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Or, more reminders that I’ll never have all the right answers

Preface: Every adoption story is different. This is simply Ava’s. And ours. I am not putting forth a formula, or arguing for how other adoptive parents should feel or speak about adoption. I am simply wrestling with the paradox of life—equal parts beauty and brokenness. 

*Names have been changed to protect privacy

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She’s been in my arms since she was four days old, and still, I’m not the kind of adoptive mom that is comfortable with language like “she’s always been mine” or “she was meant for us.” Even the popular term “Gotcha Day” feels uneasy rolling off my tongue. As much as I want to embrace the sentiments there, I can’t. Ava is ours, very much ours. But she is also someone else’s. And I’m not so sure a biological tie is ever meant to be torn apart.

Adoption is beautiful, biblical, a picture of something so profoundly miraculous it still stuns me when I truly think about it. Without a doubt, adoption is a grace, and I would tell everyone I know that it's worth it, that there are thousands of children in your own state right now who need a home, that you can be a part of something with eternal value by adopting, that you’re on mission with the Lord as you work to restore lives. All of those things are, I believe, true. 

But, to me, adoption has still always been a plan B. Ava’s story is born from brokenness, from a very long line of brokenness, and I don’t know, it’s hard for me to say with confidence that anyone was meant for that.