By Cat Brainerd (Guest Contributor)
Ask ten adoptive parents why they adopted, and you will likely get ten different answers. However, it all comes down to the same thing – we wanted to build our families this way. For those of us who are Christian, we may go a step farther: this is how God wished us to build our families.
Yet, that answer is pretty vague, uninformative and fairly boring. There must be more to it? I can only share my story. Parts of it I am proud of. Parts of it I am not. But all of it made my family what it is, helped me grow as a person, and allowed me to become the proud mother of five children. This is my story.
I cannot pinpoint exactly when our adoption journey began. To some degree, my husband and I both always considered adoption as a way to grow our family – although we did not come to that decision together. We were blessed with our first daughter at young ages. Grace was born several of months before I turned 20. Around the time Grace turned 4, we decided we were ready to grow our family again. Within months we were pregnant with daughter #2! Ally joined our family a few months before I turned 25. I loved her with all of my heart, but it was not easy. My pregnancy had been tougher and she was a cranky baby, especially at first. Oh, the colic!
Despite all that, I distinctly remember looking into her beautiful blue eyes and knowing that I wanted more children. Two more, in fact. Soon. And that I did NOT wish to bear them. Pregnancy is not for me people.
Anyway, it turned out my husband felt the same way. We discussed the matter casually for a month or two. Then, one day we both started researching and BAM. We were ready. Within a matter of a week we had decided that we wanted to adopt, a boy, a toddler (so as to fall in age between our two daughters) and that our best bet was an international program (not many toddlers are available for adoption domestically without older siblings and we were sure we weren’t ready for that …). Soon, we were analyzing different countries and programs, trying to find the best fit. It did not take long to settle on Ethiopia.
TIME OUT
I’d like to unpack the above paragraph. Please note how we arrived at our decision: We wanted a boy. We wanted a toddler (so as to perfectly place him between our daughters). We wanted …
It was a very self-centered time. I am not terribly proud of this, although I suspect most adoptions start out this way. It was all about us – what would fill out our family. Like looking through a catalog and checking off desired gender, age, ethnicity and nationality. Check check check. Order placed. Yay! Our son should arrive in 12-18 months!
Reality dawned slowly. Agency paperwork arrived. More catalog choices. Yet these were less fun. Yes, gender and age, but they wanted more specifics. What special needs were we willing to accept? And how to choose? Cleft lip or club foot? Hepatitis or HIV? Cerebral palsy or fetal alcohol syndrome? Mental or developmental delays? Mild, medium, severe? I remember just staring at this checklist, wondering how I could possibly decide. How do you determine what is “too much?” When I took a pregnancy test for Ally and Grace, no one handed me such a list and asked me what I was and was not willing to take on!
Shortly thereafter, we received a video of children who were waiting for their forever families. Children who did not match the specifications of families in line before us. Real children, with beautiful eyes and shy, sad smiles. Some afraid, some hopeful. All desperate for love.
And though my heart was breaking, it was also growing. We no longer needed to dwell on those troublesome check marks. We had caught a glimpse of our son on that video… and our third daughter, too. Slowly, my perspective changed.
So why did I adopt? Because it’s not just about me.
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