Because I Want To

Our adoption of Brenna is moving along and we are on track to bring her home in about 2 months! It is exciting and terrifying at the same time :) Life has gotten in the way of blogging, but I really want to take some time to get my thoughts recorded in these last weeks before we go to China to get Brenna. My goal is to blog at least once a week between now and then. You are welcome to hold me accountable to that!

As Pat and I have been working on applying for grants and fundraisers, one question I’ve been asked to answer frequently is to explain why are we adopting or what has led us to pursue adoption. There are many possible answers to this question, but tonight I am choosing to write my simple answer. Why am I adopting Brenna? Because I want to.

When I was in middle school, a family from our church brought home a baby girl from China. This was my first time seeing international adoption, and the first time I realized that people adopted for reasons other than infertility, as this family already had 5 biological children. It impacted me significantly and I decided then that I wanted a baby girl from China. Fast forward to 2013 when Pat and I were starting the adoption process and I quickly learned that I couldn’t have that little girl from China, because you have to be 30 to adopt from China and I was only 26. If you’ve read the story on this blog you know that we had planned to adopt from Ethiopia, but that didn’t happen. I won’t retell all of that now, but I will say that I struggled briefly with the idea of a Chinese daughter after picturing myself with an Ethiopian daughter for 4 years. And then the Lord reminded me that a little girl from China was my very first wish years and years ago. I had honestly forgotten! Knowing that He planned this for me all along is a sweet reminder of His faithfulness and His goodness to me.

I want to adopt Brenna. I just do. In our pre-adoption training class, I remember the social worker saying that the most successful families adopt for selfish reasons. As a Christian, it’s hard for me to wrap my mind around that statement, because I seek to serve others with my life, not to live for my self. Adopting a special-needs child is going to require me to sacrifice a lot, I know that; the cool thing is that I WANT to do that! I’m not doing it out of a sense of obligation or duty. I’m not doing it because I want people to think I’m a really good person. I want to because I love Brenna...because I want to adopt a little girl from China and she is my girl.

When things get really hard and I’m overwhelmed and exhausted and confused, I hope that I can remember this and find joy in it. Brenna did not grow in my womb, but she grew in my heart. I was an 11 year old girl who dreamed of a baby girl from China and now 20 years later I am about to have that dream come true.