Pre-loved

Inviting God In

2011-11-07T11:32:00.000-08:00

We've been ready, not only emotionally but legally and officially, to adopt our second child for a long time now. Our paperwork was finished over 15 months ago, and we're still waiting.

An update from our adoption agency this month informed us that four families have been matched with babies in recent months. For all four families this will be their first child--the birthmothers who have been choosing adoption through our agency lately have wanted their children to go to families without any children yet. I can understand this, and I'm happy for those couples--I'm sure they are thrilled to finally become parents. But I can't help but think to myself, "Why didn't they pick us?"

Although with Isaac we only waited three months from the time our paperwork was finished to the time we were matched, we had been wanting and trying to have a child for three years. That was very difficult. But I'm starting to notice that this second round of waiting has been difficult too. Isaac has been a wonderful distraction, and even without such a distraction my brain tends to be late in catching on to what my heart is feeling. But I'm realizing now that my heart has been aching for a while.

Lots of my friends have had babies within the last few months and several more have shared news that they're pregnant. It's hard for me to fathom that for many couples, maybe for most couples, they simply decide to have a child and, within a year or so, they have one. I hope they don't take for granted what a miracle that is.

I know some families have waited many, many years for adoptions or pregnancies, and our wait has been relatively short. But I don't think comparing one's suffering to another's is helpful. Waiting is hard while you're in it, especially when you have no idea how long the wait will be.

For whatever reason, I'm just now realizing how sad I am because we're still waiting. The longer we wait, the more difficult it becomes to hope that we will someday have another child, and even less likely that we will ever have a third. I know God is not absent from this process, and I don't plan to wallow in my sadness. In my mind I can say that it's very likely that God will give us another child. But I still feel sad, and I don't want to ignore that. I'd rather invite God into it, and ask Him to meet me there.

Progress

2011-11-05T09:40:00.000-07:00

We've had Isaac in early intervention programs for the last year and a half or so, because of developmental delays in several areas (gross motor, fine motor, communication, adaptive behaviors).

As his third birthday approaches, Help Me Grow is evaluating to see if he still qualifies for county/school district intervention programs once he is preschool age. Although the official evaluations haven't been completed, his therapists, teacher and school psychologist all feel that he is pretty much all caught up. The early intervention has done its job.

He has made remarkable progress in the last six months, even, and it's hard to imagine a time when he wasn't talking constantly--and not just echoing or making noises that sound like words, but actually communicating information. This morning he came upstairs by himself and we had this conversation:

Isaac: Bye-bye, Mommy!
Me: Where are you going Isaac?
Isaac: In back car wit Daddy!
Me: Where are you going in the black car?
Isaac: Home Depot, Mommy!

It's exciting to be able to truly communicate with him. And those exclamation points are not frivolous--most of his chatter is made with great enthusiasm.

Stories

2011-09-15T06:56:00.000-07:00

I love mornings with Isaac. If he's had enough sleep he wakes up very happy and snuggly. We will often sit on the front porch or cuddle on the couch while he enjoys his bottle.

A few months ago Isaac said to me, "Tell tory, mama." So often I will make up a story to tell him. I'm really not good at making up stories--I even have a hard time thinking of a story I already know to retell. But Isaac isn't very picky. He often asks for the lawn mower story, which involves Daddy, a broken lawn mower and a screwdriver.

Recently, Isaac has made up his own story. It goes something like this: "Guy on teeying. Gall down. Guy knee hurts. Guy want mama tiss knee."

For those of you who don't speak Isaac, here's the translation: "There's a guy on the ceiling. He falls down. His knee hurts. He wants mama to kiss his knee."

Toddler Prayers

2011-04-10T13:27:00.000-07:00

About four and a half years ago, we heard a message at church one Sunday about the persistent widow. At the time Mark and I were trying to get pregnant, and I felt the message of persistence in prayer applied directly to our situation. Our church at that time was inviting people up every Sunday after the service to be prayed for, so Mark and I decided that every time prayer was offered, we would take it.

At first we were asking for prayer to conceive, and eventually we started asking for prayer for the adoption process. Although we ended up leaving that church when Isaac was about 10 months old, it was a joy to share the process leading up to his birth and adoption with that community who had prayed with us so faithfully.

After leaving that church, we spent about a year wandering--not really finding a church to settle in. So when we got everything in place last summer for a second adoption, we didn't have a consistent community of people praying for us. At some point we remembered how wonderful it was to have people praying regularly for us while we waited for Isaac, and we decided, at the very least, we needed to start praying regularly as a family for God to bring us another child.

So each night at dinner, the three of us hold hands to thank God for our meal, and we ask God to bring a new baby into our family. Only a day or two after we started doing this, Isaac would start saying, "Baby, baby," every time we sat down at the dinner table. We would ask, "Would you like us to pray for a baby?" and he would say, "Yeah." When we prayed together at other times, he would often start saying "Baby, baby," during the prayer.

I'm not sure how much Isaac understands about what it means to pray for a baby. But I'm counting this as genuine prayer. Many of Isaac's friends are getting little brothers and sisters right now, and I think he's ready to be a big brother. Some day we'll be able to tell our second child how Big Brother Isaac prayed for them, even before we knew who they were.

School

2011-04-09T13:23:00.000-07:00

In February, Isaac started a toddler pre-school program provided by the Cuyahoga County Board of Developmental Disabilities. His development is still delayed, although with the help of physical and occupational therapy, the gap is closing.

Two days a week a bus picks Isaac up and takes him to "school." For the first several weeks, he was very upset when the bus showed up. But the bus driver assured me that as soon as he was settled in his seat and the bus got around the corner, he was fine.

He can't really tell us much about what he does all day at school, but when we ask him about it he smiles and says "school" or "bus." I think that must mean he likes it.

You're Two!

2011-02-08T19:02:00.000-08:00

Dear Isaac,

It seems like I wrote your one-year note just a few weeks ago. Has it really been a year?

You've changed so much in the last twelve months. But then, you're still the same joyful, thoughtful little person we've known since the beginning. Your smile lights up the whole world, and I don't think there is a person who has met you who hasn't been taken in by your utter cuteness. And it's not just the cheeks--you clearly love to be with people, and people love to be with you. You are a charmer.

We've learned that you do things in your own time. You observe and think about a new skill before you go out and do it. But once you start, whether it's walking or talking or eating with a spoon, you just take off.

You finally became a toddler in November, and since then you have hardly sat still. Being able to interact with your world in a new way has caused such growth. I still glimpse the baby in you from time to time, but you're more little boy than baby now.

You talk all. the. time. You learn new words every day. I am amazed at how well you listen. You've picked up on and repeated words from conversations going on around you when we had no idea you were paying attention. We're finally able to get a little idea of what is going on in that head of yours.

You entered into the "terrible twos" a few months before your second birthday, it seems. You can be exasperating at times, and have quite a temper. But within minutes you're flashing that smile of yours, and all is right with the world again.

Your favorite toy right now is your tunnel, your best friend is Mr. Elephant (whom you've named Ahngi for some reason) and your arch nemesis is the vacuum cleaner. Several times a day you make sure that it is "away." You enjoy playing with "Cony" (Fiona), "Mony" (Reuben), "Téo" (Mathéo), and "EB" (Elizabeth). You'll start "school" next week, and I'm sure you'll make lots more friends there.

Your daddy and I are loving every minute of watching you grow up. You continue to bring us joy and laughter, just as your name promises. We love you so much.

Mommy

Isaac's First Steps

2010-10-05T19:38:00.000-07:00

We Think We're Ready

2010-08-02T00:00:00.000-07:00

Or, we're pretty sure we will be when it actually happens.

Our paperwork is all in place now for a second adoption. We had to renew our homestudy (a much less tedious and less expensive process than starting a homestudy from scratch), and make a new photo profile to show what life is like now that we have Isaac. So, technically, we could get a call any day saying a birthmother has seen our profile and wants to meet us.

I still have to write a little blurb to go on our agency's website about us, so we aren't yet visible to birthparents that are just browsing the site, but I will get that done soon, I hope. We're not really in a hurry--for one thing it would be nice to have Isaac walking before we bring home a newborn.

But, we felt it was time to get started again. We really want Isaac to have a sibling, and figured the sooner the better, in some ways. I'm not sure if having a child already will make us more or less attractive to birthmothers. We'll see.

We're raising money to help pay for this adoption through a company called Just Love Coffee. It's a great ministry, so if you haven't already checked it out, click on the link to see our store page. A percentage of any purchase through our Just Love webpage will come to us to help with adoption expenses. We've already received our first check!

www.justlovecoffee.com/TheErdmanns

Test Results

2010-07-31T12:17:00.000-07:00

The doctor called yesterday and let us know that the MRI and the X-ray both came back normal. No indication of what is causing Isaac's delays. This is good news. But the doctor is still concerned with Isaac's development, and wants to order more blood work and possibly other tests.

We have an appointment with him on Aug. 10. We'll just keep doing what we're doing, and hope that either we find out what's wrong, or it becomes clear that it doesn't really matter.

Development Issues

2010-07-29T20:15:00.000-07:00

Those of you who know us beyond this blog (which I'm guessing is most of you), have most likely heard something about Isaac's development issues. At about 6 months I started noticing that he was lagging behind in some things--eating solid foods, grasping toys--just little things. I brought up my concerns with his pediatrician at his 9 month check-up, but the doctor wasn't concerned. By the 12 month check-up, though, the number of questions to which I replied "no" (does he pull up on furniture? finger feed himself? crawl or scoot? roll over? say Mama or Dada?) concerned him enough to suggest we have Isaac evaluated by Help Me Grow, a state program that provides intervention for young children with development issues. "Concerned" is probably too strong a word, but we did go ahead with the evaluation.

According to the test, Isaac was significantly behind in his motor skills, adaptive behaviors and communication. His scores for cognitive and personal-social development were normal. So, we've had Isaac in physical, occupational and speech therapy, and we've been seeing some doctors to find out what the reason for these delays might be.

Isaac is a very happy, very social and very curious little boy, and he is very healthy. We're not terribly worried that there is anything seriously wrong, but one or two of the doctors we have seen have been concerned about his delays. There seem to be no physical indications of what could be wrong, and that is what has them stymied--usually this much of a delay has some clues that can be found in a simple physical exam. We had an MRI and an X-ray this morning, to determine if there might be neurological or orthopedic reasons for the delays. The therapies have been helping, and Isaac is crawling around and pulling up on furniture like a pro, and is showing improvement in communication. We're grateful for those things.

I have to say, though, that this whole thing has been really stressful for me, mostly for two reasons. One of those is navigating the medical and insurance system. I've spent hours on the phone with doctors and insurance customer service people, trying to figure out what will be covered, why certain things aren't being covered even though our policy seems to say they should be, having prescriptions written with the right codes on them, etc. I can't imagine how stressful this would be if I was dealing with a life-threatening condition, and if I didn't have the time, being a stay-at-home mom, to make all these calls.

The second stress is dealing with the reactions of people when they find out we are concerned with Isaac's development. Many people have implied (albeit subtly) that we are overreacting. We get lots of responses like this: "Really? He seems fine to me. He's so happy and looks so healthy. All kids develop at their own pace, you know, you can't compare them to other kids. There's no need to rush them. They grow up soon enough." I've had someone say that God made Isaac, and made him perfectly, so there couldn't be anything wrong with him. So, why are you getting these tests? Of course, I also get shocked looks from strangers when they find out he is 18 months old and not walking.

Grrr. Isaac is healthy and happy, and I love him exactly as he is. But, several doctors have expressed concern that he is behind in his gross motor and communication development. We thought and prayed about it and decided to go ahead with the MRI (which will end up costing us a lot of money out of pocket). The procedure went smoothly, but now I'm not sure what to hope for an outcome. If the tests come back and show nothing wrong, then we "wasted" all that money, and we still don't have answers. But I don't want there to be something wrong, either.

It seems cliche to say God is in control, but I know that's true. He can provide the money we need for the test (which we do have in savings, but were hoping to use it for other things). He can grow Isaac up into the boy and man He wants him to be. He can help the doctors find a reason for the delays and help us decide what needs to be done. Or, He can keep it all a mystery, and walk with us as we do what we can and help Isaac learn and grow. And, He can help me respond with grace when people make me feel insecure and question our decision to pursue this course. He is good, all the time. We'll keep watching and waiting as we trust in Him.

Birthday Boy

2010-02-08T09:54:00.001-08:00

Dear Isaac,

We can't believe you're one year old today! We remember the first day we met you like it was yesterday. The surprise phone call, the trip to the hospital, and the first glimpses of you. You've grown so much since that night--you're about 10 inches longer now, and weigh more than three times as much!

You have brought us such joy in this last year. Your daddy and I remember the first time we heard you laugh--it was the most amazing thing I'd ever heard. We've had such fun snuggling with you, reading to you, playing with you. You've been such an easy-going, peaceful, happy baby. And, oh my goodness, those cheeks! They are irresistible.

We are so excited about this next year. We get to watch you grow taller, learn to crawl and walk, speak your first words. You always look so intently at the people and things around you, we just can't wait till you can share with us what you're thinking. We're looking forward to watching you start to go from a baby to a little boy.

You are a gift to us, and you are very well-loved.

Mommy

The Gift of a Father

2009-12-04T08:23:00.000-08:00

Often when I see Mark with Isaac I think the most wonderful gift Isaac's birthmother gave him was the gift of a father.

If she had not decided to make an adoption plan, but had chosen instead to raise her little one herself, Isaac would have had a mother. He even would have had wonderful grandparents who most likely would have been very involved in his life (we met them, and they are wonderful people). But he wouldn't have had a father.

The other night I listened through the baby monitor as Mark put Isaac to bed. Since I'm ready for a break by 6:30 or so, that task usually falls to Mark--and he does a much better job than I do. Mark talks the whole time while he's putting on a diaper, changing Isaac into his pajamas, as he gives him his evening bottle. That night I listened as Mark read Isaac a simple board book, but added his own commentary, pointing out details in the pictures. When they got to a picture of a baby in a "bouncy seat", Mark said, "Oh look, Isaac, that baby is in a bouncy seat--his mommy must be in the shower." :-) Then Mark rubs each of Isaac's fingers and each of his toes, as he counts them--One, two, three, four, five. Usually he will quietly sing Isaac a song just before he puts him down in his crib with his Mr. Elephant.

I absolutely love watching Mark be a dad--I'm sure every wife who is blessed to have children loves to watch the transformation of her husband into a loving father. It makes it a little more amazing to me that it is the miracle of adoption that not only gives me the opportunity to see Mark become a father, but that makes it possible for Isaac to even have a father in his life.

I am so grateful for the woman who made this choice. This Christmas season, as Isaac's birthmother may be thinking about last Christmas when she was carrying this little person in her body, and beyond the holiday as Isaac's birthday approaches, I pray that God will comfort and bless her, and give her some sense of the wonderful gift she gave her child--the gift of a father.

Do I Say Something or Let it Go?

2009-11-18T06:05:00.001-08:00

Since becoming an adoptive parent I've become more sensitive to certain things, as I mentioned in an earlier post. The other day I had a strong reaction to something I heard on the radio: in a little radio drama a teenage girl says to her friend after her father embarrasses her, "OMG, I am so adopted!"

It bothered me enough that I went to the ministry's website and submitted a letter expressing my disappointment at their word choice. Here is the letter:

I just heard about your ministry recently while listening to a podcast of one of my favorite Moody radio shows. I have looked at your website and appreciate the ministry you have to parents and young people. I think you are doing a very good work. I wanted to write, though, because I was disappointed by something I heard in one of your short radio commentaries the other day. The message was encouraging parents to respect their teenage children by not embarrassing them. There was a little radio drama in which a father embarrasses his teenage daughter by trying to talk "hip" and her response is to say, "I am so adopted." I have a nine month old adopted son. When I heard the girl on the radio drama use the word adopted in that way, I was taken aback. I wondered what would my son think hearing something like that once he is old enough to start understanding and asking questions about his own adoption. I couldn't figure out why the writers of that short program would have chosen to use the word "adopted" to communicate the daughter's desire to distance herself from her father. As an adoptive parent, I was hurt by the implication that an adopted child is somehow less connected or less related to his or her parents than a biological child would be. I have looked at your website and I know that you appreciate adoption, which is wonderful. I just wanted to let you know that this particular radio commentary communicated something to me, and probably to others listening, that you may not have intended. Thank you for your work, and for listening to my concerns.

This is the response I received:

Thanks for your note. I truly appreciate your thoughtful expression of concern. And you're right; the comment in question was never intended to harm or offend - rather to reflect the type of awkward feelings teens sometimes have when their parents try too hard to "be cool."

The rest of the note was simply assuring me that they were a ministry for all types of parents, and that the ministry's president is an adoptive parent himself, etc. I confess I was hoping for something more--if not an actual apology for using the word "adopted" to reflect the teen's awkward feelings, at least an acknowledgment that my feelings were somehow understood. Instead I feel like the response was: The comment was never intended to harm or offend, so if you were offended, that's your problem not ours.

At this point I'm sure the most mature thing to do is just let it go. But part of me wants to write back and push them a little more--ask them, why did you choose that word? How do you think an adopted child hearing that word used in that way might feel about himself? Is there some way you could have expressed the same thing differently? Will you consider taking that particular spot off the air?

I would appreciate hearing from other adoptive parents out there--do you think I'm being overly sensitive? Should I continue the conversation, or just let it go?

Hard to Believe

2009-10-28T06:07:00.000-07:00

I was realizing this week that Saturday is the anniversary of the day we met Isaac's birthmother. She was visibly pregnant at the time, and I remember thinking, as I do almost every time I see a pregnant woman, how unbelievable it was that there was a little person inside that bump.

What's even more hard to believe is that that same person who was inside that belly one year ago is now sleeping in a crib in the next room.

It's Final!

2009-09-24T07:39:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, we headed to the Summit County Courthouse for the finalization of Isaac's adoption. I went back and looked at my posts from about a year ago--on September 7, 2008 I had written about God setting the lonely in families. On September 8, 2009, our family officially became a little more complete. (Not completely complete--we're already ready for Isaac to have a little brother or sister.)

Many people asked me leading up to the finalization if I was nervous or worried. I really wasn't. Everything was in place, this was just the last legal hurdle that had to be jumped. I honestly wasn't that excited about having to go through with the hearing--I felt like I would be fine if they just sent me a letter saying it was all done. But I think I'm glad there was this official event. The pictures below are very special, I think. Obviously, we have loved Isaac as our own son since we first laid eyes on him. But now we have pictures showing us standing in front of a judge, saying that we will love him as our son forever and ever. Not every child gets such an official expression of love and commitment from his parents.

Educating about Adoption

2009-06-22T08:16:00.000-07:00

Mark had to "educate" someone about adoption yesterday at church. We were visiting the church he grew up in with Isaac for the first time. After the service, an old friend saw Mark holding a baby, so came up and asked him, "Is he yours?" Mark proudly said, "Yes, he is!" The man responded, "Oh, I thought I had heard he was adopted." Mark said, "Yeah, he is."

I have become very sensitive to the things people sometimes say, completely innocently, related to adoption. For example, although I try to be gracious outwardly, inwardly it drives me crazy when people say things like, "So, did you meet Isaac's mother before he was born?" Um, excuse me. I'm his mother. I don't mean to minimize the role Isaac's birthmother had and will always have in his life. She took wonderful care of him for the first nine or so months of his existence. I know she will always think of Isaac as her son. I am amazed at the selfless decision she made to give Isaac a family with a mom and a dad who could take care of him and love him in ways she could not. However, I am Isaac's mother, and Mark is his father. And it's not just about the work of being the mother and father, although we have changed the diapers, soothed him, bathed him, stayed with him in the hospital when he was sick. It's also that we know him--we've watched him develop over these last four months, and have figured out his rhythms, and the noises he makes when he's just about to fall asleep. We know how to make him laugh. And, we know that we will continue to be the ones to care for him and get to know him, and influence him, as he grows up.

I suppose it may be because of all the hoops we've had to go through to have a child that I get a little rankled when someone implies, albeit innocently or indirectly, that Isaac belongs to someone else. We've had our house inspected on numerous occasions. We have to inform various people whenever we take Isaac to the doctor or travel out of state. We had to have letters of recommendation written on our behalf and prove to the state of Ohio that our marriage is healthy and happy. If only all parents had to go through such a process to raise a child.

People will make comments like this again, and I hope Mark and I, and eventually Isaac, will be able to respond with grace. I know they don't mean any harm. I hope we can help people who aren't very familiar or comfortable with adoption understand that Isaac is adopted and he is ours. Always and forever.

Getting into a Rythm

2009-06-19T06:39:00.001-07:00

I know it has been too long since I last posted. I have several posts started, describing the days in the hospital waiting to bring Isaac home, about his birthmother, about the transition to being a mom. The first several weeks Isaac was home with us I wasn't doing much writing, and then I went back to work. That was a difficult transition, so I didn't get much done beyond taking care of the baby and maybe managing to get some housework done (but not much of that!). Now the school year is over, and I just have a two-week summer program to teach, and then I will officially be a stay-at-home mom. Although that wasn't exactly my choice (I was hoping to maybe keep working part time) I am so looking forward to it. The transition to parenthood wasn't nearly as difficult as the transition to working parenthood.

Here are a couple of pictures from the last four months. I'll try to write more soon.

Mark packing Isaac up to go home from the hospital.

One of his first baths.

Grandpa and Isaac.

A more recent one. What a cutie, huh?

It's Official!

2009-02-12T13:36:00.000-08:00

Well, sort of. Things went mostly smoothly this morning with the signing of the papers. Because of the legalities of the county Isaac was born in, he won't actually be officially and completely ours until the finalization which will happen in about six months. But, for all intents and purposes, we are the parents. There is very, very little chance that anything could happen in the next six months to change that.

So, I now feel free to post pictures!

He's Here!

2009-02-11T10:08:00.000-08:00

We can hardly believe it, but Sunday night at around 8:30 we got a phone call from Christa, the SOFA social worker who works with birthmothers. She said that our baby’s birthmother was at the hospital, in labor, and her water had broken. Two and a half weeks before the due date. We started scrambling around the house to pack things to take with us, expecting several hours of labor and then at least 72 hours in the hospital waiting for the adoption papers to be signed.

We had found out Friday that the birthmother had wanted me to be in the room with her when she delivered the baby, and was OK with Mark being there up until the pushing started. We were very excited at the prospect of watching the birth of our son. But, it didn’t quite work out that way…We were in the car on the way to the hospital, about 15 minutes away, and we got another call from Christa saying that after only about 30 or 45 minutes of labor, our son had been born. So, before we even had a chance for it to sink in that we were even on the way to the hospital, our son had entered the world.

We arrived at the hospital and were asked to wait in the waiting room until the birthmother was ready for us to come in. We had told her several weeks ago that, while we were hoping to see him as soon as possible after the birth, we knew that “as soon as possible” meant as soon as she was ready for us to see him. Once we were asked to wait in the waiting room, though, I kind of forgot about that earlier commitment for a few minutes. We were really anxious to see him! But, we didn’t have to wait long. [A little aside--I will try to write more about our relationship with the birthmother sometime. I had intended to write a post about that before the birth, but for now I’ll just say that, so far, it has been really amazing. Referring to her as “the birthmother” sounds a little impersonal, but I don’t want to use her name to protect her privacy.]

We got to see him when he was about an hour old. He was born at 9:22, weighing 6 lbs, 6 oz and was 19.5 inches long. He is very healthy and very beautiful. I got to feed him his first bottle, and Mark and I were able to have him in the room with us the first night. I’ll write more about the days in the hospital later.

I am eager to post pictures of him, and some of you have already seen some through emails or FB. We’re somewhat in limbo here until tomorrow morning when the papers are signed, so I don’t know if I should post the pictures quite yet. Things are going smoothly, but I think I will wait until tomorrow to post all the pictures I want to share. I will tell you, though, that we named him Isaac Robert. And, he’s making little squeaking noises in his little basinet at the foot of my bed as I write this. I think I’m going to have to go pick him up soon…

More later…

Life Is Like a Box of Chocolates

2009-01-28T07:28:00.000-08:00

I have heard several people say that they are not sure about adoption as a choice for them because “you just don’t know what you’re going to get.” Obviously, to some extent, that’s true no matter how you end up with children. I could argue that as adoptive parents, we have more say in what we get than parents through pregnancy. If you get pregnant you have little choice—you will bring home a newborn baby who will probably have physical characteristics and personality traits from both or at least one of the parents. If your child is born with physical or mental disabilities, you find a way to deal with it. Mark and I, on the other hand, got to (had to?) fill out a six-page “Child Characteristic Checklist.” It doesn’t seem quite right, but this list asked us to pick the age, race and even personality of our child. We could say whether or not we would consider adopting a child with any number of diseases or disabilities.

Filling out this list was excruciating for me, because whenever we started to check “no” on any choice, I felt like I was telling my own child “I can’t love you if you have this problem.” I had to pray through this process. Years before I met Mark, when I first started thinking that I wanted to adopt, I pictured myself adopting an older child, possibly with special needs, probably of a different race than me. A main reason for wanting to adopt at that time was that I felt (and still feel) compassion toward kids caught in a broken foster care system. It seemed like that was where the greatest need was. Adopting a “healthy white baby” somehow seemed like cheating. Everyone wants a healthy newborn—I wanted to give a home to a child no one else wanted.

That was the ideal. The reality was that when Mark and I sat down to fill out this checklist, we had to prayerfully consider what we could really handle at this point in our lives—emotionally, financially, spiritually, socially. In the end, our completed home study said we were approved to adopt “one child of either sex ranging in age from birth to one year with mild needs”.

Of course, even after all that, we still don’t know exactly what we’re going to get. We do know that we are having a newborn baby boy, and that his birthmother is white. We’ve met her several times, so we know what she looks like. We know that she hasn’t smoked or drunk alcohol since she’s been pregnant, and she has had good prenatal care. As far as we can tell, she and the baby are both as healthy as can be.

There is still a lot we don’t know. We don’t know what his voice will sound like, or whether he will be an introvert or an extrovert, or whether he will like team sports or individual sports or no sports. We don’t know if he will be strong-willed or compliant. Or if he’ll get into trouble at school. Or if he’ll have a lot of friends. Will he be good with his hands and love to work in the garden like his father? Will he be a thinker and love math like his mother?

Do parents through pregnancy really know much more than we do about what they are going to get? I don’t know. The fact is, it doesn’t matter much what we do or don’t know about this little boy. God already knows everything about him, and everything about us. And all the evidence we have so far says that God has meant for us to be this child’s parents. That’s all we need to know.

Erdmann Baby

2009-01-19T17:33:00.000-08:00

Last spring, a friend of Mark’s family felt led to pray for Mark and me to conceive a child. In fact, I think I even remember him praying that we would conceive a child, like, that night. While I was grateful for the prayer, at the time we were already in the thick of our home study, and that was more my focus. I certainly wouldn’t have minded conceiving at that time, or at any time before or since, but at that point I would have rather had prayer for the adoption process.

This has happened a lot since we committed to adoption. For the most part I don’t mind if someone feels led and asks to pray that we would conceive a child. What bothers me a bit more is when we specifically ask for prayer for the adoption, but people end up praying for conception. Don’t get me wrong—we would be thrilled to find out I was pregnant. But when we want prayer for adoption and people end up praying that we would conceive, it can feel like the pray-er is assuming that we would prefer to get pregnant, and adoption is a second best option. Yes, I am disappointed that I have been unable to get pregnant so far, but I am not in the least disappointed to be adopting. It is something I would have wanted to do anyway at some point.

Anyway, as that friend prayed, he brought up the lineage that Mark comes from—a strong line of Christian men and women, some pastors, many people of prayer, including his 100 year old grandmother who has always been a prayer warrior for her grandchildren. Something in the way he prayed this seemed to highlight the significance of the fact that this baby he was praying for would be born into this lineage.

When Mark and I were first talking about adoption, he was somewhat disappointed that an adopted child wouldn’t share this biological ancestry. He mentioned this concern to a wise friend of ours, who gave Mark some wonderful words of encouragement. Our adopted children will still be a part of this line of Christ-followers. The way we raise our children will be influenced by the way we were raised, and that was influenced by the way our parents were raised, and so on, back and back and back. Our son will grow up with family traditions that go back generations. And not only traditions, but mannerisms, values and habits have been passed on through our parents, and will be passed on to our child. Prayers that have been said by generations of Erdmanns for children and grandchildren will apply to this child every bit as much as to any children we may have through pregnancy. There may not be a biological connection with our first, but I would argue that the biology isn’t the important part anyway. Faith and character are not genetic traits.

This is very much in line with what Paul said about adoption versus birth. The author of the article “Blessed are the Barren” that I have mentioned in previous posts, even claims that God cares more about adoption than He does about birth. She points out Paul’s argument that while he was a “Hebrew of Hebrews” and came from a biological line that set him up to be a “Pharisee of Pharisees,” that meant nothing compared to his adoption as a true son of God. Our child may not be born into the wonderful family that Mark was born into, but his adoption into this family is no less real and no less powerful.

It is interesting to point out that the timing for this prayer by Mark’s family friend happened Memorial Day weekend of last year. Exactly nine months before our baby’s due date. Could it be that he did hear from God that our child would be conceived that night, and just assumed that meant conceived by us? Who knows. But this child will be ours, and he will grow up to carry on the lineage of his father (and his mother), whether he carries an Erdmann gene or not.

A Timeline

2009-01-01T19:44:00.000-08:00

I keep trying to write a blog to explain how we came to the decision to adopt, and it keeps ending up being too long, and probably too detailed. The answer in simplest form is: God.

God used several friends, our niece Gwen, and some strange and difficult situations to get the ball rolling for us, and to lead us to the baby we’ll bring home in February. To save some space and time, I’ve tried to whittle down the last year or so into a timeline to give you a basic idea of the process. There are some other details and “God moments” in there that I will try to fill in in subsequent posts, but here is the basic story:

Summer 2007: After two years of trying to conceive, I was ready to start looking into adoption, but Mark wasn’t there yet. We decide to pursue some fertility treatments.
Fall/Early winter 2007: HSP, Clomid, three rounds of IUI.
January 2008: Last IUI. We decide to take February off from even thinking about what to do next.
February: My friend Annie calls, tells us about a pregnant friend of a friend looking for a family to pursue a private adoption. Mark’s still not completely sure about adoption in general, but it feels right to look into this situation.
Late February: We contact the potential birthfamily and wait to set up a meeting. Meanwhile, we hear about Spirit of Faith Adoptions (SOFA) from another friend, and call to ask if they can help with private adoptions
March: We visit Mark’s sister and her family in China. Mark has a great time with our adopted niece Gwen, and his heart changes—he’s ready to go for it.
Early April: We come home and find out the situation with Annie’s friend has fallen through. After grieving this loss, we contact SOFA, this time to say we’re interested in pursuing an adoption through them.
Late April: Stacy (our adoption worker) calls and tells us about a boy due in July whose birthmother wants to place him with a family outside the Toledo area. Although it’s not a sure thing because we haven’t even started our home study and the birthmother doesn’t know about us yet, it seems hopeful.
Early May: We start trying to quickly get our home study going, and attend the SOFA orientation in Toledo.
May and June 2008: We work hard on completing our home study so we will be ready for the baby in July
Late June: We get word that the baby boy due in July has been matched with another family. This is very difficult news, but we know that God is good.
Mid July: We finish our home study and turn in the first draft of our photo profile.
Late July: We get a call saying a baby boy has been born and the adoptive family has backed out—do we mind if they show our profile to the birthmother. We piece together the details and realize it’s the same baby we had been hoping for earlier.About five days later we get a call saying the birthmother saw our profile, but picked a family who lived out of state and had kids already.
August 2008: We finish the final draft of our photo profile, and begin the period of having nothing to do but wait.

Like I said, there will be some details I’ll fill in later, but for those of you who haven’t been aware of all these events, this will give you an idea of how those other details will fit in to the bigger picture. Also, if there’s anything you would like to know more about, please leave a comment and ask questions (I think I’ve fixed the settings so anyone can comment now). We were pretty ignorant at the beginning of this whole process about what goes into an adoption, and friends and family have asked a lot of questions as we’ve gone through this.

Looking back we can see clearly that God has brought us to this point. Originally, I had planned to say that all those strange and difficult situations were orchestrated by God to bring us to this point, but I’m not sure I can say that exactly. This whole process is fraught with questions about God’s sovereignty (I plan to write another post dedicated to some of those questions), but whether or not He actually orchestrated the situations that led us to this particular child, I have little doubt that He has chosen us to be this little boy’s parents. Because of the way things work with this type of adoption, nothing will be 100% until after the baby’s born and the papers are signed. But we trust that the phone calls, conversations, disappointments and decisions (made by us and others) that have taken place in the last year are being used by God to create our family. This is His plan, and we’re just stumbling along as we try to follow Him.

Advent--Waiting with Hope

2008-12-14T07:28:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago Mark got a call from one of the pastors at our church asking if he and I could do the reading and candle lighting for the first Sunday of Advent. Our instructions were to read a passage from the book of Isaiah, add a “personal touch”, say a prayer and light the candle.

Sunday morning before church we decided to study the passage in more depth. We happen to have a nice thick commentary on Isaiah (by J. Alec Motyer, from IVP), so we took it out for some ideas. The commentary describes the remnant of Israel as a “people of hope.” It says of them, “For the present they know that God is with them; for the future they await the day when the hiding of his face is past and the pledges inherent in Isaiah and his sons and in Zion are fulfilled.”

I loved that image—God with us in the waiting and disappointment, and the hope that his promises will be fulfilled in the future. The connection to our own waiting seemed obvious, so we decided to share about our adoption journey. We talked about how we have learned to wait with hope, which is what Advent is all about. We re-live Israel’s experience of waiting for the Messiah, and also look forward to when Jesus will come again. Although it may feel like we are living in darkness, we live in the hope of God’s promises, and know that he is with us in the waiting.

The connection I had made to the passage we were assigned had to do with how we have experienced God in our longing and disappointment, and how we are hopeful that His promises to us will be fulfilled. It wasn’t until later, after church, that I made what may have been the more obvious connection—the passage we were reading was Isaiah 9:1-7. Verse 6 says, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given…”

The first Sunday of Advent was five days before we got the phone call letting us know we will be adopting a son in February. There was much rejoicing the following Sunday in church when our pastor asked us to share our good news with the congregation. God’s promises are being fulfilled!

Matched!

2008-12-06T09:20:00.000-08:00

There's still a lot to tell about how Mark and I got to this point on our journey of adoption. I was planning to tell things in chronological order, but we're still living in the middle of the story, and things are happening.

On Friday, we got The Phone Call. We have now officially been "matched" with a baby! We are thrilled--if all goes well we will be bringing home a baby boy sometime in February. (I guess we were wrong about the pink blanket...)

I am still planning to go back and tell about the last 10 months or so, but I couldn't wait to share the news.

Blessed Are the Barren

2008-11-28T16:12:00.000-08:00

When people find out we are adopting, they often ask why. Probably, what they really want to know is, "Aren't you able to have your own children?" I feel conflicted about this question, and the assumed/implied curiosity about our fertility. I know that I have asked the same question of others who have adopted--even if I wasn't brave enough to actually ask the question, I have wondered to myself.

I don't really mind telling people our story. I'm a pretty open person, so I'm almost always comfortable telling people that, although doctors have not found a reason for it, we haven't been able to conceive naturally or with some medical help. But I can't say that's the answer to the question, "Why are you adopting?"

When I get this question I tend to assume (perhaps wrongly) that the person is asking because they feel that adoption is a second-best option, a last resort. Obviously if we could conceive a child we wouldn't be choosing to adopt, right? I find this especially difficult when it is Christians who seem to send that vibe. I wish that adoption was more in the forefront of the Church--that it was seen as a normal way to build a family

More than a year into our "infertility" problems, a friend of mine gave me an article from Christianity Today called "Blessed Are the Barren." It was the cover story of that issue, and the picture on the cover was a bit...uncomfortable. It was a leafless tree with twisted limbs stretched out like arms, and a woman's head growing between them out of the trunk . The article itself was pretty provocative and, at times, quite harsh. The author has experienced barrenness herself, and describes it in very desolate terms: "We are a big mistake. We are an abomination in nature—we exist pointlessly because we cannot make more of our species. We are an abomination according to the charge of Genesis, because we cannot be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Our love does not bear fruit."

At the time that I read this article in late 2007 or early 2008, I still didn't like the idea of the word "infertility" applying to us (I still don't for that matter). We had been trying for more than two years, and, according to most things I've read, when the woman is younger than 35, you are considered infertile after one year of trying unsuccessfully to conceive. (Once you reach 35 the wait time for this distinguished title is only six months.) It didn't matter that nothing had been found medically wrong with either of us; we were, and still are, considered infertile.

In early 2008, we were getting ready for our third round of IUI (for those of you not familiar with the world of fertility procedures, I'll let you do some research to learn what IUI is). The monthly roller coaster of waiting to find out if I was pregnant was not easy. It got harder as more and more things didn't work. I have done some reading, and apparently we didn't even scratch the surface of the plethora of tests, drugs and procedures we could have tried. Thankfully (I am thankful for it now), my HMO had a pretty standard protocol for infertility treatment, the trade-off being affordability. This last round of IUI was our last affordable medical option.

At the end of January, after this last procedure didn't work, we decided to take the next month off. We even figured we wouldn't talk about what our next step might be; we were just taking a break. Looking back on it now, I guess God had other ideas for our February.

At some point during all this I asked Mark to read "Blessed Are the Barren." He only made it through the first couple of pages. I was able to ask Mark to read it because I had gotten past the bleak beginning and on to the redemption. This article in many ways answers the question for me, "Why are you adopting?" I have wanted to adopt since before I was married, and I appreciated this article because it articulated some profound spiritual ideas about adoption. I hope you will read it. Our story isn't quite the same as the author's, but there was a lot in there I could relate to. Mark and I still might conceive a child biologically. There was a lot more we could have tried medically. But the fact is, we didn't want to wait for that to happen, or spend a lot more money hoping that medicine could help the process along. Instead we decided to experience the miracle of adoption.

How we actually came to that decision and started that process will be the next chapter to this story. In the meantime, check out "Blessed Are the Barren."

How It Started

2008-11-26T09:53:00.000-08:00

Some of you tuning in to this blog might not know how Mark and I have gotten to this point in our adoption journey. It’s a story worth telling, because it reminds me that God has been a part of this process and He will finish it. It can be hard to keep that in mind when there’s no news and all we can do is wait. I’ll tell it in small chunks so the posts don’t get too long. First: our decision to start trying to have a baby.

Three years ago, Mark and I started talking about wanting to have children. Because of job uncertainties and such, we weren’t sure if it was wise to start trying at that point, so we committed to praying every day for thirty days, asking God if now was the time. On a Sunday morning, the last of the thirty days, we talked at breakfast about the decision. We decided that, even though we hadn’t heard any direct word from God, we wanted a baby, so that was probably a sign in itself that we were ready.

We went to church that morning feeling good about our decision. At the “greet your neighbor” portion of the service, a friend of ours came up to us and, out of nowhere, asked, “So, when’s the baby due?”

We just stared at him. This friend had no idea we were considering having a baby. He said that when he walked in to church and looked at us that morning, he saw me holding a baby in a pink blanket (this is one of the reasons why I have thought our first baby would be a girl). He said he “saw babies all over” us. We didn’t know what to say, but one of us finally told him that we had just finished a month of asking God each day if now was the time to start a family. Kevin said, “God’s saying yes—have a baby and keep on having them.”

We figured we didn’t need any more confirmation than that.

We were pretty amazed, but we did take this whole thing with some caution. We knew that this might not mean we would conceive right away. I was preparing myself for a little bit of a wait. But after two years of no birth control, temperature taking and trying to time things right, we were still waiting. So we decided it was time to look into next steps.

He Sets the Lonely in Families

2008-11-26T09:24:00.000-08:00

(written September 7, 2008)

I had a great time in Logan this weekend. Mark and I went down to attend a reception for a good friend of mine from high school (she was married in Seattle last month and had a reception in Logan for people who couldn’t make it out west). I kept thinking that I wanted to write a post about the weekend for my blog, even though it wasn’t really related to adoption stuff. But after thinking about it for a while, I realized it isn’t as unrelated as I thought.

A verse kept coming to mind today on our way home. “God sets the lonely in families”. This has been remarkably true for me, in every stage of my life, pretty much ever since my dad left. In junior high I had some friends with whom I really connected. They “got me”, at a time when I really needed to be got. I lost touch with them after I moved away in 8th grade, but in the last year have sort of reconnected through Facebook. One of those friends even said to me when she found me on FB that I was someone she just couldn’t get out of her head. There was a connection that seems pretty rare for a couple of junior high kids who haven’t really kept in touch in the last 20 years.

That move from Virginia to Ohio in junior high was extremely difficult for me. But, again, God provided abundantly. For one thing there was family—my grandparents and aunt and uncle took in my mom and siblings and me for a few months until my mom could get on her feet, and that is something I will always be grateful for. But God went even beyond that. My mom was at that time in school to become a nurse and was working as much as she could, and my siblings were responding in their own ways to the upheaval we had all undergone. I was pretty lonely. But I got involved in the youth group at my grandma’s church. There were about 10-15 of us who spent weekends at the Hayward’s cabin, went whitewater rafting in Pennsylvania, attended summer camp at Geneva Hills, and met together on Sunday mornings to talk about, among other things, what it meant to be Presbyterian. Several of us ended up on the track and cross country teams together, or performing in the high school musicals. Although there was still a lot of teen angst going on for me at the time, for the first time in my life I felt like I finally belonged.

I saw several of those friends this weekend. It was wonderful. I have kept in touch with some of them to varying degrees over the last 15 years. Repeatedly, I have the experience of getting together with those friends, maybe for the first time in 6 months or 2 years or 5 years, and it seems like no time has passed. I know we have changed a lot—we have moved to far-off places and gotten married and come out and had kids, finished graduate school and switched careers, and I’m sure we have matured and changed our views on faith and values (and what it means to be or not to be Presbyterian). But there is still something that stays exactly the same. It has to be something beyond just the fact that we’ve known each other for so long and have so much history. I haven’t talked to too many other people who have such a connection with friends from high school. It truly seems supernatural.

I see this as God’s way of setting me in a family. My own family was going through some serious struggle, so these friends, and even their parents to some extent, became a surrogate family for me. (Many of my friends’ parents were at the reception, and they gave me hugs and said how good it was to see me and reminisced about experiences from my high school days that I can’t even remember—I felt so known and loved). Maybe each of us in that youth group had some special need for a surrogate family, so God brought us all together. Seeing those friends is always such a blessing.

As I look back, I can see that I have not been without these kinds of families since those youth group days. I sometimes complain about my “lack of community”, but these experiences have just led me to have high expectations. In college there were my fellow-WCFers, after college there were my InterVarsity staff colleagues, and when I left IV I married into a wonderful family—and whether I move far away or switch jobs, that one will be as permanent as my own family. God’s abundance is amazing.

So as I think about all this, I am reminded that it is God’s plan to place a baby who doesn’t even know she is lonely yet into our family. There are so many people, besides me and Mark, who, I know, can’t wait to meet her. I hope that she always has that sense of belonging that I have gained with my own “adoptive” families—with me and Mark, her grandparents and cousins, and all of these people out there whose friendships I treasure more than anything else.

What do Ozzy Osbourne and John McCain Have in Common?

2008-06-23T16:29:00.001-07:00

Several months ago I was indulging in one of my guilty pleasures--looking at pictures of celebrities on msnbc.com. In honor of Father's Day, which was coming up, they had a slideshow of celebrity dads. I was quite surprised to see that of the 21 dads pictured, five of them were adoptive fathers.

Everyone probably knows of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. Sometimes when celebrities adopt I have to wonder how much of it is about publicity. (uh, Madonna?) But, after seeing that 20% of the celebrities in this slideshow had adopted children, I did a search to find out how many other less publicized celebrity adoptive families were out there. The website adoption.com had a list of celebrities who are adopted, have adopted or have placed children for adoption. Besides rocker Ozzy and presidential candidate McCain, the list of adoptive dads includes: Hugh Jackman, Al Roker, George Lucas, Steven Speilberg, Ted Danson, Magic Johnson, Sean "Diddy" Combs, Charles Bronson and Ronald Reagan.

Recently I've been thinking about the fact that adoption is so much more unusual than birth, and sometimes that can be difficult. I am often around pregnant women or new moms, and they usually end up talking about pregnancy, or childbirth, or nursing, or things that I might not ever experience. I don’t usually mind those conversations, up to a point, but I do often wish there was someone in the room with whom I could have a conversation about my different experience of “expecting.”

I thought it was great that on Father’s Day MSNBC decided to highlight adoptive dads. It made me feel a little less lonely and misunderstood, I guess. I often feel so abnormal when I’m around parents who have had children through pregnancy and birth. I’m not sure what this says about me, but I felt a little less abnormal because pop culture, through MSNBC's entertainment section, had acknowledged and celebrated adoption by posting that slideshow.

Pre-loved

2008-06-23T14:00:00.000-07:00

So much has happened in the last few months already that I wish I had started an adoption blog back in April. Or March. Or maybe even last summer. The journey up to this point has been a bit bumpy, but there is a lot to tell, and it's clear that God has had His hand in it. I'll just have to catch you all up as we go.

The blog's title comes from a talk given by Ken Fong at Urbana 2000 (InterVarsity's national missions conference). It stuck with me as a beautiful illustration of God's plan for adoption. It is based on Ephesians chapter 1 where Paul says that God chose us and predestined us to be adopted as his sons. Ken discusses the legal understanding of adoption from a Hebrew, Greek and Roman perspective, and describes which perspective Paul was coming from. Throughout the talk he intersperses his own story of adopting his daughter.

To really catch the impact of this word "pre-loved", you need to watch Ken's talk. You can click here to get to Urbana's webpage with a link to the video of the talk. It is rather long (about 30 minutes), but if you fast forward and skip the first 12 minutes you'll get to the most relevant stuff. I wish I could find a transcript, but it is more powerful seeing the video--especially at the end when Ken's wife brings their daughter up on stage.

Mark and I know that God has a child for us. I could be wrong, and we're open to whatever, but I kind of think it will be a girl. She most likely hasn't been born yet, and quite possibly hasn't even been conceived. Friends and family have been praying with us for that child for months. She is pre-loved. We can't wait to meet her.