The following post is from October 14, 2017. Please keep in mind that our adoption journey has changed, and you should read our most recent posts to see where we are headed!
Several months prior to Amy and I deciding to adopt, we got a random request from our neighbor who is a film maker. He said he needed a house with a living room and a kitchen table in order to make a short film he was working on, and he asked if he could use ours. We said that would be fine, and one weekend while we were away they came and shot their film in our home. We thought that was the end of the story.
Several months later, on the day we submitted our application to the adoption agency, we got a text from our neighbor with an invitation to watch the finished film online. You can imagine our surprise when, as we watched, we realized that the film was a part of an effort to raise awareness of the need for domestic adoption in the United States. What are the chances?!
Our neighbor made the film for a nonprofit organization called BraveLove. BraveLove seeks to change the perception of adoption by conveying the heroism and bravery that a birth mother displays when she places her child with a loving family for adoption. Check out some of the stories featured on their stories page (I dare you not to cry as you read!).
These “coincidences” of an adoption film shot in our home and the timing of when we saw the film coupled with what we are learning on this adoption journey from sites like BraveLove, are convicting us further of the fact that the calling God has given us is not only to our future daughter, but also to her birth mom.
Every day, Amy and I are reminded that somewhere here in Tennessee there is a woman who has found out she’s pregnant, and she does not know what she’s going to do with her child. Her story is unique. We don’t make presumptions about what her circumstances are, but we know that she has to make a choice about what to do with her child, and that she is ultimately faced with at least 3 options.
Option 1: Abortion. According to one website, nearly half of the pregnancies among American women are unintended, and 4 in 10 of these are terminated by abortion. In 2014, 926,200 pregnancies ended in abortion. We’re sure this woman knows that this is one option for her.
Option 2: Carry the child to full term and raise her herself. For any number of reasons, this woman does not have peace with this option. Perhaps she feels ill-equipped for motherhood, or is a minor who does not have the support system she needs. Perhaps she has already delivered multiple other children of her own, some of whom may now be in foster care, and she knows that the life she would give this new child would be lacking the support, nurture, or consistency she would like her to have. Maybe she knows the environment the child would grow up in is just not safe. Regardless of the circumstance, her love for this unborn child makes it hard for her to imagine choosing option 2 at this time in her life.
That brings us to Option 3.
Option 3: Placing her child with a family for adoption. Only 2% of women in unplanned pregnancies in the United States choose adoption, yet the stories we are encountering through BraveLove and the adoption agency we are working with are teaching us that this option is not one of cowardice, but one of courage and bravery. Our hearts break for this woman when we imagine her carrying her child for 9 months, going through the pains of labor and delivery, and then entrusting that child to us out of a desire for her child to experience life in a supportive and loving family.
We are growing in our understanding that this call to adopt is not about us. It’s not about growing our family or getting just one more child. It is a call to provide a family and a home for a child that otherwise wouldn’t have one, and it is a call to minister to a woman in crisis. It is ultimately an invitation for our family to follow Jesus in living out the self-sacrificial and adoptive love of God our Father.
Several months prior to Amy and I deciding to adopt, we got a random request from our neighbor who is a film maker. He said he needed a house with a living room and a kitchen table in order to make a short film he was working on, and he asked if he could use ours. We said that would be fine, and one weekend while we were away they came and shot their film in our home. We thought that was the end of the story.
Several months later, on the day we submitted our application to the adoption agency, we got a text from our neighbor with an invitation to watch the finished film online. You can imagine our surprise when, as we watched, we realized that the film was a part of an effort to raise awareness of the need for domestic adoption in the United States. What are the chances?!
Our neighbor made the film for a nonprofit organization called BraveLove. BraveLove seeks to change the perception of adoption by conveying the heroism and bravery that a birth mother displays when she places her child with a loving family for adoption. Check out some of the stories featured on their stories page (I dare you not to cry as you read!).
These “coincidences” of an adoption film shot in our home and the timing of when we saw the film coupled with what we are learning on this adoption journey from sites like BraveLove, are convicting us further of the fact that the calling God has given us is not only to our future daughter, but also to her birth mom.
Every day, Amy and I are reminded that somewhere here in Tennessee there is a woman who has found out she’s pregnant, and she does not know what she’s going to do with her child. Her story is unique. We don’t make presumptions about what her circumstances are, but we know that she has to make a choice about what to do with her child, and that she is ultimately faced with at least 3 options.
Option 1: Abortion. According to one website, nearly half of the pregnancies among American women are unintended, and 4 in 10 of these are terminated by abortion. In 2014, 926,200 pregnancies ended in abortion. We’re sure this woman knows that this is one option for her.
Option 2: Carry the child to full term and raise her herself. For any number of reasons, this woman does not have peace with this option. Perhaps she feels ill-equipped for motherhood, or is a minor who does not have the support system she needs. Perhaps she has already delivered multiple other children of her own, some of whom may now be in foster care, and she knows that the life she would give this new child would be lacking the support, nurture, or consistency she would like her to have. Maybe she knows the environment the child would grow up in is just not safe. Regardless of the circumstance, her love for this unborn child makes it hard for her to imagine choosing option 2 at this time in her life.
That brings us to Option 3.
Option 3: Placing her child with a family for adoption. Only 2% of women in unplanned pregnancies in the United States choose adoption, yet the stories we are encountering through BraveLove and the adoption agency we are working with are teaching us that this option is not one of cowardice, but one of courage and bravery. Our hearts break for this woman when we imagine her carrying her child for 9 months, going through the pains of labor and delivery, and then entrusting that child to us out of a desire for her child to experience life in a supportive and loving family.
We are growing in our understanding that this call to adopt is not about us. It’s not about growing our family or getting just one more child. It is a call to provide a family and a home for a child that otherwise wouldn’t have one, and it is a call to minister to a woman in crisis. It is ultimately an invitation for our family to follow Jesus in living out the self-sacrificial and adoptive love of God our Father.
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