Deciding to Adopt

So, what made you decide to adopt?

If you choose to take an adoption journey, get ready with your answer because you will get asked all the time.

When you have biological children, and you announce that you are expecting, you will receive all the advice you never asked for. Everyone will have an opinion about what you should or shouldn’t do, eat, touch, and so on. But most people won’t question, at least to your face, why you are choosing to have a child. They just skip straight to the parenting advice.

When you are adopting, however, everyone wants to know why. They wonder if you are struggling with infertility or if there is some reason you can’t have biological children. They poke and prod and start an investigation as to why you would choose to adopt. They don't necessarily think of you as "expecting" and instead of jumping to parenting advice, everyone will want to tell you why you should or shouldn't adopt internationally, domestically, older kids, younger kids, from foster care, sibling groups, and so on.

But the reason a couple or individual decides to adopt is as unique as they are. It's not a decision that is made lightly and it's not the right call for everyone. Maybe they are struggling with infertility, but let them bring it up to you instead of asking. It's a real struggle that they may or may not want to let you in on. It is also important to remember that infertility isn't the only reason people decide to adopt.
Pro Tip: When someone close to you announces their decision to adopt, celebrate with them! A growing family is a beautiful, wonderful thing worth celebrating.

So why did we decide to adopt?

To be honest, we didn't know exactly what we were walking into at first, but we knew we were ready to grow our family and we knew there we had to seriously consider adoption as an option. Adoption had been a little thought in the back of our minds for a while. With the opportunity to grow our family in front to f us, it jumped to the front of our minds.

The more research we did, the more it was confirmed in our hearts that adopting our first child was the right move for us. Before we could know if we had any infertility issues, we wanted to know that the child we would adopt would always know that they were our first choice. It's really important to us that the foundation of our family is one of openness, acceptance, and love. We also wanted any biological siblings that could come later to know that their adopted brother or sister is 100% a part of our family.

The life Garrett and I have created so far together has been one of welcome. We hope to always have room for more at our table, in home, and in our hearts. We know and truly believe that family is more than DNA and that our journey to parenthood will be a special and unique one that ends with the little one we will love and cherish forever.

So that’s our story so far.


Side Note: We are so thankful to some of the lucky ones with a community around us that has welcomed our decision to adopt and celebrated so genuinely with us. We feel so incredibly lucky and blessed to be surrounded by people that support us so well!