National Adoption Week - Wednesday

In honor of National Adoption Awareness Month (US) and National Adoption Week (UK + me), I am celebrating. On Monday, I celebrated adoptive parents. On Tuesday, I celebrated birthmothers.

Today, I celebrate the children of adoption.

I have been amazed by the number of people we know who were adopted into their families. As we share our developing adoption story with others, we have observed JOYFUL responses from those who said, "I was adopted" or "My brother/sister was adopted". We are SO honored to receive encouragement from adoptees. I recall that one of my high-school friends was adopted; it wasn't a weird thing, it was just a fact. She had parents just like I had parents, and our families were both upon a foundation of love. Another high-school friend had a younger sister who was adopted from an Asian country. They were such a joy-filled family.

We never really considered adopting for OUR family until we battled infertility. We assumed we would do what married people do, and that we'd get pregnant. We felt like "everyone else" had kids that way. We conveniently forgot HOW MANY families grow through adoption rather than reproduction. I am thankful now that God has called us to adopt, even if we had to deal with the infertility stuff (NOT FUN!).

We are planning to adopt an infant in a domestic adoption--this time. We are trying to be open to what God would have us do in this adoption and in the future. He may call us to pursue an international adoption, or perhaps an interracial adoption. He may burden our hearts to adopt an older child that is in the care of an orphan home (those still exist!!) or a state foster care system. Once our home study document is done, we could pursue any (or all) of these options, as God provides, but we take it one step at a time by His grace.

As usual, I invite comments from you, my friends & readers with regard to adoption. Do you remember the day you were adopted into your family, or did it happen when you were too young to remember? Do you remember the adoption of a sibling? Please feel free to share your thoughts about adoption and its effect on your life.