Yesterday she emailed me and asked if she could call later that evening. She called around 430 yesterday and said we needed to discuss our Desire of Child Form. Apparently with out of state couples, the agency requires us to apply for only bi-racial children. The only exception is for caucasian children with special needs. I told her we would talk about it and get back to her. When I got off the phone I was heart broken. It's not that I didn't think Allen and I wouldn't love a child of another race, we had actually put down "willing to consider" all other races on our form. It was limiting us to this right off that bothered me. I started worrying about the future, could I raise a bi racial child? Would I know how to care for them if their health etc was different? What about when they were an adult? All of these things overwhelmed me and I started to think maybe we had made the wrong choice with adoption. Was I ready to pursue this?
We know a few couples at church that have adopted children from another country/and/or race and we knew that we could talk to them if we needed to. I went to bed last night very doubtful. I had prayed that morning for God to continue to open doors for us. If this wasn't something we should be doing I asked him to close the door. I had felt up until this point everything had worked smoothly. I was beginning to wonder if we shouldn't just go down the IVF path!
I woke up this morning, did my bible study and prayed. I sent a text to my mom, stepmom, sister and sister in law expressing my concerns over the bi racial matter. I was sure to include that we are not against bi racial adoption but feared that we were not at peace about this being our only option. If a birthmother were to choose us and we received a phone call that the child was bi racial and we were able to pray about it and were at peace we could move forward. But our hopes of adopting a child who is white were gone. As I spoke to each of them tears filled my eyes. What exactly did I want? What were my intentions of adoption to begin with? All of this really helped me weigh my options and really look at my heart. I felt horrible even saying that it bothered me to adopt only a bi racial child! What kind of person must I be to feel this way??
After having a few conversations I contacted our social worker through email and asked her if we could change the gender portion if we were limited to bi racial? She emailed me back and told me , yes, we could do that but it would probably increase our waiting time. Then she went on to mention the normal wait time is around 2 years. I knew going into this it could be a while but here we are after 3 years of painful infertility and now maybe awaiting 2 more years for a domestic adoption, not even international! I told her that we needed to pray about our decision and get back to her.
As always, God is in control and He hears our prayers. Just a few hours after emailing I got a phone call from Karen. I was on the other line and couldn't switch over, but the voicemail said she had good news for us! I called her back quickly and when she answered she said "We have opened Caucasian adoption up to you guys." I was flabbergasted! Really? I still don't know if its just "US" or if they have changed the out of state part but either way I was thrilled. Then I had to start thinking about whether we still wanted to consider bi racial in our profile! Our profile will be viewed more if we are more open, however if we are not at peace about a particular partI do not think we should accept it if we're really not comfortable. This is our life we are talking about!! Our social worker kept telling me that we had a lot going for us! She said we are a young, childless couple with a sweet and bubbly personality and that we would be appealing to most young birth mothers. I know God has all of this figured out already. That is the best part. I can sit here and wonder all day long how all of this is going to work out, but He is sitting up there smiling because he already sees the sweet boy or girl that will be ours one day.
Until then we are happy as our family of 2(+2 furry animals)! By the way the Mission Trip was incredible! Maybe I'll blog on it eventually! Here are a few pics from the trip! Thank you for all of the prayers!
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| Handing out chapstick on a street corner in Boston |
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| VBS |
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| VBS |
