Why adoption? I have had a heart for adoption as long as I can remember. Even as a little girl, I remember having friends that were adopted and always being fascinated that they some how arrived at the family they were in and they were so loved despite uncertain beginnings. I remember a TV documentary that aired occasionally while I was growing up about a family called the DeBolt's, who had six biological kids and over time adopted 14 other kids, all of whom had special needs. (No, we don't plan on adopting 14 more kids.) ;) But it was amazing to watch these kids who, despite tremendous odds, had found a family to love them and could lead a productive life and bless the lives of those in their new family as well. So I thought about it here and there over the years and Dr. G and I talked about it when we were first married. We even considered briefly starting our family by adopting, but later, thought maybe we would have children first and then think about adoption later. And that's what we did....and we had six beautiful children. They are the light of my life and bring me more joy than anything else I have ever done. I've worked and traveled a lot and had different hobbies and other pursuits over the years before and after marriage, but I can honestly say that nothing has brought me greater joy that being a parent and having a family. I like our family. :) We're definitely not perfect and every day I learn something new and how to do or approach things better than the day before. I am a better mom than when I started 18 years ago. (I would hope that after doing something for that long, I would have improved at it.) :) I feel like we have been blessed abundantly and why not share those blessings with someone who doesn't have the opportunity to know what joy and happiness comes from being in a forever family. Every child should know that joy. It's just how it's supposed to be.
So almost four years ago when our youngest son was about two, and after having three consecutive miscarriages, I thought, "Well, I guess we are done and there aren't any more children coming to our family that way. Maybe it's time to revisit adoption?" I hadn't thought about it for quite a while, and the thought began to come to me often....like all the time. So the research began. Anyone who knows me knows I don't make any big decision before looking at it inside, outside and upside down and, of course, making it a matter of sincere prayer. Dr. G, on the other hand doesn't get into all the details. That's why we make a good pair....I like the details and he likes to get the job done! We found an adoption agency that we liked and had been used by several people we knew of. Over the next couple of years, I researched different countries available to us (some countries don't allow people to adopt if they already have six children in the home). I looked at hundreds of files of children from different places. I can say I learned about medical needs small and great and countries far and wide. At some point we finally decided on China. They would allow us to adopt a special needs or an older child (being an older child puts them in the "special needs" category in some countries just because of their age.)
In the meantime, several things happened to prepare the way. First we moved to a bigger house with a little more land. Plenty of room to run around and an amazing neighborhood of great friends for our children. We love it here. Second, Dr. G got an offer from our local regional medical center to basically sell his private practice and work for the hospital clinic. After much consideration, we decided that this was a really good thing....and looking back now after over a year, it was a very good decision. After having his own private practice for six years, he is enjoying working for the hospital and not having to attend to the daily details of owning your own business on top of practicing medicine. For me, this meant no more bookkeeping for the practice, nor taking care of a hundred other details. That basically took a part-time job off of my plate and considerably freed up a big chunk of my time. I learned a ton during that time, but I don't miss it. Not having to attend to the practice books any more allowed me the time to get all this paper work done for the adoption process. There is no way I would have had time to do that before. Besides both of these life changing events, we had several friends adopt from China during the time I was doing all this research and looking at files of different children. The Lord knows that sometimes I am a better follower than a leader and I work best when I have an example to follow. We got to see first hand, from start to finish, the adoption of two beautiful boys from China by some friends we know from our church. And another family we know brought home an older boy from China and shared their personal experiences via their amazing blog. All this was not wasted on me, that's for sure. It was like the Lord was saying, "See...it's not that scary. You got this!" It was just a matter of time....and soon after that we found our son. Or I should say he found us.
