Why We Chose Adoption

     I was reading a post the other day by another blogger who was talking about how families come to choose adoption.  I realized that I've written about our choice for open adoption, but not about how we came to choose adoption in the first place. 
     Jim and I actually talked about adoption early in our marriage.  At the time we planned on having children both biologically and through adoption.  I must admit we didn't know much about adoption at the time.  I'm sure I had a romanticized view of "rescuing" from a third world country or "saving" a child from poverty.  Little did we know that adoption would become a major part of our lives...but not in the way we thought.
     When our infertility issues first began to surface, we were not in a place to pursue infertility treatments or adoption.  Jim was in seminary.  I was teaching.  We did not have great insurance and our savings account (as with most young couples) was pretty much non-existent!  So we waited and prayed and trusted that God would provide when the right time came. 
     After Jim graduated from seminary, we moved back to Michigan and ended up working for a major insurance company.  Finally, we were in a position to pursue one of our two options.  We did all the infertility testing.  The results were somewhat inconclusive, so we tried fertility drugs for a while.  During this time we also revisited the idea of adoption.  We decided that we would pursue any fertility treatments that were covered by our insurance, but save our money for adoption.
     Fast forward a few years...we moved to California and Jim began working for the Federal Bureau of Prisons as a Chaplain.  Jim had finally found his career.  I was able to stay home.  More than ever, the desire to become parents was growing daily.  We tried yet another fertility drug without success and decided to end treatment at least for a while and turn our attention to adoption. 
     We began researching the different types of adoption and learned so much!  We decided that for us the best path was domestic adoption (adopting from the U.S.).  We were reading about the benefits of open adoption over and over and really liked the idea of being able to stay connected with our child's birthparents.  We also looked into fos-adopt, but although that may be a path we explore in the future, it just wasn't the right choice for us here in California.  We took several months to research, pray, talk, and pray some more and finally decided on the Independent Adoption Center.  Although we are still waiting for a match and placement, we remain happy with our decision.  We really feel that God has been leading us on this path from the beginning- we know that He is at work even when we can't see it.  Some day, hopefully soon, when our baby is in our arms- all of this will become part of their birth/life story.