checking my adoption compass

Okay...I admit it...I spend quite a bit of time online! This is not a waste of time (honest!). This is my time of learning and discovery about the world of adoption. I regularly follow a few adoptee, first parent, and adoptive parent blogs who graciously allow strangers a glimpse into their lives. Who better to learn from then those who are right in the thick of it? I must admit that I have chosen these specific blogs for their balanced view of adoption, recognizing the beauty and blessing as well as the loss and trials. Extreme views on either end aren't healthy or helpful.

I found this post "if you are about to adopt - reset your compass" during the weekend that I wish I would have read months ago. Although I must say that I may not have been ready to read a post like this months ago. There is something to be said for easing ones way into something. We had to read a couple of books for our American agency application process and answer some questions about them. Now looking back I realize how fluffy those books were, but they served a purpose in our process. I do believe that agencies need to do a better job of educating and preparing prospective adoptive parents (I've forwarded the above linked post to our social worker) but maybe we wouldn't have been ready to listen. When applying to adopt our heads and hearts were in the clouds. I don't know if anyone or anything would have been able to bring us down and this too is important to acknowledge as a part of our process. Because now, when in the middle of the night I have questions about adoption and my future family, I am reminded of our very definite, educated (as much as we were at the time) decision. We have always had both feet in this. Not one foot in fertility treatments, one foot in adoption. Two feet...solidly planted in adoption.

I completely agree with the author of this post when she refers to God not causing crisis in any woman's life so that my destiny or some divine plan with a particular child could be fulfilled. I get very uncomfortable when people refer to adoption in this way. However, I do believe that God provided guidance and leading for us when we struggled with what to do about having a family. (This is a story for another day!). We chose not to pursue IVF for ethical reasons, but little did we know the ethical arena we would enter the day we signed our adoption application form. This makes me wonder if it was any of my business to mess with having kids or not. If someone is diagnosed with a terminal illness they can't choose it away. Is this what I have done by choosing adoption? Was I to remain childless but then look for other ways to mother? Perhaps spend more time as a mentor with the teen moms group I was a part of last year? Be a role model to a child living in a tough situation? These are tough questions for me and I don't have the answers. But what I do know is that I continue to feel lead by God in the process of adoption. I think God knows me well (of course!). He knows that I can get so over my head in an issue that I need to be able to grab a dingy so as to come up for air. That dingy for me is the day I truly felt God guiding our feet. I completely believe that we have free choice and in the end did choose to pursue adoption. But God was right there along side of us the whole time.

So I will continue to check my adoption compass. I know a part of the journey for me is to dig deep and work through the issues that arise. I also know that when I need to come up for air, there is a Higher Power who holds the compass for me.