I lay in bed this morning thinking of a "conversation" that happened in social media the other day. (I put "conversation" in quotes because nothing that happens in social media is a real conversation, but I know no other word for it.) One of my friend posted a link to an article about how our state may make surrogate motherhood illegal. (I have no comments about that. This post is not about that, but rather about what the post led to.) Another person commented below the article, "This is horrible! What about all the women who can't have babies? What will they do?"
A million thoughts went through my head. The first was, "You should stay out of this conversation. You are going to tick someone off." But I rarely listen to that voice. The next flurry of thoughts included, "Really? How many people really use a surrogate?", as well as the thought I posted, which said, "Well, those women could adopt one of the million children on this planet without a family." I did it. I ticked someone off. Immediately. I was told my comment was cold-hearted and I don't understand how hard and how expensive it is to adopt.
Au contraire, mes amies, I do understand. I have three children through the miracle of adoption. Is adoption easy? No. Is it supposed to be? But it is also not expensive. Or it doesn't have to be. Often adopting children out of foster care has little or no cost. And there are many, many ways to make costlier adoptions happen. So I said all of that and told that person they should thoroughly research adoption if they were truly interested.
Did I respond the best way I could have? No, probably not. But all of this got me to thinking about my journey to adoption. It was hard. All of the paperwork and waiting and sacrificing so we could make it work financially. (We were middle-income folks who managed three international adoptions.)
But you know the very hardest part for some people, I think? When we struggle with infertility, we struggle with pride. I, for one, like to accomplish things. I like to say, "I did this! Look at how smart/tough/capable I am." (I don't actually say those things, but you know what I mean.) So when you can't have babies, you have to let all that go. You aren't going to see a little baby that has your eyes and your husband's smile. You aren't going to say, "Look at what we made." But maybe that's exactly what some of us need: to have to learn to say, "Look at what God did! Look at my beautiful children! They are exactly who He wanted them to be and I had nothing to do with it!"
Maybe you won't even adopt the way you hope to adopt. Maybe it won't be infant adoption. Maybe it won't be international. Maybe it will be older children. Maybe this scares you. Maybe it's not what you dream of. (Who doesn't want to snuggle with their little baby?) But maybe God needs you for some older children without a family. Check it out. You need love. They need love. That is family.
Along the way you will learn you did have a lot to do with it. And you will see them start to resemble you in ways you could not dream. But mostly you will learn that God needed you, just as you are, to parent these children. And all the struggle was worth it. No, not just worth it -- it was necessary. (Maybe one day you will even thank God for your infertility because without it, you may never have met these children that He entrusted to you.) God is working on perfecting you through this process. Step out of your comfort zone. We can get too comfortable with our struggles. We can get so stuck! It's so hard to try something new -- something with no guarantees. But we can't grow if we don't take those super-scary steps towards that new thing. It's about letting go. It's about becoming the best you. It's about accepting God's gifts long before you understand them.
Nope, it's not easy. But it is beautiful.
No comments:
Post a Comment