About seven months after my husband and I brought our oldest son home from the hospital (through adoption), we announced we were expecting a baby. Shock and wonder and excitement blossomed from all around us. Most people reacted the way you hope and dream they would. Some did not. One particular comment still sticks with me these four years later -
"If only you would have waited on God just a few more months! Now you are pregnant!"
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I am just going to give you a few more moments to digest those words. Although, no matter how much time I give you, I am quite certain you will not be able to come to terms with them. It's been almost four years for me, and I am still chewing on them.
And I guess I am still not sure how I should have responded.
Mostly because there are a lot of assumptions in this person's statement:
- Pregnancy is inherently better than adoption.
- My husband and I went around God's plan to get our son on our own.
- Our life would be better without having adopted our son.
All of these assumptions I find to be completely false.
I am going to choose to believe a different assumption. The one where this person let words slip out of the mouth that should have been stopped. The one where this person gravely regrets the words that came pouring out unchecked. The one where I do my very best to put the very best construction on someone else's thoughts.
Adoption is all about educating people. If I would answer this comment with what I would really want to say, I wouldn't be educating anyone. I would be embarrassing someone, closing doors to discussion, and basically breaking a lot of commandments because my heart and words would be full of anger.
Instead I choose to answer it with a picture of our life. The one where our son has the joy of siblings. The one where we have the joy of giving ourselves fully to another growing person. The one where we sit around the table and hear our son say he is brown and we are orange. The one where we weep over parenting - parenting biologically and through adoption. The one where we rejoice in a woman who chooses parents for her child. The one where we watch Christ baptize our children and then teach them what it all means. The one where we see God's plan unfolding with however many children He blesses us with in whatever ways He chooses to do it. The one where our life is immeasurably better because we didn't wait those few more months.
When we marched in our first March for Life almost two years ago, my husband pushed our two toddler sons in a double stroller while I carried our unborn daughter in the womb. We carried a sign which said, "You do have a CHOICE. CHOOSE to parent or CHOOSE the parents." You see, in that way, I am very pro-choice. These are choices that allow people to live in families. These are choices that allow people like my son to be born.
And I can tell you from firsthand experience that the world is better because of these choices.
Not a single day goes by that I wish we would have 'waited longer for God to act' in some way that we thought was better.
First, because adoption love and biological love makes no difference to parents. [Read more about that here.] Our son's biological mother loves him as much as we do, and we love him as much as she does. Her choice to choose us was the single greatest act of love he will ever be a part of (second only to Christ's death on the cross for his sins). [Read more about what I think about birthmothers here.] Pregnancy is not inherently better than adoption. They are two cords which God has used to knit countless families together, an earthly example of His adoption of us through His Son.
Second, because I know He created our son and had it all planned out for us long before. All of our children were meant to be in our family. God doesn't let us get around Him that easily. We didn't somehow beat God to the punch by adopting a child before having them biologically. He gave us our first child who died, then He gave us our son through adoption, then He gave us our second son biologically, then He gave us our fourth child, a girl biologically. [Read more about our pregnancy and adoption journey here.]
Third, because there is no stinkin' way our life would be better if we had waited. A life without our son? I don't dare even think of such a thing. A life without his laugh. A life without his totally extroverted personality in our totally introverted family. A life without his hardships making us better parents and better people. A life without knowing the love of a woman who sacrificed her body and her emotions so he could live in a family. A life without him and what he has given us? No. Not even. [Read more about why children are awesome here.]
If only we would have waited? No. Not even.
