Adoption in a New Year

It’s a new year.

That conjures images of fresh starts, resolutions, hope and change. Maybe this is the year you will start your adoption journey, making a phone call to begin your home study and taking those exciting first steps to bring a child home. Maybe your child has been home, that long wait is behind you and you’re looking into this new year with anticipation of new stages and experiences. Maybe you are considering placing your child, you might be feeling torn and broken. The baby is growing bigger every day, the due date is looming and there are plans to be made. Maybe this is year you’ll find your birth family – an unexpected reunification or one you have been hoping and praying for. A new year can be filled to the brim with hopes, or plans.

I also know that starting can be daunting. Staring down 12-months of blank calendar pages can feel hopeful or lonely. Exciting or overwhelming. The thing about adoption is that there is not just one clear path; you can’t connect the dots and everything works out flawlessly. Life isn’t that way. You can gather information (you should), ask for advice (of course) and learn from the experience of those around you (you will). But your experience will inevitably be different. Because adoption is a human experience and everyone’s is different.

I remember when we felt ready to reach out to a home study agency to take the first shaky step towards our son in adoption. It was a new year, a fresh start. I marked my calendar with appointments, filled my planner and got ready. I signed papers and got blood drawn and rushed background checks and made phone calls. I priority mailed and prayed on my knees. I hoped it would all mean that we would have our son home quicker. I learned instead that adoption doesn’t work that way. If you’re a waiting family, someone might tell you that you’ll hear a dozen “no’s” before you hear a “yes”. It might be true. But you might hear more than that, and you might be chosen by the first expectant mama who looks at your profile book. Adoption is like a river. With a current, a pulse. If you release your grip and get in the water, it might carry you someplace beautiful. It looks something like both planning and surrender.

We waited for a short time and were chosen by the first expectant mom to look at our family’s profile book. We readied ourselves for a baby due in three months and when his brave mama decided she was able to parent him, we waited for what would become another 2.5 years before our son came home. I promise you that my calendar did not have these plans scrawled on its pages. I didn’t plan for the wait, the disappointment, the way I’d grow to love an expectant mom over time and watch her become empowered to raise her baby (twice). I didn’t plan for the gap between my older children and our hoped-for child to continue to grow and gape. I didn’t plan on preparing for babies that would never come and tucking the tiny baby onesies and hats away. Or the way I’d simultaneously feel loss and great joy for her.

But then, I didn’t plan on our son. Hearing about him and meeting him in the space of 24 hours. I didn’t know to plan for him; his radiant smile, liquid brown eyes, contagious laugh, his love of garbage trucks and bike riding and baths full of bubbles. The way he would fit seamlessly into our family despite the difference in age, the way we’d fit together, as a family of five.

Whatever this new year holds for you as you stare down the blank calendar pages, I’d encourage you to fill them with hope and your big, beautiful plans. But also make room for disappointment and the things you can’t foresee. Hold space for the big, the quiet, the beautiful and the disappointing. Take the first step, and wait for the tide to rise. And when it does, loosen your grip, release your plans and ride that beautiful wave.