Our Decision to Adopt

The question of whether to pursue adopting a child has been part of our family prayer and discernment since 2005.  As it appeared we were entering a  period of unexplained secondary infertility after the healthy pregnancy of our first born daughter in 2004, we began in earnest to seek God's plan for our family size.

I'd like to step back a few years when I first heard God speak to me about this journey that we now find ourselves on.  While still a lay missionary, working in Holland, about two years before meeting my husband, I found myself praising God along with a dear friend who at that moment was suffering the loss of yet another child.  She and her husband had experienced several first trimester miscarriages and there we were praising God in the midst of this trial that was all too familiar to them.  I remember returning to my room and begging God for understanding.  "Lord why is it that your faithful daughters, those who desire to live out your plan for love and marriage, desiring children are suffering in this way?"  The answer came all too clearly - "Who but my faithful daughters will pray and intercede?" I understood that this was a burden of reparation for the multitude of sins against life that God was giving to those faithful women who knew how to pray and offer it in union with Christ's sufferings.  I sheepishly responded, "Lord, I hope you don't ask this of me." 

When my husband and I conceived our first daughter three weeks into married life in early 2004, I harkened back to that conversation and breathed a huge sigh of relief - "Thank you Lord, you weren't asking that of me."  Little did I know what lay ahead.  After our first child was born that October, three years followed with no further conceptions.  Assessments on both of us brought no definitive answers.  It was a heavy cross to carry as friend after friend became pregnant and people started to inquire when our next child would be coming along. Finally, we decided to give up trying to work it out and laid our fertility in God's hands.  As we prepared to attend our first information session with Catholic Charities Adoption Services, I kept receiving in prayer the story of Abraham and Sarah.  What struck me most was that Sarah grew impatient and did not stay submitted to the Lord's timing in bringing forth their promised offspring. I knew in my heart that this was not the time to pursue adoption, although we had begun to move in that direction.  A few weeks later on Christmas Eve 2007, I discovered with great joy that I was pregnant with our second daughter. We were ecstatic and  rejoiced in another healthy pregnancy, believing that our time to carry the burden of infertility was now being lifted.

When our second daughter was only 11 months old we were happily surprised to discover we were pregnant again!!  However, within a few days of receiving a positive pregnancy test it became clear that we were experiencing our first miscarriage.  Heartbroken and confused, it was the beginning of yet another period of long-suffering.  In the next three years we would surrender four more precious souls into God's hands through first trimester miscarriages. God was asking it of me and my dear husband after all! I was left with the decision of whether I was going to be one of His faithful daughters and not only accept the suffering that He was giving me but embrace it totally, trusting that His grace is sufficient for me.  I am ashamed to admit that it took me these three years to fully embrace what I now understand to be an incredible gift. The gift of making reparation. The gift of nailing myself to the cross with Christ in order to fully experience the glory and the immeasurable grace of the resurrection.  This act of complete surrender to the action of God in our lives has allowed the joy of suffering to surface and blossom in a way that I have only read about in the lives of the saints.

In His great mercy God has begun to impress upon our hearts the true gift of adoption. When we had considered adoption before it was fueled by a selfish desire to fulfill our plan for our family but through God's great work of purification and healing the desire has now become one of generosity towards a child who may be at risk and for us to give that child the gift of our family. In March of this year, God brought us in contact with a small Christian adoption ministry in Tyler, TX. After being accepted at the eleventh hour to attend their once a year adoption orientation meeting we felt God was opening the door for us to pursue this exciting possibility of adopting one of His precious children.