Adoption

To Adopt or Not to Adopt

MP900385960…that is the question.

I used to think it was as simple as wanting to adopt, that the physical act of engaging the adoption process was all that was needed to get a child. After all, aren’t there orphans all around the world waiting to be placed in a loving home such as mine? That’s what the social workers, pamphlets, and websites tell me. It’s simple math, right? A homeless child + a couple with a home + some money = an adoptive family.

It wasn’t until my husband and I engaged the foster process ourselves and came up empty handed that we learned our wanting does not automatically equal our getting. You’d think that I, a barren woman, would already know such things; but, sometimes, even barren women forget that children- all children, adopted children included – are God’s gifts to give.

I have since learned of many other would-be adoptive parents who have yet to hear a “yes” from the Lord. You already know that Kristi and Rebecca waited years for their adopted children. Many of you are still waiting. Some of you have even abandoned the adoption process, still childless.

The truth is that God is faithful and just and wise, and He tells some of us “yes” and some of us “no.”

After living through the devastating “no” of our first attempt at local adoption (as well as two, additional, private adoptions which fell through), I am now gun-shy of adopting. I am afraid. I am afraid of opening my heart again to the hope of a child only to be crushed in the end. I am afraid of contractually and financially engaging an adoption agency during a political season when the government seems to be against me and what I believe about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in my own home. I am afraid of continually pushing my will to the front of the line when maybe my will is not what’s best for me or for an adoptive child.

Gilbert Meilaender offers this convicting instruction:

“[Adoption’s] principal aim must not be to provide children for those who want them but are unable to conceive them. If we think in that way – to the degree that we already think in that way – some of the dangers of assisted reproduction will lie near at hand: Potential adoptive parents will want not just a child to care for but the best child, a certain kind of child. The aim of adoption, by contrast, should be to serve and care for some of the neediest among us. It may, of course, also prove fulfilling for couples who have been unable to have biological children, and there is no reason to object if their interests and the interests of potential adoptive children should coincide. But adoption must remain an emergency measure, aimed chiefly at caring for children whose biological parents have not, cannot, or will not care for them.” (Meilaender, Bioethics: A Primer for Christians, 2nd ed, 17-8)

Ultimately, after living with and reflecting on God’s “no” for several years, I am afraid of adopting for all the wrong reasons. Here is the ugly truth about me:

I want to adopt, not because I have a burning desire to care for the least in the world, but because I care so much about myself. I feel guilty for having plenty, and adoption is a sacrificial, shiny, good work that might temporally assuage my guilt. Deep down inside, I still want to work for my righteousness instead of trust that Christ has won it completely for me on the cross. If I just adopted a child, I might feel better…

I want to adopt, not because I want to serve my little neighbor in need, but because I want so badly to please everyone else in my life. I see how my barrenness hurts my family, my friends, and my church, and I want to make them all happy. They often ask me about children with hope in their voices and on their faces. I have not been able to give them a child through conception. If I just adopted a child, they might feel better…

I want to adopt, not because I want to give a child a home, but because I want a child in my home. I get so lonely sometimes. I want to snuggle and soothe and sing to a child at night. I want to cook macaroni-and-cheese, hang finger-painted masterpieces on my walls, and plan birthday parties during the day. I want to put a carseat in my Honda and take a child to the park, the state fair, music lessons, dance recitals, little league games, and confirmation classes. If I just adopted a child, I might hear someone call me, “Mama…”

I want to adopt, because I am a guilty sinner, a people pleaser, and a selfish barren woman. I am so gross.

Yet, even in my grossness, my husband and I still think of adopting. It is the question we ask ourselves every month, and every month, thus far, we come up with the same answer: not today. The green light we currently see before us seems to lead straight towards serving our neighbors in our church and in our community. Our hand continually hovers over our turn signal, but the left-turn arrow still shines a stubborn red.

In all of the questioning and the hovering and the waiting, it helps me to remember this comforting truth: whether my husband and I adopt a child or not, the Lamb of God covers my grossness with His precious, redeeming blood. Christ is my salvation. Only He can truly assuage my guilt. And only He can give me the gift of child.

Thy will, Lord, not mine.

Is a Baby the Answer?

bleeding heartListening to a baby coo, watching her first steps, holding her tiny hand in yours… These are things that we barren women desire. We watch our girlfriends share kisses with their babies; we see dads swoop up the little ones in their arms. We listen to grandparents crow about their grandchildren’s accomplishments. Where is my baby? Where is the child that should come forth from my womb? If I gave birth, then my heartache would be gone. If we adopted, I know that my mood would improve.  Having a baby would be the answer to all of my problems.

Reality check – Children aren’t happy all the time. A baby cries; a baby messes. A newborn can’t communicate her needs clearly. I’m not happy 24/7 either. Sometimes I’m angry. At other times I’m sad. I long for things that are beyond my reach. Even though I want a baby to be the answer to my prayers, a baby is not the solution to my problems.

The solution is Jesus. He provides healing. He knows the hurt we carry. He knows our deep, heartfelt desire to be a parent. He knows that our selfishness can lead to turning parenthood into an idol. God, in His infinite wisdom, knows that we need a Savior. Jesus takes us into His loving arms and holds us. He reminds us in His Holy Word that He provides for our every need. He gives us a church family to love and support us.

When we pray “Thy will be done,” we acknowledge that God is the author of all creation, and His will is best for our lives. He knows that having a baby is AN answer to prayers. He also knows that having a baby is not always THE answer to prayers. There is a difference. We pray that God would lead us to recognize His good will for our lives – with or without a baby.

It Should Have Been Me

I have some news.“Did you hear? Alyssa is pregnant!”

“Guess what. My neighbor is expecting twins!”

“Has anybody told you? The Greenbergs are adopting!”

I’m certain we have all been privy to such conversations. In those moments, I have done my best to show genuine excitement for the couple. However, I am falling apart on the inside. That good news should be mine. I should be buying maternity clothing. I should be shopping for a double-stroller. I’ve been eating well, exercising faithfully, attending church on a regular basis. We submitted all of our paperwork to the adoption agency. Birthmothers should be choosing my spouse and me to adopt her child.

If left up to us, our wishes would be fulfilled. The pregnancy test would be positive. The twins would have matching cribs. The adoption process would be smooth as silk. It should be me! I should be the one shouting out such good news. But, no, I’m on the receiving end of good baby news once again.

There’s something else that should have happened to me. I should have been the one who was scourged, spit upon, mocked, pierced, and crucified. Yes, I’m the sinner who has broken every single one of the Ten Commandments. It really should be me who’s dead. I really don’t deserve any of the goodness that has been bestowed upon me, for I am a conceited, selfish sinner, who deserves death.

Thanks be to God that He gave His Son to take that punishment for me. Jesus Christ endured the scorn, the pain, and even the death you and I deserved. During this Holy Week, I humbly bow before the Lord God and thank Him for taking away the death that should have been mine.

crucified

Hagar

Yesterday, many of you sent me a link to a CNN story by Elizabeth Cohen:

“Surrogate Offered $10,000 to Abort Baby” 

Here we see The Sarah Syndrome gone wild.

1 genetic father + 1 wife + 1 anonymous egg donor + 2 IVF embryos + 1 surrogate birthmother + 2 adoptive parents = 1 child alive, 1 child dead, and 1 social and legal mess

I am afraid of the fact that cases such as these are getting court time. The more court rulings that are made on sperm donor, IVF, and surrogacy cases, the more…I don’t know, I guess the more we formally and publicly despise, defile, and – God help us! – abandon the one-flesh union and adoption as the means of parentage in our country. And so may times the children involved in these cases are treated as property with no individual rights of their own.

We are different from the world, Baptized Christians. Always have been, always will be. Remember that.

First Officer

Question Submitted: I’ve noticed that several of your hosts have adopted children this year. Does it hurt that you are the only HRTB host not to have been given the gift of a child? 

Don’t gasp, readers. This is not an audacious question. It is an honest one, and, frankly, I get asked it quite often. So, here is my honest answer:

First, from this website’s conception, my goal was never to have only childless hosts. In fact, if you have ever referred to the host page of this site, you already know that Rebecca, Kristi, Melissa, and Sandra have been mothers for years, whether through the gift of conception or adoption. I invited these sage women to cohost this site with me, because I am terribly aware of my own shortcomings. I am not an authority on every topic we cover on this site, and I rely heavily on their experience, wisdom, prudence, and compassion in responding to such issues as miscarriage, secondary infertility, adoption, and other concerns that touch upon the subject of barrenness.

Now, in response to the hurting portion of your question:

It does not hurt that I am the only HRTB host not to have children; it hurts that I don’t have children, period.

Yet.

It is remarkably easy to rejoice with my fellow hosts in the gifts they have been given this year, because I, too, have been given special gifts from God. I have been given the gift of knowledge from God’s Word that children are His gift to give and that He is wise in His giving; I have been given the gift of faith which trusts in the goodness of God’s giving and His not giving; I have been given the gift of fellowship in the Body of Christ, and I get to participate in the joy of my mother-sisters; I have been given the gift of assurance that my own prayers and sorrows are made known to my Father in heaven, because I have a Mediator who always intercedes on my behalf at God’s right hand; I have been given the gift of a Comforter who, through Word and Sacrament, grants me peace that surpasses all understanding; and, last but not least, I have been given a special vocation in the lives of my fellow HRTB hosts: First Officer of the Starship Motherhood.

What, exactly, does the First Officer do?

The First Officer receives stunned, amazed, blessed, joyous, play-by-play texts when Baby Mayes arrives.

The First Officer gets to share meals with Baby DeGroot and Big Boy Ostapowich.

The First Officer gets the privilege of being one of the first people to receive updates and pictures of Baby Leckband in China so that she can post said updates and pictures to Mama Leckband’s website for her while international internet access is limited.

Most importantly, the First Officer receives tender empathy at all times, even from across an ocean in the middle of a sleepless night just after Baby Leckband has been put into the arms of her family for the first time:

“I know there is joy and pain for you personally on this day. Know this, dear sister, you are loved for who you are TODAY. Your worth is found in the shadow of the One who has borne all of our suffering. His gifts are yours each and every day, despite your earthly pains and sorrows. You. Are. Loved!” 

Does it hurt? Not as much as it could, thanks to the compassionate generosity of my fellow hosts who never leave me out but put me right in the middle of the celebration.

I am one blessed, barren woman.

Salute,

First Officer Schuermann

Compelling Distress

“But where there is to be a true prayer, there must be seriousness. People must feel their distress, and such distress presses them and compels them to call and cry out. Then prayer will be made willingly, as it ought to be. People will need no teaching about how to prepare for it and to reach the proper devotion. But the distress that ought to concern most (both for ourselves and everyone), you will find abundantly set forth in the Lord’s Prayer. Therefore, this prayer also serves as a reminder, so that we meditate on it and lay it to heart and do not fail to pray. For we all have enough things that we lack. The great problem is that we do not feel or recognize this. Therefore, God also requires that you weep and ask for such needs and wants, not because He does not know about them [Matthew 6:8], but so that you may kindle your heart to stronger and greater desires and make wide and open your cloak to receive much [Psalm 10:17].” Martin Luther, The Large Catechism, III: 26-27.*

* Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions (ed. Paul Timothy McCain; St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 2005), 411.

Godspeed, Kristi!

Let us pray…

“Gracious and merciful God…Bless Kristi’s going out and her coming in. In Your name she begins her journey to her daughter; let Kristi accomplish it with You as her constant companion. Let the host of angels surround and guard her like Jacob. Let Your angel stand by her in every danger as he stood by St. Paul. Let the company of Your angels travel with her going and coming, as with Joseph and Mary when they fled to Egypt with the young child Jesus, that she may remain safe from all misfortune, from thieves, murderers, and any other injury. O keeper of Israel, You never slumber or sleep; be a wall of fire around Kristi and her family by day and by night, as You were to Elisha, that no misfortune or disaster come near them. Accompany them all along their path with Your angels’ watch, as You guided the children of Israel through the desert with a pillar of cloud and of fire. Be their companion when they are traveling. Stay with them when they rest. Watch for them while they are sleeping. Yes, Lord, take care of them wherever they go and let them be commended to Your holy protection. Amen”*

* Revised from Starck’s Prayer Book, 362-3.

A “Yes” Answer

YES!Long ago in catechism class, I learned that God answers prayers. He does so in several ways; He can answer YES, NO, and WAIT. As a kid, any time my parents told me to WAIT, I was disappointed. As an adult, I still don’t like to hear the word WAIT. It took my struggles and suffering as an adult to finally understand that God may say WAIT because that is what is best for me.

The Lord has been working on my hard, sin-filled heart continuously since my Baptism. I sin when I reject His Words and His gifts, but I also repent of those sins. It’s such a paradox of the human mind and spirit. I pray to the Lord and ask Him for the desires of my heart. His answers are still YES, NO, and WAIT.

With joy I receive all of His gifts, even if they don’t come when I want them. Today, though, I am preparing to receive a gift for which I have long prayed: a child. The Lord has told me to WAIT for several years, and I have struggled to accept that answer. The Lord has used this time to strengthen and uphold me, to encourage me, to mold me into His child. I have fought Him time and again; I have rejected His gifts. I have rejected the people He has placed around me to share God’s Word with me. I have learned that I don’t have to suffer alone. God has given me so many good gifts, and I am still learning to receive them with thanksgiving.

Now God tells me, “YES – I am blessing you with a child, who will come to you through the gift of adoption.” Why? Did I finally meet His expectations for perfection? No; I still sin daily. Did I finally pray hard enough? No, I haven’t been faithful in prayer. Have I finally suffered enough? My suffering is nothing compared to the suffering of God’s Son Jesus. This child is a gift… from God! I don’t deserve a child; I’m not entitled to such a blessing. Yet He gives this child to our family purely by His grace. There is no merit or worthiness in me. None.

God, in His mercy, has said YES! And when God says YES, I will receive this child with joy!

Abortion: The “More Right” Thing to Do?
abortionrallyQuestion submitted: In a recent conversation with a single friend of mine, she mentioned that if she ever got pregnant she would just have an abortion. I told her that I was pro-life and reminded her that she would have other options, like putting the child up for adoption, if she felt she would not be able to take on the responsibility of being a parent. She went on to say that kids who are adopted often have issues because they do not live with their biological parents, so getting an abortion would be the “more right” thing to do. How would you respond to this?

I’d grab this girl by the shoulders and shout in her face, “What are you thinking?!?! Do you hear what you’re saying?” Well, that’s what I would like to do anyway. What I should do is start asking questions. Stand to Reason is an organization that provides a great training in how to engage in these conversations by asking specific questions. It’s called Making Abortion Unthinkable, and it is something I encourage all Christians to look at.

First, find out what your friend thinks “the unborn” really is. The state of South Dakota has regulations in place that require abortion doctors to share with their patients that an abortion will “terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being,” (NPR story from Jan. 22). This is a FACT supported by scientific evidence. People who consider abortion should have to wrestle with this.

Second, ask your friend what should happen to a two-year-old whose parents die tragically. Would it be better to kill the two-year-old, too, than have him be adopted or raised by people who weren’t his biological parents? This would be absurd, of course. But by using these kinds of examples it forces people to realize that the unborn are children, too, they’re just smaller than a two-year-old. The Making Abortion Unthinkable curriculum calls this method “trotting out the toddler.” It’s a very effective argument.

The goal of having an ongoing conversation with this friend would be to help her see the following logic and come to agree with it:

1.  It’s wrong to intentionally kill innocent human beings (e.g. the two-year-old).

2. Abortion intentionally kills innocent human beings (e.g. scientific evidence).

3. Therefore, abortion is wrong.

Abortion is not right, or even “more right.” It is not merciful or a better option. Stories of troublesome adoptees are about as much justification for abortion as stories of troublesome biological kids (which, I would argue, are equally present in our gossip circles). People believe whatever will ease their consciences, no matter how unfounded the story might be. When abortion is used as a form of contraception, as this woman describes it, she must find a “good” reason to justify it because her conscience needs her to.  I suppose you can be grateful that her conscience is still active, it’s just incredibly misinformed. Perhaps you’re in a place to help remedy that. Pray for guidance and courage from the Holy Spirit to love this friend, keep talking to her, and help expose the lies that she is believing.

(Another great resource for preparing for abortion debates is Peter Kreeft’s The Unaborted Socrates: A Dramatic Debate on the Issues Surrounding Abortion.)