Trying to decide, or discern, if you and your spouse are called to build your family using the miracle of adoption is, oftentimes, no easy task. If you and your spouse are one of the lucky few couples to be on the same page and know that you both feel called to adoption, that’s awesome. Most of us, however, don’t get there at the same time that fast.
Sure, adoption is a nice, flowery idea that many people mention when they’re getting first married or have had no struggle with infertility: “Oh, let’s adopt one day!” “We plan to adopt after we finish having our own children.” How nice for you. Some of us aren’t so fortunate to be able to freely choose adoption as an “additional” way to build our families.
All that being said, I think adoption is amazing. I’m the humbled and blessed mama of four children whom my husband and I all brought home through the miracle of adoption. We wouldn’t have the gift of being parents any other way.
My husband was easily always open to the idea of adoption; it was no difficult discernment for him. I, on the other hand, struggled with the calling a bit more. Of course I thought that adoption was amazing and beautiful. I knew several people who had been adopted as infants and knew their stories. Somehow I thought that if we adopted children, however, that would be completely closing the door on my husband and I ever being able to experience the gift of conception, pregnancy, and childbirth. I so longed (and honestly still do) to experience natural motherhood, and I was devastated to learn that I might never be able to do, what I thought, women were made to do. To say that I felt like less than a woman would be an understatement; a broken woman was more what I felt like.
I needed to talk to other women, other couples, who had used adoption to build their families and learn what their experiences had been like, how they had discerned their own call to adoption. What decisions they had made in regards to continuing to pursue fertility treatments while pursuing adoption at the same time.
My husband and I were blessed to have connections to several adoptive families who were gracious enough to take time out of their schedules to share with us their very personal journeys of infertility that eventually led to adoption. Being able to speak with them proved invaluable to my own discernment, and I know that God spoke through them to allow me to hear what He wanted to say to me.
Needless to say, I definitely recommend that anyone discerning their own call to adoption seek out couples who have been through the process of adoption to learn firsthand what adoption is actually like. It’s usually not what Hallmark movies or public opinion portray, so hearing from those who have gone before you on the path of adoption have very real perspectives to share with you that you won’t easily find via Google.
Develop a list of questions from your most obvious curiosities, your biggest fears, rumors you may have heard, any preconceived notions about adoption you may have. Hopefully, the couple(s) with whom you meet will provide you the safe space you need to be able to ask these types of questions, and they likely will. Those of us who have gone through the process of adoption before are usually happy to share with others our own experiences and pieces of advice that we wish we had known.
Below are some questions that my husband and I had asked of folks with whom we had met before our adoption experiences as well as some questions that I’d recommend you ask, after now that we have gone through the process a few times.
- How many children do you have — Adopted? Biological?
- Briefly, tell us about the history of your adoption stories.
- How did you arrive at the decision to adopt?
- What types of concerns and questions did you have during your own discernment?
- Did you talk with any adoptive families during your own discernment?
- Did you continue to pursue fertility treatments as you actively pursued adoption? Why or why not?
- What types of adoption have you experienced — domestic, international, foster/to adopt, open, semi-open, closed?
- Did you adopt through an agency or privately through an attorney or previous acquaintance?
- Would you recommend using that agency and / or attorney? Why or why not?
- How did your loved ones respond when you told them about your decision to adopt? How have they now adjusted to your children who were adopted?
- Did you have a baby shower or “welcome home” party?
- What preparations did you make while you waited to bring home your children?
- How long did you wait to bring home your children from application to placement?
- Were you able to name your children?
- What was placement like before finalization? Were there any complications?
- What is your relationship like with your children’s birthfamily?
- Have you ever experienced a failed adoption when the birthparents change their mind about placing their child for adoption? How did you handle it?
- How open have you been with your children about their adoption stories? At what point, if at all, have you shared with them the details of their adoption stories?
- Are you involved in any adoption communities that you’d recommend? What benefits have you found through being involved in these groups?
- Do you often get asked pressing or inappropriate questions from strangers about your children? How do you respond?
- What do you know now about adoption that you wish you had known during your own discernment?
- Having now been through everything you have experienced about adoption up to this point, would you do it all over again if given the choice? Why or why not?
- What adoption resources would you recommend — books, blogs, Web sites, etc.?
- Who else would you recommend we talk to as we discern our own calling to adoption?
- What else do you think we should know about the adoption journey?
These are some good starting points to get the conversation about adoption going. What other questions do you have or think prospective adoptive parents should research? Comment below!
Jen Crowley,
Director, Sarah’s Hope & Abraham’s Promise
