Sunday, June 13, 2010

adoption: the backstory

us, a montage


decision made. check.
told our families. check.
told some of our friends. check.
sent in our application. check.
told the entire blogger world. check.

took a huge sigh of relief. check.
this is going to be fun.

my last post was titled "oh how this blog is gonna change" and in truth, it will and it won't.
I am still me and i still write the way i do, but in many ways, this blog will take a whole knew direction in some sense. i write about my life and right now, my life (our lives) are changing.

within minutes of deciding to adopt from Ethiopia my heart was connected to this country i have never set foot on in a way that i cannot explain. my son will be born there. it will be part of his heritage, his history, and because of that, it will be part of ours as well. i feel like it already is.

the decision to adopt has been a part of the conversation of our marriage, well before we were even married. i remember one afternoon, driving up Fairmont Blvd. together, while we were still engaged and Curtis turned to me and said, "One day, if we ever have the money, let's buy one of these mansions and fill it with as many adopted kids as it will hold."

okay, i agreed. we were both joking and serious. what better way to spend a fortune we figured.

So when we began having trouble conceiving, our conversations rather quickly turned to the possibilities of adopting, whether or not we ever had biological children of our own. But although we discussed the idea in theory, our conversations never led to any concrete decisions. But as the months passed it somehow became a central part of our vocabulary. A possibility that became more and more central in our hearts. We started talking in concrete terms, of concrete numbers and dates.

i started reading everything online that i could find. Curtis brought books home from the library. One on domestic adoption and one on international. We each started reading one. We began to talk and pray about it more. And the more we talked, the more were convinced that "eventually" adopting was turning into "now" whether we were ready or not.

Then we...

decided on international.
then on Africa.
then on Ethiopia.

And that was that.

We were sitting in the same Starbucks that i am sitting in right now when we made the decision. It was like this huge burden of decision was lifted in one moment. We were having a baby. a boy. it was amazing. i texted {Kate}, but i should've just called her. Two minutes later she called me and i talked to her on the stoop of Starbucks for a while, still in shock that everything we've been wanting for so long was becoming real.

And now we are here and this is now, and we have just sent in our application to the agency this morning and as soon as we are officially accepted we will begin the daunting process of paperwork and background checks and blood tests and everything else you can imagine in order to bring our boy home.

Right now we are looking to request a baby boy under one year old.
Right now the process looks as if it will take about a year - but to be realistic, probably longer.
Right now we are both overwhelmed and strangely more at peace than we've ever been before.

We don't have it all figured out - we don't know what to expect - and we're not entirely sure how we're going to finance it all, but one thing we do know, that we serve a very big God that is more than capable of walking us through the process and provide for us along the way. Of that we are certain, and so we move forward trusting that, similar to trying to get pregnant, the timing and outcome of it all really is out of our hands, all we can do is take the next step and trust in his guidance and provision. 

4 comments:

Kate said...

yes, you should have just called me! God has amazing things planned for you and your family through the incredible gift of adoption. i'm so glad i'm going to get a front row seat! (and that i get to be your personal adoption assistant!)

jess said...

me too --- and, i'm also glad you went first, calms my nerves...i like following in your footsteps.

Bare Bonsey said...

:) I feel honored to be following on this journey with you. Thanks for opening up and sharing...

CitricSugar said...

WOW - the things I miss when I don't blog/read for two weeks.... Crazy! Thanks for sharing all the details of this experience... Wow!

Bless you.

 
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