Biological vs. Adoption

When a dear friend congratulated me last week, I realized we've been waiting on a referral for exactly 6 months. Our paperwork was received by our agency on December 2, which marked the beginning of our official wait. Surprisingly, these last few months have not been filled with anxiety. Waiting on our children (first Avery and now through this adoption) is probably the only area of my life where God has given me patience. I can hear my dad laughing as he reads this. Anyway, I was reminded of a pivotal conversation Keith and I had about 17 months ago (February 2009).

“Hypothetically,” I said, “if we could only have one more child, would you rather have a biological child or adopt a child?” I started this conversation in the car on the way home from a meeting with one of the adoption agencies we were looking into. This was something I had been thinking about and didn’t know how to go about asking Keith.

We had decided in January that we would “expand” our family. We decided to stop preventing pregnancy and, at the same time, pursue adoption. Open the door to both paths and leave it up to God as to which we take.

When Keith said he would rather adopt a child, I repeated my question changing only the number of kids: two…three. His answer was the same each time. We both felt like adoption was something God placed in our hearts for a reason, and for that reason we wouldn’t, and shouldn’t, attempt more biological children.

Short of having surgery, we both feel we're finished having kids (biologically). As Christians, all of us are called to care for orphans in some way. For us, adoption is God's calling on our lives to meet that need, as well as one of the most tangible expressions of the Gospel.