This is the first of three blog posts that detail our adoption journey. We have tried to answer a lot of the questions that most people have asked regarding the process and why we chose to adopt. If you have any further questions, please leave them as a comment below and we’ll have a fourth post to answer those. Questions pertaining to Anaya’s birth family can’t be answered due to confidentiality.
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With the arrival of our new bundle of joy, several people have asked us about adoption; how we went about it, why we did it, etc. So, here’s our story.
I think for both Dave and I, God began planting seeds in our hearts regarding adoption quite some time ago. For me, it began when I spent three months in Nigeria. Each afternoon, I spent a few hours at an orphanage for street boys. I can remember one particular boy named Garaba (he was about 7 years old), whom I absolutely fell in love with. He even asked me to take him home with him. My heart broke. God had planted the seed. For Dave, there were several factors that turned his heart towards adoption. His uncle was adopted, as well as two cousins on his dad’s side…adoption was just normal. When Dave traveled to Yemen, he too spent time in an orphanage and felt a similar draw towards adoption.
After Dave and I got married, we spent the first year or two dreaming about our future family. We talked about the possibility of being missionaries overseas; about the idea of adopting a little one in whatever country we ended up being in. We also assumed we would have one or two of our ‘own’ children first. Well, God had other plans. In August 2008 we began trying to conceive. Month after month passed with no success. Of course, our hearts were heavy each time we were disappointed. We were referred to a fertility specialist in February 2009, but were told it could take until Christmas time to get an appointment. Time marched along and still no baby or appointment.
In April 2009 Dave attended a conference called the Gospel Coalition. At this conference, he was given several books, one of which was called “Adopted for Life” by Russell Moore. We were both intrigued by this book and so read it in short order. What an amazing book!! It not only challenged us to become adoptive parents, but also encouraged our hearts on the whole concept of adoption being a way of living out the gospel. Please see Dave’s book review for further information on this great book. After reading that book, we began researching adoption, even though we hadn’t yet had a fertility appointment.
First, we looked into international adoption. It seemed to make sense in light of our previous experiences. We were soon very discouraged. Not only was the process VERY expensive ($40,000+), but we also didn’t qualify for many countries on account of our ethnicity, age, even our BMI! As well, we really had our hearts set on getting an infant, since this would be our first child and for most international adoptions, this is just not possible. Door after door closed. We were told that adopting from the US would be our best option. But, we thought to ourselves, why adopt from the US? Why not just adopt from Canada? And so, we decided to go for a local adoption.
