Yes I Want To Adopt. No I Will Not Change My Mind.

There are a few truths about me that have not changed since I was a child: · I Love Tattoos · I Want To See The World · I Plan To Become A Mother Through Adoption

The list is short, but those three facts have stayed true throughout the journey of learning who I am.

I am covered in tattoos, ok maybe not as drastically as some people, but I currently have more than most people realize and I am constantly adding to the canvas that is my skin. At first, friends and family, even strangers, questioned why I would do this to my body, but over time they began to understand, this is simply who I am.

I have traveled to so many beautiful places, truthfully not as many as I had hoped when I was younger, but I have been blessed with the ability to travel more than most people. When I was adding to my never ending bucket list of places to travel to, I would always get questioned about the locations and what it was that drew me to them, and while I knew most people didn’t have the same desire to see the world that I did, over time they understood, this is who I am.

Why is it then, that my dream of adoption is rarely taken seriously? I remember growing up hoping to one day have six children, three of my own, three through adoption. I could almost picture my minivan overrun with soccer balls, karate belts, ballet slippers, and yes a few pizza boxes, because who in their right mind has time to cook for six children!

This was my dream all throughout my childhood.

The older I became the more I understood the financial responsibility of having children. I saw friends and even family struggle financially in families with only one or two children and my heart broke a little. I realized then what my mother always told me to be true, my heart has always been bigger than my wallet and I would need to think a little more responsibly. I started to think about my future with fewer children and felt my opportunity to adopt slipping away. Didn’t I HAVE to give birth? I am a woman and therefore wasn’t it some sort of unwritten rule, that if I am able to carry a child, that I should?

I am not sure where this thinking came from but it was something I wrestled with for years. How was I supposed to adopt AND have children of my own when I knew my future career of teaching (something that has since changed) would most likely not support my dream of raising what resembled the numbers of a basketball starting team.

That was when it became clear what I truly wanted and it has then set me on this path; I want to adopt. It is as simply and beautifully complicated as that. I know adoption is not easy, I know that it is a long drawn out process where families are sometimes waiting for years before they are able to receive their child. I also understand the financial undertaking that comes with adopting and how I will need to think less of a basketball team and more of a tennis duo when picturing how many children I hope to have (no, I don’t understand where the sports analogies are coming from either).

I also understand that child birth is a beautiful experience and the idea that a woman can not only carry for nine months a child within her body while it grows, but also raise it for the rest of her life as a piece of her is literally walking around this world, is something truly miraculous. One of my oldest friends recently had two children within less than a year of each other – let me stop right here and say that they are the most beautiful children I have ever laid my eyes on and they both have a piece of my heart – I remember the moment she told me she was first pregnant and how it instantly brought tears to my eyes. I was so happy for her and her husband that I couldn’t keep it all from pouring out of my heart and over my eyelids. I spent the next nine months watching as her body changed and it was the most beautiful transformation. Was she exhausted by the end, wishing I am sure that somehow the baby would be born healthy in half the wait? Of course, she is only human! But every time I saw her, all I saw was the glow of a mother who knew that her child would be loved. She gave birth to a beautiful baby girl and within a year gave birth to a wonderful baby boy. I have watched her grow as a mother, as a woman, and am constantly in awe of how much motherhood has changed her for the better, and I hope and pray that anyone who hopes to one day experience that will be blessed with that journey.

I understand why childbirth is an experience so many women dream of, and I understand the beauty that is motherhood, why then when I have told people about my dreams of adoption have I always met such resistance?

“Why would you want to adopt if you could have one of your own?” “Why do you want to raise someone else’s child?” “That’s what you say now, but you will change your mind.” “Wait till you get older, your biological clock will start ticking and you won’t have a choice.” “Oh that’s a long process, you’ll get frustrated and just have one of your own.” “Do you know how expensive that is? Having one naturally is so much cheaper.”

This is not to say that I haven’t had positive reactions when telling people that I want to adopt, I am saying that those moments are so rare that I don’t remember any of them, except for one I had just last week. The negative questions and comments have always been so present that I have actually stopped discussing it in detail with many people, simply stating “oh one day I want to adopt.”

Until now. I don’t want to diminish the dream I picture for my future any longer, simply because of the comments and dismissal I sometimes feel people give it.

The truth is, sometimes when I am alone with my thoughts I picture a child with no specific gender or race. I picture a beautiful soul in a tiny body turned away from me and I can feel the loneliness that sits in that child’s heart. I cannot begin to imagine what it must feel like to wish for a family, to wish for a life filled with love, because I like so many were given it so easily. I imagine a child who will grow up in a world where they believe they are undeserving of love because unlike so many others, they do not have a family to call home. I picture a child on birthdays and holidays wishing more than anything, for a mother to cherish them.

I imagine this child, and every time I do, I begin to cry, because I know in my heart, that is my child.

So will it happen tomorrow? A year from now? Ten years from now? I am not sure. I am only sure that I will adopt a beautiful soul one day and have the privilege of being called “Mom,” and when that day comes, I hope that you realize what I have always known, how that child was always meant to be my child.