Aristotle once said, "Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all." As teachers, Jeff and I can definitely relate to this. Having a good relationship with a student and understanding that student's struggles and motives and other issues of the heart can better help us teach the mind. Likewise, as Jeff and I seek education regarding adoption, time and time again, we realize that not only must our mindset change and expand, but our hearts must be transformed through this process. Adoption is a heart-issue and that's why God loves it so much!
Last weekend, Jeff and I attended a two-day adoption training sponsored by our agency. I know this sounds cliche, but we left different people from when we arrived. On the first day of the training we did an activity where we explored the emotions of all three parties in an adoption. Yes, there are three groups of people who participate in an adoption and no one part is more important than the other. Everyone deserves to be heard and understood and accommodated. The adoptive family is one part of the circle. Yet, Jeff and I are not the only part and when we make decisions or have a vision of how we want this adoption to go, we need to consider two other very important groups: the baby and the expectant mother (and sometimes father).
When we drove down to Richmond last Friday morning, we thought we wanted a semi-open adoption. We would correspond with the birthmother/birthparents through letters via the agency. She wouldn't know where we lived, we wouldn't know where she lived, and we would never meet again. Okay, so it sounds selfish now that I write it down, but Jeff and I had some serious concerns about having a completely open adoption: Will it be confusing for the child? Will the child understand that Jeff and I are mom and dad and that this other lady is the birthmother? What if she wants the baby back? What if she wants to help us parent? We had real concerns, but we were forgetting her feelings.
No matter who you are in the adoption circle, adoptive family, baby, or birthmother, you experience loss. Adoption begins with loss. At the hospital, if we are blessed with the experience of being there, we all will experience loss. Jeff and I have lost the ability to have biological children, and while we know that God's plan for us is adoption and while we are so overwhelmed with excitement to meet our child in the near future, we have experienced loss. The baby will experience a loss of his or her birthmother. Our child will have questions and concerns as he or she grows up because of that loss sustained on their birth-day in the hospital. But perhaps greatest of all, the birthmother will experience the loss of a child, and if Jeff and I hadn't changed our thinking, she might possibly never see that child again.
Imagine this: for the greater part of nine months you walk into the grocery store to have people congratulate you on your pregnancy, people ask when your shower is or if you're getting the nursery ready. People at work ask how long you plan to stay home with the baby. Yet, that's all misplaced happiness. People expect you to be happy about your pregnancy, but you're in crisis mode. In today's world, abortions seem commonplace, but you just can't bring yourself to do that to your child. Because, despite the circumstances, you love your baby. You decide to make an adoption plan.
Think about the love that woman shows toward that baby by stepping into the adoption agency, answering tough and extremely intimate and personal questions, and still making the decision to create an adoption plan. And after all that, we expect her to be satisfied with a few pictures and a letter once a year? We expect her to heal and cope and recover from a distance. We don't want to get our hands dirty or get in an uncomfortable situation.
But what an opportunity we have to grieve all of our losses together. If we could have a relationship with the birthmother, imagine when our child does have questions, "Why didn't she want me?" "Why did she give me up?"imagine just how powerful it will be for the child to hear from his or her birthmother's mouth, "I didn't give you up; I did want you. I love you so much." That is healing. That is powerful.
Jeff and I left the training with a changed prayer. Our prayer now is that the birthmother would want to have a relationship with us. We hope that we can meet with her a few times a year. We pray that our child will know her and associate her name with love. We vow to honor her in our home. We want her to see the love of Jesus in us, and through love, we hope to minister to her.
Now the agency did mention that if the birthmother is not in a place where she can have a relationship or if visiting with her would negatively impact the child, that our social worker would suggest that we just communicate via the agency. They also stressed that it wasn't co-parenting and that our child will 100% know who mom and dad are. The benefits of having an open adoption outweigh the risks, and we are praying that we get the opportunity to experience it.
We left the training feeling so encouraged. On day one, a counselor spoke about grief. He talked about infertility and loss and he even shared his own story. He and his wife suffered through four miscarriages, two resulted in still-births. After years of struggling, they decided to adopt. They adopted twin boys who were born 2 months too early. Their combined weight was less than five pounds. Today, those boys are both United States Marines and are 6'4''. He concluded by saying, "This is my story, your story hasn't been written yet." What encouraging words! Our story is still being formed. Someday we will have our story and we will tell it again and again to our child.
Since the training, we have been working very hard to complete all of our paperwork, and I can now say that we are 99.9% finished with it! We have also begun the home study process. Our first interview and home inspection was yesterday, and it went really well. To pass the home inspection, we had to do some baby-proofing, so we're currently living in a house with every outlet covered, and cabinets are locked. It may seem silly because we don't even have a baby yet, but someday we will and we'll know that we are bringing him or her into a safe environment. We will have a series of three more interviews, and then our social worker will write a report about us, our home, and everything and anything else relevant to us being fit and capable parents. Once her report is completed and approved, we will officially be added to the wait list, we anticipate the home study process being completed by mid-September.
Please continue praying that we would have patience throughout this process, that we would rely fulling on God and trust in his will. Also, begin praying for the birthmother; she's out there somewhere, and soon she will discover that she's going to have a baby. Pray for her and the baby and that God will bring us all together in his timing and under His circumstances.
Again, we appreciate all of your encouragement and support. It's been awesome getting texts and calls from family and friends asking how the home study interview went or how the adoption training was. You've all backed us 110% and we love and thank you for it. As the summer starts to wind down and you swap shorts for sweaters, check back here or look on Facebook, because we will be rolling out a Christmas-themed fundraiser that will help us work toward our next financial goal. Our first financial goal was met largely due to your generosity and willingness to become active participants in our adoption story. We thank you all.
