Adoption is Amazing

Today is NATIONAL ADOPTION DAY --- whose motto is "Celebrating a Family for Every Child." The purpose is to remind people that there are 100,000 children in the foster care system awaiting permanent homes with loving families.

I'll be the first to admit that when we found out we'd never celebrate the birth of our own baby, we wanted to adopt an infant. We considered an older child, but there's just something about the whole parenting process that would feel missing without the experience of a baby. We didn't rule out an older child, though, as we filled out the endless forms and endured the licensing procedures. We kept our options open, believing the Good Lord would send us just the right child.

To make a long story short, the journey to parenthood was filled with some pretty big pot-holes. At one point, after five years of waiting, we even dropped off the waiting list at the adoption agency. 

We located a teen-age drug addict who wanted to put her baby up for adoption. It was an uneasy feeling, wondering how badly the baby may have been damaged by the mother's addiction, but we felt we'd finally found our baby. If the pre-delivery excitement was euphoric, the let-down was devastating. She decided to keep her baby. Enough said.

We made an announcement to the family that we were suspending our search for a baby and putting our family-building plans on indefinite hold. One needs time to mourn a disappointment so deep. We told everyone that unless God left a baby on our doorstep, we were going to consider that maybe we weren't meant to be parents.

No sooner than the words were out of our mouth (and the tears dried from sad eyes), then another expectant mother came along. She was in college and even though the baby's father would have married her, she was torn and unsure. She wasn't ready to be a mother or a wife yet. She also lived in another part of the country and was considering two other couples as prospective parents for her baby. We exchanged letters with the baby's biological mother, were interviewed in person by a family member who lived in our area, and prayed with all our hearts.

I could never thank the young lady enough, who chose us to be her baby's mommy and daddy.  It's 24 years later. She went on to finish college, marry a different man, and they've had a large family together. But her sacrifice of her first-born fills my heart with great admiration and thanks. Blessings all around.







These are pictures of our wonderful son through the years. The greatest day of my life was when that baby was placed in my arms at 2 days old. He made a family where once there was just a couple in love.