Love Story
Adoption has always made sense to me – if there are children who need homes and love, why shouldn’t we provide it to them? We have had a lot of people sprinkled in our lives over the years who have adopted. I was in love with a little girl who had been adopted from Asia when I was a teenager, and I’m not sure if that is what planted the idea in my heart, or if the idea of adoption had already been growing there at that point. We have many friends who foster, and it is hard not to fall in love with these children and watch as they prosper with their foster families.
It absolutely breaks my heart that there are children out there – children just as cute and tender-hearted as the biological children in my home, who need stability and a safe place to learn and grow.
There’s a quote that struck me recently- “There’s no such thing as other people’s children.”
Obviously, in the scope of our day to day decisions, we are each responsible for those living in our home, but in the larger scope of things, we could each have been the ones born into hard situations- I can easily picture myself or my children as the ones in trouble – and I would want someone to care for me. For me, adoption is the very beginning of caring for those in hard situations. For us, adoption means caring for the child, and also entering into a relationship with the birth mother, who has entrusted someone so precious to us.
We have been talking about adoption since we were dating, and have had the “is now the right time?” conversation after each child got close to one year old. It never felt like the right time. We knew that our youngest was the last child I was planning to birth, and I was able to enjoy her pregnancy and newborn days with that in mind. When she turned about 2, we started to get that feeling of wanting to add to our family again, and were desiring a little girl to balance out all the testosterone in our house. We had looked into some local options for adopting, and came away discouraged and unsure.
Then, things changed. Eric’s sister, who recently adopted, recommended us to our consultant, and the rest “is history.” From our first phone conversation with our consultant (had in the front seat of the RV on our road trip home) I was excited and had someone who answered all of my questions with grace and kindness. Within a month, we had everything started. It was the right time, finally.
A Little Bit About Us
We are military Christians, and with that there is something special about people in the community being open to adoption. I wonder if it is because we are familiar with travel and new places, or perhaps it is because we are adaptable, or perhaps it is because the military tells us to “hurry up and wait,” much like some of the adoption process requires! We have seen beautiful families bring little ones into their lives and prosper together through the hard things. The military is full of people learning to grow through adversity.
Eric and I met at a church potluck in a small military community in the middle of the desert. Eric was engaged at the time, and I was young and had my eye on other guys. We have an eight year age difference, so we weren’t really on each other’s radars at first. After Eric’s engagement broke off, through a series of God-coincidences, we ended up spending a lot of time together during the summer of 2007, which led to lots of conversations. I felt so drawn to Eric, I had a hard time breaking off conversations with him to leave church or whatever social function we were at. We had a lot of the same friends, and they encouraged me to “go for it!” when I expressed an interest in Eric. At their advice, I took Eric on a long walk and told him how I felt.
We dated for a year, were engaged for a year, and have now been married for 8 ½ years. Eric is a Religious Affairs NCO in the Army, working with the Active Guard Reserves, and is working on getting his MBA in Real Estate and is looking to focus on Real Estate business as a subsequent career after retirement. Eric joined the Army to pay for college but found job satisfaction and thrived in the environment, and has decided to stay until retirement. He loves his job because he feels like he is making an impact and helping support soldiers and solve problems.
We have three kids, each about 2 years apart, two boys and a girl. I’m a newbie writer, working on my first novel (with many more fighting for space in my head) and I edit for an organization that writes bible studies for women associated with the military, as well as for other novelists. This is a new passion for me that has followed behind many years of book consumption, and one that I am thankful to balance while staying at home with our kids and homeschooling.