Weighing in the Balance

It is a strange and terrifying thing to get a phone call from your adoption agency - "There's a mother, there's a baby, and there are things you need to know."

No adoption situation is perfect. There's a reason a mother would consider placing her child with other people to be raised. One can't expect that the pre-natal experience will be perfect or will be exactly as you would handle it. And yet, it is so hard to read the facts of a situation and make a decision.

Do we want to be shown? Are we open to accepting the responsibility of care for a child who has already had a rough life? And they're not even born yet. What can you handle? What can't you handle? And how does that feel - making a choice, like we are God or something. Do we have a right to say no? Are we crazy to say yes? Both answers will result in fear, regret, second guessing. We can never know everything we would wish to know.

So we trust God, say yes, pray for these two people we know only from cold facts on a piece of paper. But that piece of paper could be the beginning of the rest of our lives. It is a situation you cannot understand if you have not lived it.

This is peculiar and unique process, the waiting and deciding in adoption. It is nerve-wracking and any decision you make, you are equally sure it is the right decision and the wrong decision. All we can do is pray that God's will is done, since we are at best fumbling in the dark.

Now we wait on tenterhooks for another phone call, which may never come. If we are not chosen, there will simply be silence to inform us. Then we wait for the next situation, the next round of worrying and decision making. I don't know that I'll ever get used to it and I pray I don't have to. This could be it, or it could be a brief stop on our path.