean to control your child anyway? Probably something to do with hitting, and so I move away from that idea a little more.)

I have the thought at least once a day: I’m not cut out for adoption.

Or really, I can do adoption — the paperwork, the bureaucratic web, the checklists. What I’m not cut out for? is parenting. Or more accurately, loving unconditionally. Loving well. Doing right by my kids. Giving grace and mercy instead of the law and harshness. Balancing truth and love and grace and discipline.

We have three children, which many people think is already a lot of children, and then we feel like there’s at least one more out there waiting for us. And when we’re at the swim meet or the social worker is over or people are staring (because they always do, our colors contrast so much), I know that I know that I know: I can’t do this. I wonder at God, who put such a burning desire in us for adoption, who has moved obstacles out of our way to make it happen, and I laugh a little, maybe like Sarah did long ago, when her long-empty womb was suddenly full when no one, not even she, believed it possible.

Sarah’s womb wasn’t cut out for pregnancy. And I’m not cut out for parenting three-plus children.

Shouldn’t this calling go to a daycare provider or something? I ask God. Are you sure?

The enormity, the life long-ness of the calling weighs on me sometimes.

And then He reminds me that I don’t have to be strong, because He is.

I don’t have to make another adoption happen, because He is able.

I don’t have to have parenting super-powers, because he will equip me, he will give me daily what I need, like manna, just enough, and tomorrow, again enough. Enough. And even I will be enough for the task.

Because pushing into whatever scares you but feels so right? That can be what it feels like to live right in the palm of God’s hand. Being there sometimes doesn’t feel secure or safe. It feels vulnerable, even dangerous. As if I am being called to remember, constantly, that I’m not cut out for this. It’s true: I can’t do this. Not without Him.

In Him, all things. Without Him, nothing.

Remind me again today.

Filed Under: adoption Tagged With: ,

In the reeds: Adoption, parenting and being seen

October 24, 2012 By 3 Comments
Ugandan adoption

Early days, Uganda.

The morning after we arrived in Kampala a few weeks ago, I looked into my own face several times over.

Our Ugandan guest house was otherwise filled with adoptive families just like us — white American parents with their brand-new-to-them Ugandan children, and from the looks in their eyes to the stories they were telling, I was right back there. I could feel it all again.

It was in the tears that filled one woman’s eyes so quickly when we told her she was a good mom. It was in the quiet confession, “They never told me about the biting and kicking and scratching. No one ever talks about the constant food issues or how impossible it is for them to fall asleep. I signed up for adoption, but I didn’t sign up for this.” 

The other tearful admission: “We had a perfect family and lovely children and I love our life back home so much. I looked at my husband the other day and said, What have we done?”

All I could do was cry right along with them and say, “I know. I know.”

It’s amazing how we can forget how we need each other. In adoption, in parenting, in life — we need each other, especially at our weakest and most vulnerable.

How else can we survive how isolating it is to get a child who doesn’t feel like your own yet to fall asleep in your arms, to trust you when you don’t trust yourself, to depend on you when all you see is your greatest weaknesses over and over again?

If we don’t connect and share the struggle, how could any of us get through it?

Oh, how we need each other.

It’s in the warm hugs and the deep understanding. It’s the rush of relief when another adoptive parent says the words that have been echoing in your heart, the same ones you’ve been too terrified to speak aloud. It’s the little pockets of rest when someone plays with your new child for a half hour because they see you struggling.

In parenting, it’s the tears of joy when you find a soul-sister who gets it. It’s wading out into the reeds together, just the simple acknowledgement that when you look down, you’re all in it, all together, not one of us standing above or below the others.

It can be the simple and powerful knowledge that you’re seen. You’re known. You’re understood and you’re doing OK. And if you’re not, here we all are, just reach out and grab a hand, because someone has always walked through this swamp before.

And to get there? It takes just one step of powerful vulnerability — when you see understanding or empathy or grace in the gaze of another, step out and tell your truth. Let yourself be seen, even if it doesn’t match with what you see in others. Especially then.

It’s the worst, hardest, best, most life-giving thing you might ever do, and I’m still learning how, too.

“Connection is why we’re here. We are hardwired to connect with others, it’s what gives purpose and meaning to our lives, and without it there is suffering.”

-Brene Brown, Daring Greatly

Filed Under: adoption Tagged With: , , ,

A time to speak, a time to be silent

August 17, 2012 By 8 Comments

It’s not that we’ve never heard these things before. It’s not like we don’t know that when it comes to adoption, ignorant, misinformed, and racist opinions exist. As much as we’d like to think we’ve moved on, that people are finally getting it, that our children won’t have to come up against prejudice and judgement, we’ve gotten enough comments personally to know better. The people in the grocery line, the kids who stare, the parents who don’t know how to talk about it. We have a lot of work to do, and we have the important job of being ambassadors of adoption, little lights of truth, educating and gently showing the world a better way.

So why on earth do we draw attention to ignorant, inflammatory words that someone utters, even if they’re on TV?

This could have been a throwaway moment. This could have been forgotten as soon as it was over, because of course adopted children aren’t “someone else’s problem.” Of course they’re not destined to “grow up weird.” It’s utterly, incredibly ridiculous. Laughable. A pure, simple “what the…?” moment. If you happened to be watching in that moment — roll eyes, move on. Nothing to see here.

But then, everyone starts linking to the clip. The adoption community sets it on fire, and now it’s a circus show.

I get that we have to speak up in the face of injustice, and to stand up for the weak. But this? This is just giving power to words that should have had none. By linking to the clip and having all our friends watch it, we’re just joining in 1. Increasing the exposure of these hateful words to more people, and 2. Jumping on the dogpile in judgment of another human being.

In moments like these, is it really better to speak out? (The irony of writing a blog post about how we shouldn’t talk about it isn’t lost on me. I told myself that everyone’s seen it by now so I’m not adding more fuel to the flame, but who knows? I’m probably part of the problem. Aren’t we always?)

It’s the same for words that degrade women in the church, or words that communicate hate and fear to our gay and lesbian friends, or really, any words that tear down instead of build up. The outcry only gives the original words more power than they deserve. When we are silent, when we ignore the ignorant, we are speaking volumes. We are saying their words have no power, their attitude has no place in our discourse.

Let’s keep to our own lane, keep our heads down and keep doing the good work of reconciliation, of speaking adoption-friendly language, of educating others on the hard, worth-it work of healing and wholeness and truth. Let’s show the world with our lives, with our families and with our choices what is true and right and noble. That work is far, far more important, and does much more good, than putting hateful words on display in the name of discounting them. They are discounted when we turn the other way and tell another story.

 

It’s a balance I’m constantly trying to get right, so I’d love to know what you think. In the face of ignorance, when should we speak out, and when should we be silent?

Filed Under: adoption

Practicing love until it’s true: Adoption as faith (guest post at Shawn Smucker’s place)

August 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment

…

I turn my heart upside down trying to find the right emotion, desperate to feel what I thought I was supposed to feel, and all the time I’m hoping it doesn’t show on my face. I’m in the moment but outside it, I can’t believe it’s happening like this, I don’t know what we’ve done anymore, or why.

The photos of the moment show me beaming, couldn’t-be-happier, and if you squint a little, you can even believe it’s love at first sight. They look every bit like the “gotcha day” photos and videos I watched over and over before it was our turn. They represent everything I believed to be true and wasn’t. Not for me.

And though at the time I felt like a fraud and a failure, now I see I was doing it exactly right.

…

 

Friends, I’m crazy honored and excited to be guest posting over at Shawn Smucker’s blog today. He’s an inspiring storyteller and incredible writer, and he’s hosting a new series on adoption. Today, it’s my turn to share a small piece of our adoption story.

Join me there to read the rest of my story, and learn how I see “faking it” differently now.

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{Honestly} Ignorance is Easier

July 9, 2012 By 4 Comments
Adoption

Oh, what I didn’t know then. (Our first adoption dossier for Rwanda, before I FedExed it over there.

 

I’ve realized why even getting started on our second adoption has been so hard: We know too much.

*

I was never one of those kids who accepted things easily, who didn’t question.

Even though my desire to be liked shaped my actions, there were plenty of times when I just couldn’t let something go. In grade school, when two of my friends turned on another girl in our group, refusing to speak to her and talking viciously behind her back, I just couldn’t get all the way there. I kept one foot in line with them, feeding their gossip once in a while. But I also talked with the outcast girl when I could get her alone, made sure she was doing OK, saying I was sorry in the only way I could figure out, by just asking her things, how is your sister, are you going to the basketball game, what’s your cat’s name again?

In high school, the rule of the popular never sat well with me. Maybe it was jealousy, maybe it was a desire to be loved, too, but I decided not to participate. I could tell I wouldn’t be completely accepted because I chose to stand apart from the system. I remember sitting in study hall, filling page after page in my journal about how I didn’t care about all of that, but how it felt harder this way. I stared at the back of the girl’s head in front of me and thought she has it so easy. She plays along and does just fine. (Knowing better now, I’m sure she was fighting her own battle, ignorant or not.)

And a couple years ago, we just couldn’t shake the feeling that traditional church didn’t make sense anymore. We felt dishonest when we attended, like we were keeping up appearances, like we were paying homage to a dying system that had lost its meaning for us. When we finally left, I’m sure many people thought we were taking the easy way out, giving up when it got tough, but it was the opposite. I was leaving behind a system built over my lifetime, a world in which I was brought up. I felt (and feel) guilty for what I might be taking away from my family. It was a year of struggle before leaving, and a year of angst and guilt and shame after, and I can see now we’re on a journey, but most days it just feels like I’m spinning my wheels. Maybe I’m waiting for healing? Maybe God needs to teach me something or a series of things? I don’t know, but figuring it out feels a hell of a lot harder than deciding to go back to weekly church again.

It can be excruciating to be so damn intentional about every decision, to run everything through a new filter, to be suspended in limbo for so long, groping in the dark in an unfamiliar landscape. I don’t know where we are or where we’re headed, but I do know God is leading us, and that has to be enough.

*

For nearly two months now, I’ve been researching options for our next adoption with no clear answer in sight. And once in a while, I yearn for the ease of ignorance. I want the blinders back on — the ones we wore during our first adoption.

Because then, I wouldn’t know how our request for a healthy infant didn’t really meet the world’s need. I wouldn’t realize that most orphans aren’t babies or even toddlers.

I wouldn’t know about the outright corruption in some countries’ programs and the dangerous twisting of ethics in others.

I’d be painlessly unaware how emotionally complicated adoption is, that it’s not black and white, that you can’t go in as a savior because your notions of salvation will be shot full of holes once you look down and realize that’s your sin-drenched heart at the center of it all.

I wouldn’t know that attachment can be as difficult for the mama as it is for the child getting used to the idea of family.

I wouldn’t know that adoption is broken, and that I’m part of the breaking. I cause some of the pain.

*

For a while, I think I was hoping an option, some unknown program, would pop up that would be at least mostly free of these concerns. But in the last couple of weeks, I’ve accepted that it’s just not possible. We will do everything we can to have a process free of ethical problems and corruption, transparent and meeting the needs of a child for a family while also considering what our family can handle.

But we also know it’s not going to be easy, and that it’ll never be completely clear or straightforward or simple or black and white.

We can’t unlearn the things we know. It might be harder, but something is telling me this is the necessary path, this is where we need to go, though each step is painful and hard-won. Eyes wide open, asking the questions, heart held out to be broken again and again.

Filed Under: adoption Tagged With: , , , ,

In adoption, our needs or the world’s (or both)?

June 25, 2012 By 2 Comments

The first time, honestly, was all about us.

When answering the questions about age and special needs for our first adoption, we did what many, many adoptive parents do: We requested a healthy infant.

Not being informed, we thought it was the most we could handle. Believing stereotypes, we were afriad we’d be taking on problems too big, too dangerous any other way. Not really knowing the need, we focused on what we needed.

This time is different.

*

After our failed adoption in Rwanda, we’re in the process of reassessing. We took a little break to breathe and rest, but honestly, I thought there would be a way forward by now. None has emerged. Is it because the timing isn’t right? Does God still need to work on some holdout area of my heart before he shows us our child? Do I need to learn (again) about patience?

Yes, maybe, to all of it. Or maybe there’s another reason. Or maybe there’s no reason at all and we should just jump into the thing that feels most right and see where the current carries us.

I’m tired of being in limbo. But then, that’s about me again.

*

My sense of urgency (besides my old friend, impatience) also comes from the fact that adoption programs are slowing or shutting down all over the place. We completed our adoption of Benjamin at this one unique spot in Uganda’s adoption story, and everything has changed now. Countries are being pressured to adopt the Hague convention with absolutely no infrastructure to support the regulations, effectively stopping adoptions. Meanwhile, there are still children out there in orphanages, children who need a mom and dad. Maybe not so much babies, but many, many children.

I thought we would go in the direction of domestic adoption when our limbo time was over, but that’s feeling less certain. I have the impression that the field there is getting crowded, too, with adoptive families requesting healthy infants and being more open to differences in race than in the past. Do we want to line up and wait for some supply chain to meet our demand, a baby for our family? Or do we want to be a family for a child who needs one now?

But that question is too simple for the mystery of adoption and how a child becomes part of a family.

*

There are babies who need families, too, and we have to consider our family’s needs for any child we adopt, of course. I’m just finding it more difficult this time around, when our question isn’t so much What do we want? as How can our unique family meet the needs of a child?

It’s a harder question with a more complex answer. I’m hoping one day it will result in our family gaining a child and a child gaining a family, but right now, I can’t imagine exactly what it will look like.

 

How do you decide which boxes to check on the adoption paperwork?

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