Of Snowflakes and House Keys

I often joke that everyone is "for" adoption. Aren't they? I've yet to meet a person, religious backgrounds aside, social positions aside, political parties aside, who says "eh...adoption though? It just rubs me the wrong way." However, I've found that being "for" something, is not the same as being called into something. We were for adoption for a long time, but our calling came slowly.

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In the early days of our relationship Dan and I talked intentionally about what our family would look like. In one of our first conversations I remember Daniel saying he wanted "at least" 6 kids! (Insert ironic laughter and sideways glance.) I'm the youngest of five siblings and love big families but expressed that I wanted to leave room for adoption. Dan was "for" adoption so this wasn't a deal breaker, because again, who isn't? However, there was one condition. Out of protection for our future family, from wisdom he had gained by experiencing the pain and suffering of the foster care system, we wouldn't pursue adoption through foster care. In my ignorance, and "can do" attitude I didn't really understand and thought Dan's position was backwards. "Isn't this why you should want to foster and adopt?" However, Dan looked at foster care with the same lens he looked at his past. He saw anger, danger, and pain. Subjecting me and our future kids to the reality of this world he knew too well wasn't wise, and he couldn't picture it as apart of his past and his future.

Eventually we got married, started our family and we'd talk about adoption occasionally and very casually. We didn't make plans, or do tons of research. We'd look at general costs, country requirements etc. and then we'd go about our normal days. The condition remained the same, no foster care. During our first years of marriage Dan took an ethics class where they discussed at length, the moral implications of IVF. Through his studies in this course and discussing the realities of this particular fertility method we both grew in love and conviction for these IVF babies (scientifically known as embryos), living in a frozen state, with no parents who would claim them, with life to live that nobody would offer them. My heart broke for these babies, seemingly forgotten and we began to research more. I'd pray for Dan as he worked through what would be best for our family, and could see his feet dragging in caution as we'd casually discuss options and timing.

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Dan's career in the military solidified that foster care wasn't an option for us. We didn't have the time in each job cycle to go through the licensing, the home studies, the waits for right termination, etc. Additionally, Dan's career in the military made the idea of international adoptions tricky as we looked over security clearance allowances, time spent traveling to off limits countries, etc. Through this exploration process my sister and her husband had begun their own process toward a domestic adoption. I watched them fundraise, helped where I could, and learned to love a baby who hadn't even been conceived yet. We prayed for their baby, Seriah, for years before her moment would come, and as my sister walked this road, my heart grew even bigger for what is called Snowflake, or Embryo adoption.

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Embryo adoptions are not actually legally considered an "adoption." There are no parental rights to terminate, there is less legal input, and it is most generally considered as more of a "medical" or "scientific" procedure as an embryo is implanted into a hopeful future mother's uterus. Because of these factors, the process can be faster, it's much more economical (10k-15k), and there's a unique aspect of redeeming a life from the very beginning of it. Typically people who adopt embryos also implant multiple embryos in order to increase the odds of carrying a baby to term. Because of this many families end up with twins! The mother physically births the baby/ies, breastfeeds, etc. This seemed like a perfect fit for our family. During our fourth pregnancy, following our miscarriage, Dan and I made plans to use a tax return to begin the process for our next addition. We had found a snowflake agency, researched the fees, and were open to expanding our family through this process.

While I was still pregnant we moved to Albuquerque, NM. Dan was going to be entering a job with a much slower pace, and we were ready and excited about the extra family time. What a perfect time for an embryo adoption! One of my favorite authors, Rosaria Butterfield, released a new book that is featured on the blog, The Gospel Comes With a Housekey. Head on over to my book review to check it out! I read her book in our first few weeks in Albuquerque and told Dan he needed to read it. Rosaria explores radically ordinary hospitality and what it means for how we enter our communities, neighborhoods, and even how we deal with our own families. On one of Daniel's final drives from between Albuquerque and Las Vegas, he listed to the audio of this book, and to say it changed our lives is an understatement.

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Dan called me after arriving for the last time in Las Vegas and told me he was ready. He was ready to adopt, we were going to start the process, and he felt like God was calling us to adopt out of foster care while we lived in Albuquerque. It was a unique assignment that we'd never get again. We'd never have the kind of time and capability again to devote to the process like we would in New Mexico, and God had radically changed his heart toward foster care. I remember fumbling a "What is even happening?" As I listened to my husband explain what God had done in his heart in what appeared to be a matter of hours! However, looking back we see that God had been working on this from the very beginning.

Through conviction and subsequent repentance we became convicted that the safety we sought for "our kids" in our home was our way of white knuckling the control that belongs only to God. We began to stop seeing broken children as threats to our safety, and began to see that we had made a fortress of our home, where the bad couldn't get in, and the good got out on our terms, and our terms alone. We opened our hands to the idea that we may very well have to count the cost for the sake of the Gospel. Our biological kids may even have to count the cost for the sake of the Gospel. But there is no cost for the Gospel that isn't worth it. When we pay the price for Christ we get the prize, God himself, and we weren't going to close ourselves to it any longer.

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Rosaria writes, "Because it is not 'just us' here, because you have chosen company with hurting people who have your house key, you are not going to let your guard down. Your children are learning how to live and share the gospel with fluency and how to love it before a watching world. (116)" There were so many quotes I could list here that changed our lives. This is one of them. We realized that we are supposed to give our house key to hurting people, and that as we do that, our children, yes, our precious babies who we love, are learning how to take the Gospel to those people, but even more, how to love the Gospel for themselves. And friends, there are fewer people more hurting than children in foster care. In wisdom we have safeguards, rules, and were very specific about our capabilities as far as "who" we could adopt. But even then, we stretched ourselves as we filled out our "survey" for what gender, ages, disabilities, exposures, that we were "comfortable with." We tried to remember that the most dangerous thing is not the sin outside of us, but the sin inside of ourselves. Having children wasn't an excuse to keep us away from sharing our home, and they became one of the greatest motivations for why we should.

I was shocked when Dan mentioned foster care to me. In fact, I don't know that shocked is even the right word. My husband is a force. He is unwavering and sure. He is confident and strong. So when he changes his mind, when a book shows him a different way, when a professor argues a different point, when his perspective shifts, I take notice, and I just walk with him hand in hand. He is careful and no position, view, perspective, or conviction comes without great thought, argument, and research. It's one of my favorite things. I watch the man I love look at his own mind through the wisdom of others, and then slowly and graciously with all care and concern my unwavering and confident husband humbly learns a different way. Although unexpected, his changes are never careless, and it is maybe this one benchmark of his character that made it easy for me to grab his hand, say goodbye to snowflake adoption and walk toward foster care. Dan makes me brave and there were times I was very scared, intimidated, and overwhelmed, and his sureness held me.