Comfort & Confirmation

As our “pregnancy” has been moving along, we acknowledge many of the differences between this tract, and a more traditional pregnancy.  The weight of decisions we make is comparable, but the scales are far different.

We for instance, have not been researching midwives, OBGYN’s, or hospitals of choice for the birth.  We haven’t discussed water birth, home birth, or even what kind of drugs to have available as the labor process ensues.  Taxing decisions that couples make as they deal with their upcoming addition. 

But our decisions have been weighty.  We’ve been hoping for guidance during the process, trusting that in some way (often many different ones) that God will lead us through the process.  So we’ve been discussing things like, state of birth, even nation of birth; looking at country of origin instead of hospital of delivery; looking for the comforting advice of lawyers and agencies instead of doctors and midwives.

Luckily, as many couples do, whether with natural birth or with adoption, we’ve felt guidance along the way.  We’ll share one of those stories now…

As maybe is true with most pregnancies, our awesome female (Jenny) initially invested herself more diligently into the research we had available.  Thinking through what friends had said over lunch, scouring websites of adoption agencies, even to the point of comparing country programs against each other.  This sounds menacing in the amount of research (to me the man) and in crudeness of comparison (we don’t actually value certain culture’s children more than others) but was as much a part of our process as the hospital and doctor decisions others make.  We wanted to be comfortable.  To feel like we were on the path we belonged…and though it wasn’t clearly verbalized, Jenny’s research formed some strong opinions.

Regardless of those opinions we went to our first informational meeting with Children’s Home Society (an agency highly recommended to us) with ears and minds open.  I almost felt discouraged as we heard about domestic adoption, not because we’re against it, but the comfort was missing.  I was wondering if we had even found the right agency.  But as insight, clarification, guidance, or in Jenny’s case confirmation would go, this meeting would do wonders on our hearts.

We navigated through domestic adoptions and turned our attention towards international.  With an aim to have an infant for our first child, the countries were narrowed to four: Kenya, China, Russia, and Columbia.  We talked diligently about all of them, but our focus, our questions, all of our follow up conversations were about only one country.

And while the solution isn’t the easiest answer (some parts of this process will be even harder), or the cheapest answer (though also not most expensive as our taste may sometimes always push), what we did find is comfort.  Comfort in many forms.  In the care of the children before adoption, the stability of the government process, even in the need we perceive we’ll be meeting in the world…comfort in this option above all others.

So we decided.  With just a few words on the drive home we committed to moving forward with adoption from Columbia.  And after just those few words found something we had been looking for over the past three years…

Something worth celebrating!  We’ve made a decision, we’ve felt guided in the process even confirmed by God in the process, and for the first time, comfortable with where we are in the process.