Adoption Journey, part 5: The Unexpected Part of the Process

So as we prepared ourselves for adopting we knew a lot of things because we talked to a lot of people who had been through the process.  So we expected the ridiculous amount of paperwork, the excessive amounts of money, the birth mothers changing their minds, and the unbearable amount of time that many adoptive parents wait until they are paired with a child.  So I prepared myself when I found out that a birth mother was considering putting her child up for adoption.  I did everything I could to not get excited, not think about what it would be like, not ask if the child was a boy or a girl, black, white, red, yellow, green, healthy, drug addicted, or when they were due because it was not yet my child.  I have no right to do that to that baby, birth mother, or us.  That is a lot of unnecessary emotional stress on everyone.  I have been doing copious amounts of paperwork for grants.  I haven't put a nursery together, though we do have a room set aside for the nursery, because the child may be a day old, or 9 months old, or 3 years old . . . they have very different needs.  So I have protected my heart to not have any of those things.

The part that did surprise me however was the number of children (of all ages) that people are bringing to my attention.  In the last approximately 7 weeks of being approved to be adoptive parents, 4 serious options (two newborns and two children under age 4) have been brought to our attention, and countless other options.  I was thinking these would come one at a time and with months in between them.  I knew there were a lot of children out there in bad situations, but I was surprised at how many would find us.  It makes the waiting a little better because it seems that at any moment, someone could call us and say, "This child is for you."

We are affirmed by so many people that they think we would be good parents.  We are grateful to God for giving us such good friends that want this for us as well as putting us in places where these children are surfacing.

I have no idea when a child will be for us. There is always the small fear in the back of my mind that God wants us to endure this process to learn something, but there will never be a child. I always try to push that aside, but no one ever knows for sure.  Only God knows for sure, and I need to trust that whatever He has for us is best.  In the meantime, it doesn't feel like God is doing that.  The little details that we see frequently, make us think that there will be a child, and it may not be as long as we thought.