Not So Random Thoughts About Adoption

On Sunday, Jon and I took the kids out for brunch.

We always get a lot of looks whenever we go places

with the kids. I choose to believe that it's because

we're all so good looking.  Jon informs me it's because

we have such a large family.

A girlfriend once told me it's because we all look so different.

We're a curiosity to people.

The hostess, after pulling some tables together, seated us.

She looked at me and asked, "Are they

all yours."

I answered yes, and she asked me, "Adopted".

Now, in all of the years that I've been a Mommy to my kids,

she is the first stranger to ask me if the kids were adopted.

I answered, "Yes".  I'm not ashamed of their adoption, in fact

I'm quite proud of the way that the Lord made our family.

She smiled, said "I know what it's like to be adopted.

I was in foster care."

At that point I shared with her that all four of our children

were adopted out of foster care.

That part of our adoption story is a little more unusual.

You see, foster children are often older. They're often hurt with

complicated histories of abuse and neglect.  They're often hard to place.

They have memories of times before you were their parent.

They love people that you may not be able to stomach.

I am a HUGE advocate for adopting out of foster care.

HUGE.  It may not be the journey for every family, but it 

is the journey for our family.  It's easy to love a baby.

It's easy to adopt an infant. They will never know anyone but you as a mother.

It is much harder to adopt an older child.  To adopt, and love, a person that may

call another woman "Mom" or another man "Dad".

That doesn't mean that I disagree with infant adoption.

I don't. I know a lot of people that have adopted infants. 

Those babies need homes just as badly as my children did.

I just know, from my experience, that adopting an older child

out of foster care can be a difficult but rewarding journey.

 I would never have adopted any other way.

Never.

You see, to adopt out of foster care is to see a life

changed.  A future given.  To adopt out of foster care is to

give a child hope.

To adopt out of foster care allows siblings to grow up

together, to be a family.

To adopt out of foster care stretches you in ways you never imagined you could

be stretched.

Adoption made six people a family.

Adoption made four children siblings.

Adoption healed hurts.

Adoption showed love.

Adoption changed lives.

Not just their lives, but mine.