A lesson in patience

Everyone has heard the saying, "patience is a virtue." Unfortunately, it's not a virtue that I possess. Earlier today I told Jeremy that this entire adoption process is going to be a test of patience, and although it will all be worth it in the end, it sure won't be easy for me to wait for everything to fall into place.

We're currently waiting to receive an invitation for an orientation we have to attend as the first step in becoming adoptive parents. Once we attend that meeting, we will be able to sign up for a series of 9 classes that will span a total of 27 hours for required training. I'm ready to get that started. The only problem is that I have to wait until we receive the invitation, and it has yet to come. Granted, it's only been 6 days since I first contacted the state about adopting, and 2 of those days have been the weekend. Maybe I should be a little more patient.

So, while I wait, I figured I would blog - perhaps it will help me to pass some time while I'm trying to learn to be patient. Have you noticed how many times I have used the word patience in some form or another so far in this post? Maybe if I write it enough it will help me to develop it, lol. OK, enough about patience ;).

One of the main reasons I started this blog was to document our adoption journey for our future child. I want him/her to know what we went through and how we felt as we waited to add them to our family. I want them to know the details, so that they can see how desperate we were to have a child, and how blessed we feel to have them in our lives.

Making the decision to adopt wasn't an easy one. When I first realized that the chances of us having a successful pregnancy were slim, my mind immediately turned to adoption. But we had concerns about adoption...what age did we adopt? How much would it cost? How long would it take?

Like most people who want to be parents, we wanted a baby - someone we could raise from infancy and mold to our views and standards. And we wanted to be there to witness all the monumental steps a child takes in their early childhood - the first smile, the first word, the first day of school.

I found myself browsing the Internet, searching for photolistings of children waiting to be adopted, and stumbled across information about adopting from the foster care system. Quickly I learned that adopting through a public agency was more affordable - it was, in fact, extremely affordable. And, from what I read, the entire process could be a lot shorter than through a private adoption agency.

It seemed like we had it all figured out. But then, as I kept surfing the Internet, I realized that most of the children in the foster care system were older. Infants were few and far between. So, we decided we would take a child from infancy up to the later toddler years. Now, as time goes on and the desire we have to be parents grows stronger and stronger, the age of the child we will adopt becomes less and less important - and we're now planning to adopt up to age 11.

It's amazing to me that I am willing to give up those monumental firsts that biological parents get with their children. Honestly, I never thought I would be OK with that. But I am, because now I've realized that those firsts aren't what's important - being a parent is. And as I sit here and think about it even as I write this, I realize that we will have some firsts with our child - we get to be the ones who see our child experience their first love; we get to be the ones who help our child with their first algebra problem, their first tryout for a high school sports team, and many other things. But most importantly, we get to be the first set of parents our child will have who won't abandon them. We think that's pretty monumental.