INFANT ADOPTION

Before you go any further, read this article.

And before I go any further, my youngest brother came to my family through domestic infant adoption. His mother chose this.  She signed the papers, picked us as the family, and ultimately placed him in our arms.

I will not go into her private story, for our sake and especially for hers, but she was clearly not at a place in her life to support, care for and raise a child.

To address one specific thing that stuck out to me in this article, you cannot simply persuade women who initially choose adoption to choose to parent by offering to "help" them.  It is not always that any amount of money or months of rent payed will persuade them to parent.  Some birthmothers are addicts, too young, financially unstable, in an abusive relationship, emotionally not able to parent... and on and on and on.  And so they make a selfless decision to place the child for adoption.  And we as Christians should be applauding and encouraging and thanking them for their bravery and maturity to realize what they believe they are incapable of.

And to address another, I have never known a Christian adopting an infant domestically who does not understand the severity of these infant's loss.  I do not think people pray for a baby to come to them as ignorantly as this article suggests.  We pray that the Lord would bring us the baby we are meant to have.  We pray that the Lord would help us to be there for this baby's birth mother.  And ultimately, we pray that the Lord will have the last word.  Because He always does.

This article portrays that domestic infant adoption is all negative and rooted in selfishness on the adoptive parent's.  And that's just plain wrong.

Okay, they may not be truly "orphans" by definition, but when their mother signs papers to relinquish her rights, that baby is considered an "orphan."  Also, if we are professing to be Evangelical Bible-believing Christians, we are not running into this adoption process without God's leading.  We enter the adoption process when He leads.  We choose infant adoption because He led us to it.  We do not do it out of selfishness.  And if we do, then I pray the Lord will convict those hearts.

But for now?  How completely discouraging this article was to me.

When we pray for a baby through infant adoption, we are not rooted in selfishness.  We understand and fully realize what it means for that birth mother to choose this.  We are not praying that God will provide us with a baby just because it's "easy."  Cos it ain't.

I agree, though, with a part of what she writes.  A lot of people truly don't get the major loss that is in all adoptions.  Many people decrease in their minds how much of a loss this infant is going through.  To describe it easily, when a baby is growing in the same place for 9 months, hearing the same voice every single day, that baby comes into this world attached to his mother.  But when all of a sudden this baby does not hear this voice anymore, instead a new one, it is a whole process.  It is a loss.  It is still a loss, even for such a tiny human being.  And it is not okay to desensitize this part, I agree with her that far.

"The difficult truth for many to accept: for a child to be adopted, a tragedy is first required."

How domestic infant adoption is portrayed as a divorce honestly haunts me in this.  It is not that way.  And when you present it that way, you are saying adoption is rooted in selfishness and sin, and that is so not the case.  

It is love all the way around.  I can tell you honestly I have never seen Jesus more tangibly.  I have never touched Jesus' love so physically.  They understand their incapabilities.  They make a decision.  They choose two new parents.  To be the adoptive family, to come alongside this woman in her journey, to love her, to watch her, to learn from her.  It is learning how to love like Jesus.  It may be hard at times, it may look impossible at times, but it will stretch you, it will mold you, it will change you.  In a way nothing else can.  When you allow Jesus to step in in such a way, you meet the eyes of God.  You really do.  

Also, what was said at the end really, really disturbed me, coming from a Christian.  "There are half a million children in the United States living in foster care, many of them waiting to be adopted. They are quite eager to fill empty arms."

This is about as bad as the famous "Why would you adopt from that country when there are thousands of kids waiting in the US?"  Especially from a believer.  When Christians are called to adoption, they are led by Jesus.  Not by their own will.  And I have a hope and belief in a God who works in our hearts so mightily that He will let us know when we are going the wrong direction.

And I can tell you right now, infant adoption changed my life in a way nothing else could.  I saw the face of God.  Please don't tell me my family and I are selfish for choosing to adopt him in this way.  God has huge plans for him.  God has huge plans for every child adopted as an infant.  He may have been born to another woman, but neither sides are selfish for this choice.  And I especially don't believe Christians are in the wrong in praying with, for and through the domestic infant adoption process.