Tuesday, March 26, 2013

No coincedences in adoption

With it still being so early in our adoption process, we have chosen to be very private about our journey right now (this blog is still private at this point).  Especially with how long the process is now (about 3 years total), it feels too early to share our news with family and friends.  Maybe when the paper chase is done and we are officially waiting.  However, being the social creature that I am - I sometimes yearn to share what is in my heart.  It can be difficult for me to keep something inside of me that is consuming such a large part of my emotions.  So, that being said, I want to write about something that has been on my heart for the last month.

I don't believe that there are coincidences when it comes to adoption.

While I am a religious woman, and I do believe that God's hand does orchestrate much more than we ever see, I still think there are some things that just happen by chance.  It can be difficult to know which is which sometimes, and sometimes hindsight is the only clear way to see the intricacies that got us from point A to point B.  Like I said though, I don't believe there are coincidences when it comes to adoption.  I'm sure that already being an adoptive parent has influenced the way I feel about this deeply personal conviction, but I stand firm in it.  And here is why I bring that up...

While Mark has always been a huge supporter of pursuing this adoption, it was me that felt the almost urgent push to officially begin the paper chase late last year.  It probably sounds corny to someone that hasn't experienced this feeling (either through adoption, or when having that feeling that it's time to bring a child into their family biologically), but I just felt like our child was getting ready to come and was helping to orchestrate the right timing.  I felt that push that things needed to start very soon, even though it would be a long time before we held her in our arms.

We had serious conversations about what age of child we were open to, and would be the best fit for our family and always came back to feeling that our daughter would be young.  When we decided on the age parameters of one year or younger we felt at peace with our decision, and we moved forward with paperwork with that decision behind us.  We had a couple of minor hiccups before we were able to be officially accepted by our agency, but gratefully we were!...and then only 2 weeks after that our agency announced that for new applications that they were going to begin only accepting applications for adoptions (in the Ethiopia program) for children 3 years and older.  This new agency guideline began only 1 week after being announced.

While we have known that we would adopt a little girl internationally for over a dozen years now, we didn't always know that it would be from Africa...let alone Ethiopia...let alone through AGCI (our agency).  We feel that we have been guided at the right time to the right place to find the child that was meant for our family.  I can't help but feel that the urgency I felt to get going on things was to make sure that we found our way to our baby, and that she wouldn't need to languish living in an orphanage years longer than necessary just for us to find our way to her.

Sometimes timing really is everything.

And I dare say that I doubt this will be the last non-coincedence of our adoption...

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