Average

Today we hit become average.  Not in terms of any of the obvious ways that may first come to mind, but rather in terms of our status as prospective adoptive parents.

The average adoptive couple waits for one year and exactly one year ago today we became an active waiting family with our agency.  I was REALLY hoping that we might get to be above average for a change, but alas that was not meant to be.  Now we start heading into scary territory--the longer than average wait.

Adoption data is shoddy at best, but it would appear that in 2015 adoption waits on the whole are getting longer.  With the international adoption pool narrowing into a small stream, more adoptive families are flooding the domestic adoption pool.  Additionally, the choice to become a single parent is infinitely more supported by our culture and community than was the case once upon a time.  These realities compound into a mathematical quandary for waiting adoptive families--fewer babies in need of adoptive placement which falls painfully short given the number of families who wish to adopt.

A few weeks ago we got an email from our agency regarding 4-year-old, biracial, twin boys (one of whom had significant developmental and physical needs).  I imagine the reason we received this email was that there were few or no families whose preferences matched this unique placement situation within the waiting families in our agency.  However, I was struck stone still when I opened the email and read through multiple times trying to grasp all of the information that was being conveyed.  Since it was the first blip of any kind we had come across (not only in our adoption journey, but our journey to become parents period), we had a thoughtful discussion but eventually determined that we were meant to be the "forever family" for these little boys.

Sometimes it feels selfish to dismiss the thought of bringing an older child or children into our family, but when we look inward or share our heart with God neither of us feels that we are ready to support a child who has the cognitive awareness that they were a part of another family (or in the case of foster care placements-possibly multiple families) first.  I am familiar with the concept of the Primal Wound and fully recognize that all adoption situations are laced with loss.  This is why I am 100% certain that I want our adoption to be an open adoption with as much contact as is possible to help our child feel connected and the biological family feel connected while at the same time heal as best they can.  All of the feelings involved with adoption are so complicated that it feels crushing at times (and we are only in the land of the hypothetical at the moment!).   That being said, the level of certainty I feel about open adoption and the certainty I feel that we are called to adopt a baby (or babies) versus an older child (or children) are the same.

Interestingly, we have both said that foster care or adopting a child outside of what we currently have listed as "preferences" is something we may be open to down the line.  However, that aforementioned sense of certainty is rather steadfast for the first tiny member (or members) of our family.

So while there may be choices we could have or can be making to move this process along more quickly, those choices do not feel like the right choices for our family.  So with the best "buck up buttercup" attitude I can muster we move forward.  We move forward knowing there will be days of peaceful resolve intermingled with days of dark impatience.  We move forward knowing we are continuing to grow as individuals and in our marriage as we wait...and wait...and wait some more. We move forward being as open as we can with ourselves, one another, and with God so that this long and complicated journey is completed honestly and not in vain.

We move forward into the land of the longer than average wait.