In the Summer of 2005, I felt the pull to adopt a child. I am a Christian, and it was something I had prayed about and I believed that God had placed it on my heart. I approached my husband and my dreams were quickly halted. My husband didn’t want to adopt.
He had a lot of good reasons why he didn’t want to adopt. He had dreamed of having a biological child – one that looked like the two of us. He wanted to enjoy a pregnancy with me – to hear the child’s heartbeat, to see on the ultrasound whether it was a boy or a girl. He also was worried that he wouldn’t feel the same way about an adopted child as he would about a biological child.
I understood my husband’s reasons, but I still wanted to adopt. I had always dreamed of adopting children and I felt like it was the right time for us. However, I didn’t want to push my husband into something he didn’t want, so I just decided to wait. The happy ending to my story is that after a few months, my husband began to feel comfortable with the idea of adoption. After some time, he began to see how adoption is just as much of a miracle as giving birth to a biological child. He also became confident that loving an adopted child is no different from loving a birth child. Now, almost a year later, we are adopting not one, but two children. Obviously, he had a change of heart!
What I want to convey in this article is the importance of unity in the decision to adopt. Adoption will just not work if you are not equally invested in the idea. If one of you pushes the other into adoption, there may be resentment in the future and it may even carry into that person’s acceptance of the adopted child.
If your spouse doesn’t want to adopt, then give him or her time. Adoption is not something that happens at once and neither does the desire to adopt. Instead, it is something that grows in the hearts of those who are supposed to build their families in this way. If adoption is the right thing for your family, then your spouse will come around. If you do decide to pursue adoption, you will find that it requires a lot of patience. Just consider waiting on your spouse to be practice for the waiting that comes during the adoption process!