Adoption

I have a place in my heart for adoption. It might be because my older brother is adopted, but none the less, I am all for adoption. I think it is the best alternative (rather than abortion) for someone who does not want their child. This post is NOT on abortion though, so if you want to comment, please refrain from commenting on that.

I can remember reading an article in the Reader's Digest in the early '90's about a single woman wanting to adopt a child. I believe she was American, though I don't recall for sure, and she was having a difficult time adopting in her own country. She had read about the little baby girls in China who were not wanted by their parents for various reasons, and was intrigued by this.

Apparently in Chinese custom, it is the man who is responsible for looking after his aging parents, and if a couple had a daughter, she would not be responsible for helping to look after her parents, but rather her husband's. So if a man and his wife wanted to ensure they would be taken care of in old age, they would keep a boy baby over a girl. Also, I beleive because of the factor of such mass population, families were only supposed to have once child (I do not know if it is still that way today or not). These reasons would lead to women "disposing" of any baby girls who were born. Sometimes the child would have a note pinned to her that might tell of her name and when she was born, but most often not. The article said that there are baby girls left on the steps to the police station, in allies, the side of the road, and other place...most often left to die. Women will annonymously leave their daughters anywhere so they will not be found out as to having been pregnant.

After reading this article, I felt a deep desire to adopt a baby girl from China. Since the country is no longer under British rule, I do not know if this is a harder task to do or not. I do know there is a great cost factor in this (the last I heard it costs between $10,000 and $20,000), and takes about two years for everything to be complete (paper work, lawyers, etc.). I remember the woman in this article also saying that she had to provide the orphanage with diapers, clothes, baby items, etc. as well as a certain amount of money. All of this was to basically pay them back for taking care of the child before she was adopted.

As I said, this has been a great desire of mine for some time now. It is something that I pray about from time to time. Admittedly, I don't pray often for this but I do when I think of it. I know that if God desires for me to adopt one of these little girls, everything will fall into place. However, I want to be married first. I don't think I could handle being a single mom (my hat goes off to single moms). God will definatley have to move His hands in order for this to happen, because I don't have that kind of money to adopt a child...especially since I am still a student. It is something I can still look into though, and see if the Chinese government still allows the little girls to be adopted abroad, and well, everything involved in this.

I don't know if I will ever be able to do this, but I know with God all things are possible. If He wants this to happen, it will. If not, then it won't...simple as that. Mind you, I still want to have my own children, but at my age, let's face it...I'm nearing 40 and if I want to have several children I need to start now. But, in the words of my friend's daughter, I need to get married first!