Adoption post

How I wish the title could be written backwards: Post-Adoption.  Won’t that be a great day?!

I can’t believe we’ve been a “Waiting Family” for 90 days.  Ninety looooooong days.  I’d be lying if I said that waiting for that phone call doesn’t’ cross my mind a good 90 times an hour.  It does.  It TOTALLY does.  I try to pray about it anytime I think about it, asking God for patience, but also letting Him know that we’re ready, too!  Ha! As if He doesn't know already.

I always wonder how we will receive that magical call. Unless you’ve been through the adoption wait, you probably can’t relate to this level of crazy, but I constantly come up with all the different scenarios and how it might play out.

Maybe I’ll be at work and miss the call.  Our social worker will call Adam, who will then call work and I won't be at my desk so they have me paged over the intercom.  I’ll be all caught off guard and break into tears in the middle of the office when Adam gets to share the good news with me.

Maybe it will be a day that the house is a disaster and I haven’t left my pajamas.  And the laundry is piled high, the yard needs mowed and the house needs cleaned.

Or maybe it will happen this fall, while we are at my dad's for Thanksgiving, surrounded by family.

Or maybe the call will come on an ordinary, boring day, where we’re just going through the motions and receiving our “matched” call is the furthest thing from my mind.

The truth is that in the back of my mind – and sometimes in the forefront – is the thought that every passing day was supposed to be the day.  But then it wasn’t and I’m back to wondering whether the next day will be the day.  Sigh.  I wonder if it ever gets easier?

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And, for those who’ve asked, we’re doing a domestic infant adoption. The agency says that placements usually occur anywhere from 6 months to 2 years after the completion of the home study (which we’ve completed), but, of course, it could happen at any time.  I’m faithful that God knows the best time for it to happen for us, but I’m only human and can’t help but wonder when that time will be!

Hebrews 11:1

We've been active with our domestic adoption agency for about 3 months now (they are incredible, we love our case worker have I mentioned that). I’m not sure what we expected, but it’s been fairly active in terms of presenting our profile to birth mothers since the failed match. While we’ve presented numerous times, we’ve yet to match with a mama. There’s an intensity to the pace of domestic adoption… receiving information about an expectant bio mom, praying over whether or not we’d like to present, then waiting on a call or email. And while we wait, maybe we dream--imagine--plan out what it might look like if this is our baby and this is the due date and this is where we’d be traveling to meet him/her. While the “no”s have been hard, I think they give us all the more hope that there's a very specific child meant for our family. At least that’s what I tell myself!

While things feel quiet some days, God continues to show up. He meets us in the waiting. In the quiet. In the wondering. He calls us to a deeper faith and trust and hope in Him alone.

Faith, therefore, is the substance of things waited for, the evidence of things not seen. -Hebrews 11:1 

I have read this scripture over and over again. I cling to its every word. I have faith that we will have kids one day, and although this journey has been long and very trying we aren't giving up. We will wait and pray and search God's word and wait some more if that's what He says we need to do... because His timing, well it's perfect. 

Adoption testimony

This is my favorite adoption quote. I wanted to share this with y'all. Although we have infertility struggles, adoption was not a last resort for us.

 

Our adoption testimony to date:

We have always felt like we would adopt, not knowing we would experience infertility issues. After going to an infertility doctor for the past seven years, Kristin (myself) having surgery and a lot of failed pregnancy test... we said okay God this must not be what you have for us. We could pursue IUI or IVF like our fertility doctor talked about with us, but neither of us had peace about moving forward with either of those. The doctors have all been at a loss as to why we can't get pregnant since the surgery. We prayed about adoption and both felt lead to pursue it. We talked about the possibility of adoption while dating, but always thought we would have a few first then adopt.

We never understood why adoption was on our hearts as kids, and often we talked about our desire while dating. As we began to pray and seek God; we started to see God's plan of adoption. We realized that God's entire salvation plan was to adopt all Jew and non-Jew into his family so that we may become his children through his son, Jesus. This revelation has instilled a deeper desire to adopt. We've also witnessed several adoptions throughout both of our families. We have been so excited walking out our own adoption story, we can't wait to become Henry party of three.