The Pain of Having to Choose

There's only one thing I envy about biological parenthood.

It's not having kids who look like you and your spouse.

It's not pregnancy, or childbirth, or breastfeeding. (I'm super okay with not having to endure any of that, especially after my little taste of typhoid vaccine induced stomach troubles.)

It's not the fact that they don't have to do a home study, fill out a bunch of paperwork, pay a bunch of money, and fly halfway across the world three times.  In fact, we're looking forward to seeing the sights in Bishkek and Almaty.

It's not even the guarantee of raising an infant from birth.

No, it's the fact that they don't have to choose.

They don't have to assess a referral and say "no" to one child and "yes" to another.  Instead, they have the tremendous blessing, weather they see it or not, of being able to simply accept what comes their way and know that it is what was meant for them.

They don't have to look at a child's file, or an email from someone at the agency and think "Is this right for us?"  "Are these the children we should accept?"  "Is this what God wants us to do?"  "Are we bad Christians if we say no?"

Never, at any point, does a parent through biological means have to choose which child they are going to raise, which child they are going to make their own.

For all that people might joke about how wonderful it must be to choose your children, it isn't wonderful at all.

Trust me.

We've said no twice now.

The first was on our wedding anniversary -- it was a pair of unrelated children, who are both at the upper end of our age range.  With the difficulties that unrelated pairs often face in integrating into a family (especially if they're a bit older) and the fact that we want at least one little one, it made logical sense to pass.  It wasn't an official referral, just a "we've heard about two children" conversation. 

It was agony to say no, especially for me.  I beat myself up for it, even with our social worker telling us that it wasn't a good fit. 

I did get past it, but I still wonder about those two children, and I hope they're okay and that they both get adopted.

Then yesterday, we got this "hey, we heard about these kids" email from the agency.  This time, it was three children, one who possibly has a serious illness.  While I would LOVE to be the mother of three children (or more, even), going from 0 to 3 seems like a rough go, especially with our families all being over an hour away (my parents are seven hours away!) and my husband working so many hours and commuting so far.  That, combined with the possible (probable?) illness, meant that we had to say no this time as well.

It hurt less this time.  Much less.

Enough that I had to wonder -- is this hardening my heart?  Will I, by the end of all this, become someone cold and calculating?

And why did no one warn us about how terrible it is to have to choose?

I don't know what the answer is to any of this -- but it does seem like families get through this, like things are okay in the end.

But I wish that discussing turning down referrals wasn't such a taboo in the adoption community.  Because maybe, if we discussed it more, we could realize that none of us are alone.