Adoption and Parenthood: Making Plans

Because I haven’t mentioned adoption in a few weeks, some of you might be wondering if Husband and I have forgotten about the idea of adoption. Or that we have given up on it.

Neither is true.

We are continuing to read books about adoption. (We just finished reading through The Adoption Decision by Laura Christianson and are now starting The Complete Book of International Adoption by Dawn Davenport. The former is written by a woman familiar with domestic adoption. The latter, obviously, goes into more detail about international adoption.) We are continuing to discuss.

The discussion has taken an interesting shift for Husband and me. We are no longer discussing if we will adopt, but rather, when we will adopt. We feel confident that God is leading us to adoption, but not quite yet.

Because in the last few weeks of talking and praying we have also come to the joint decision that God is leading us to pursue biological parenthood first. Though I don’t want to share all of the reasoning that went into this decision, I do want to share the final product with you:

Our plan is to use a common and non-invasive fertility treatment that is almost entirely covered by our insurance. Our hope is that God will bless us with a biological child through this process, but whether He does or not, we will begin our first adoption process, either after our first child is old enough for us to be able to start paperwork, or when the fertility treatment has reached its end.

This is our plan, but I am already shaking my head and sighing to myself over my use of the word plan.

When I tell God these things (usually pretending that I am asking), I imagine that God is staring at me, compassionately, but with a quizzical expression on His face and an eyebrow cocked. He’s patient enough to listen and love me anyway, but He’s certainly not taking notes!