On adoption

So I should say that, aside from this shocking pregnancy, I had moved on from hoping for our own biological kid #2 to adopting another kid or two.  We as a pair figured that we would rather spend money adopting than hoping IUI or IVF would work.  That was a terribly painful decision (notably as the kid looks nothing like me aside from making faces like me, cuz come on... mini me!) and long considered, and I'm ok with having made the choice.

So some months ago I shifted to reading blogs by parents who adopted, because hey. That's where we were going.  I have kept up with the infertility bloggers I adore, and that's fun and cathartic.

Anyway, there was this part of a lot of books for kids about being adopted that made me really uneasy.  I could never put my finger on it as such, until today! Today I read this lovely article that explained it by the author of Finding Magnolia!

The idea that was bugging me was the idea that a child is destined for their adoptive family.  That makes for a sour piece of destiny if you think about it.  We'd thought about domestic adoption and possibly an older child, and no child ends up in a spot to be adopted domestically because nice things happened.

I'm a person of faith (and which faith is my business thank you very much).  I do believe to some degree that our lives have a plan, but I think it's a plan for the nice stuff.  A few years before the spouse and I met, there was a chance we could have met at a conference, and before that for weeks I dreamed of meeting that person I'd spend the rest of my life with.  It was really weird and, although I didn't trust it at the time, totally accurate.  So I see that as evidence of the plan for my life that included the spouse.

I don't think a child is ever destined for adoption in the same way the spouse and I were destined to bump into each other and fall in love.  I can't believe in a merciful and loving Higher Power who would create havoc in the life of a child so they could end up in an adoptive family.  I can believe, however, that after a bad thing happens in a child's life, a great adoptive family arrives and the child joins up.

So I guess I'd say the following: Consider the G-d you invoke when you say something was "meant to be" or "it was fate that..."  Do you mean that your faith teaches you about a vindictive and cruel higher power?  Because that's what you are saying when some nasty thing "was meant to be."