"Just Adopt"

There are so few people in our world that actually have a grasp on how difficult this journey has been. Part of me is obviously happy that they haven’t had to deal with this, while the other part of me is so jealous. So many people will say “just adopt” when they hear of a couple with infertility. There is no “just adopt”. For us adoption has been one of the hardest things we’ve ever dealt with. 

In order to be home study approved we needed to openly discuss some of the most personal aspects of our lives. We had to pay significant bills. We needed to have doctors give us a clean bill of health. We needed to do multiple background checks. We spent hours discussing every single option we were given for a baby. Were we willing to adopt a baby who had cerebral palsy? How about a heart defect? Major drug exposure? Were we open to any ethnicity? How about openness? I can’t even remember just how many pages of information we needed to sift through and make a decision on. Emotionally, it was extremely difficult to know that we could be saying “no” to a child who needed a home, but we knew the limitations we placed would be better for the child as well. 

Once we were home study approved we started a facebook page where every single word, thought, picture, etc. would be judged by strangers. A page that would seem to be moving in the right direction only to stall out. And then we added an instagram page where we were introduced to scammer after scammer. Then we paid to host a profile on a leading adoption networking site and had absolutely zero interaction. Then we used the amazing skills of our brother-in-law to make our own website which has resulted primarily in spam emails. Then we started promoting our facebook page and seeing some more interaction but still no matches. The next step was obvious, and we hired someone to help us manage our facebook page. This led to more and more interaction but not a single true possibility. And that finally led us to working with our consultant. We have had significantly more opportunities and possibilities that still have not led us to a match. And every single step along this journey has cost money, time, mental energy, emotional energy, and the ability to hope. The cost has been so high.

Pursuing a word of mouth adoption means that everyone knows that we are in this process. Sometimes this is great, and I love being reminded that we aren’t on this journey alone. And yet, there are the bad days where I simply don’t even want to think of the heartbreak we’re enduring and it is then that the questions and comments just frustrate and upset me. Unfortunately, there is no way for innocent bystanders to know if they happen to be asking on a good day or a bad day, so I do apologize for the days that I have a sore attitude about life. 

I’m finding myself in a strange emotional conundrum. Half of me remains hopeful that one way or another we will eventually have children. But the other half of me is seeing my hope dwindle farther and farther away. My heart feels heavy with this burden. The exhaustion of being on this path for almost three full years is beginning to feel like too much. Perhaps this exhaustion is only for a short duration. Or maybe this exhaustion will only continue to grow and permeate every inch of our lives til we reach the point of saying we’re done, we can’t do this anymore. I don’t even know how many times I have begged God for a sign that we are still going in the correct direction, but each time, He has provided an encouragement that we’re where we need to be. We could really use some encouragement now. If adoption is not what God has for us, then I’d rather not adopt, but having some clear direction would be helpful. I believe that there are moments of life where God has multiple paths we can take and none of them are the definitive “right” path. And it feels like we are at one of those crossroads. There are no hard no’s or hard yes’s, just lots of maybe’s. It is to the point that we would both like someone else to make some of these decisions. 

We want clear answers from God, but that isn’t always how He works. We have multiple options for pursuing a family laying ahead of us. One of the most frequent questions we’ve gotten is if we’ve “thought about foster care”. I think I can speak for the majority of the infertility community when I say you don’t need to ask if we’ve “thought about X option”, because I can assure you we’ve already thought about it more times than we can count. And still, every single time I think and consider pursuing foster care, I come back to the conclusion that now is not the right time. There is no peace in my heart with the idea of going into foster care right now. 

I’m not sure what we are supposed to do. I don’t know that we will continue to pursue adoption long term. I don’t know if we’ll continue to pursue having any children long term. I don’t know if we’ll find out tomorrow that we will be parents. I don’t know if we will end up adopting through foster care. I simply don’t know much of anything right now. All I do know is that despite my emotional and mental exhaustion, this will only be for a season. Someday I will know the answer to all those questions. And until I learn those answers, I can choose to step into each day with the goal of seeking God more than I did today. I can choose to stop trying to control the things that are uncontrollable. I can choose to take one day at a time, and make decisions as they come flying at us. I can choose to place some issues on the back burner. I can choose to protect my heart from continued hurts. As much as I hate it, I can choose to live in patience that God has a plan that is better than my plan could ever be.