The courage to adopt...just kidding

I had just been offered a full time job by one of my clients and thought this would be the time to branch out. My kids were 11, 8 and 5 when we decided to move states and walk down a new path. Little did I know this move was vital in the blessings that would come.

My wife and I looked and looked for a new home. We looked everywhere and could not find what we were looking for. Finally the last home we looked at seemed to be just what we were looking for. We moved in and began settling down. Ahhhh the relief! My mind became occupied with establishing myself in this new job and in the community. Soon work, coaching soccer and just learning where the nearest Wal-Mart was becoming my biggest problem.



Life started to settle down and things were becoming as normal as they could in a crazy home. We were just getting ready to breathe and talk about children when we found out that my dad had been diagnosed with cancer…You have got to be kidding me! Cancer? He just barely retired. I sat there and thought is this really fair! For the next 2 years we found ourselves traveling back and forth from his home to ours a 12 hour trip one way. The travel time gave my wife and I a lot of time to think and to discuss our life and the direction we were on.

Things began to get spotty at work. Late paychecks were becoming more the norm and dad was getting sicker. His treatments had caused him to have little to no feeling in his feet and in need of a wheel chair. This 260lbs man was now 160lbs and not getting any better. I had more things on my mind than adopting.

But the thought keep returning. It was evident that my wife was missing someone and it seemed to occupy her more and more. Only those blessed with the torment of the need to parent will understand this feeling. Our conversations centered on the idea that there was someone out there that we were missing in our family. Though I felt the same way I would reply “that is nice but I don’t have the money to adopt, the stability or the energy. But the thoughts and feelings would keep me up at night, was one of our children actually looking for us? And if they were why in the world couldn’t they wait for a little longer. At least until dad got through his cancer and I had a more consistent job.

One morning my wife woke up and said I had a dream….My thoughts exactly!!! I said “you have got to be kidding me!” My wife informed me that in her dream there was a knock on the door and a woman presented her with a little African American baby boy telling her his name. For the next week my wife was consumed with this dream that seemed so real. How was I to tell her ignore it? Though it plagued my mind as well.

I was at work when she called me to inform me that one of our neighbors who was an adoption professional informed her that she knew that my wife was considering adoption and asked if she would she like to be presented to an African American birth mother that was having a little baby boy!!!??!!!??? I told her that we would talk more about it that evening and give our neighbor an answer in the morning. How was I going to come up with the money and get everything in order for an adoption? Was there really a choice? It felt right. It felt like we were being prepared for our son to come into our home. Again how could we afford it and what was it that we needed to do to prepare for an adoption.


We thought about it, prayed about it and came up with the courage to say yes! That is when the neighbor contacted us and said another family was presented and the birthmother had selected them.

Thanks for sharing my adoption journeys,
Jared
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