What I Want You To Know: Getting Pregnant After Adoption

First and foremost, I want you to know and BELIEVE, that we adopted our son because God led us to. Absolutely no other reason. God led us to adoption before even trying to have biological children, and we thankfully, in spite of our unworthy selves, said yes to the best decision of our lives.

We spent over a year praying for our child, without knowing his name or face. I loved my son before I ever saw his picture. Once I did see his picture, I spent countless nights laying awake waiting for the call to go and get him. Laid awake wondering if he was sick, sad, hungry, hurting, or simply alive. I wondered if he had enough food and water, if anyone cared to wipe his tears away when he was sick or hurt. I wondered if we would ever get to meet him or if Ugandan adoptions would all the sudden stop. I wondered if once we did meet him, the judge would say yes, and if we would make it back home as a family of three. It was not easy. For months my heart laid halfway across the world and I could do nothing about it. It was by far the hardest, most challenging, and yet the best thing that God has ever called us to yet. So when you find out I am pregnant, please do not tell me this will be so much harder than adoption. Both are hard, both are beautiful. Just because my physical body did not birth my son, do not discount the spiritual, emotional, physical, and mental battle that we waged to bring our son home. Like becoming pregnant, him being in our family is nothing short of God's miraculous love and mercy.

"Oh I am so glad you will get to experience birthing your own child - adopting is great, but there is nothing like pregnancy." < You are right - I have wanted to puke up every ounce of my insides for 12 weeks, there is truly nothing like that ;) > Oh dear sweet friend, it is evident you have not experienced the beauty and miracle of adoption. We are SO grateful God has given us the opportunity to experience both adoption and pregnancy, we do not take this for granted and know both are nothing short of a miracle. God has entrusted us with TWO children, even if only for today, and that is humbling and terrifying...it is amazing. But one is not greater than the other. If you think so, I challenge you to let God rock you by adoption and then reconsider. Also, D is our OWN. Really he is the Lord's first and foremost, but the Lord has entrusted us with him for this time and HE IS OURS...so for the love of my sanity, please do not insinuate he is not our own.

If the thought enters your head "Oh isn't that the way it happens, you adopt and then get pregnant" or "I knew someone who that happened to, they adopted and then got pregnant" or "I knew once you relaxed and quit trying it would happen" - please do yourself a favor and do not say anything remotely close to this aloud because not only does it make you look ignorant, but it stings so badly. I am going to be really honest with you, we stopped birth control methods the month I got pregnant...so that is how I got pregnant.  This baby is a divine miracle indeed, but no doctor ever told us we could not have children. We never tried and really had no idea if we could or could not until it happened. But let's say we had. Let's say we had tried for years before we adopted D - I am going to go out on a limb and say these comments do not feel good then either. They are not encouraging and certainly not appropriate for my son's ears. We yearned for D to be a part of our family and him joining that was not conditional upon anything else, and if it was, it would not be appropriate for anyone to discuss with us.

I want you to know I am a momma bear when it comes to my kid. I want to protect him and love him so radically. So if you say these things in front of him, be prepared for me to go crazy on you. :) Not really crazy, I am trying to learn to be like Jesus in this and give grace, but you can bet I will certainly not just respond with a smile and nod anymore. I will dig deep to the root of what you are saying and reveal truth. Because I have to. Much to my dismay, my son is growing so very fast and he is no longer oblivious to my conversations with others. As long as I am alive both of my children will know that they were chosen, beautiful miracles of God. Not conditional or coincidence, but purposefully put in our family by the Lord and I will do anything to defend that.

We have gotten many comments since we announced we were pregnant and I know it is only the beginning, and I also know most people do not sit awake at night thinking how they can say hurtful things, I know most of the times the words just come out. So I write this post to hopefully educate and also to tell you it breaks my heart. It breaks my heart because so far these comments have come from many people who do know us and who I thought understood our hearts for adoption. If you think these things, then you TOTALLY missed the point of our adoption story. Somehow you saw past the words we told you and created your own story for our family, a story that is not true. I challenge you to start from the beginning and let God use these words how He will, if nothing more than to bring Him glory.

I want you to know that God graciously chose adoption first for us and now He has given us a biological baby too. We are completely and utterly blessed and stand in awe of His graciousness. One is not greater than the other, but yet both individually are greater than we could have ever dreamed for ourselves.

The next time you see a family that you think God has blessed with adoption and the momma is obviously pregnant, I hope you smile and think of how tremendously God has blessed their family. I hope you do not feel sympathy or possibly false satisfaction and joy that she (finally) got pregnant, but rather you see her family for who it is...a wonderful picture of God's faithfulness, love, mercy, and grace.