Who is this thing about?

So, my husband and I have tiptoed through “the talk”. The adoption/fostering/childless by choice talk that most reproductively challenged families eventually gauge during their journey. I didn’t want to have the talk. Seriously. I have always wanted to give a home to a child in foster care or in need of adoption, since I was very young, like 3rd grade young. Growing up, on my grandmother’s block there was a family at the end of the street who ALWAYS had foster children(and still do). I was about eight when I started befriending the girls down the block. They were sweet but sad girls who seemed to revel in the attention and basic notice that adults gave them when visiting my house. On my few visits down to their home, I could see why. They were yelled at, hit by older foster-siblings, and just talked to badly. I told myself, right then, that one day, if I had a home, I would get kids who needed someone to take care of them. Never had a second thought about it. And still don’t.

But.

There is that small pang that I wish I had “my own” first. Saying it out loud, it sounds ridiculous. But I can’t help the way that I feel. I would love to see my husband’s eyes or my smile on someone sent just for us. Something in me is sad that an adopted child wouldn’t have parts of my personality or features.

But then there’s another pang that hits. Maybe this isn’t about me.
Who am I to put my feelings and perhaps selfish desires over what some child may need? Who am I to decide that I can put limits on God’s plans? The thoughts brought to mind the story of my aunt and cousin.

My first cousin passed away two years ago this June from renal failure. For years, she battled trouble with her kidneys. Despite this, she chose to have two baby boys. Finding a kidney donor was a hard thing to do for a while, but a few years ago, she got a kidney transplant. It was a success for a couple of years, but then it began to fail, and she was only working with one. The summer before she passed away, they told her that it wasn’t doing too great and checked her into the hospice. They told my aunt that she could go at anytime. My family members traveled back and forth from Chicago to Minnesota to see her and her boys. How she survived so long was totally God’s will and choice.

I was saddened because she was my cousin, the first to give me a Barbie doll, the first to play with me when I visited my father’s side of the family ALL THE TIME. She was my blood, my big cousin. But what hurt most, was finding out that while my little fight with ttc was tearing me up, my cousin and her mother, my aunt , knew more about ttc than I ever will.

You see, my aunt tried numerous times to have a baby and miscarried every time. She would get so depressed and sad that she would have nightmares. She finally gave up trying and adopted a daughter. Well, a couple years later, she got pregnant again, and she carried that baby to full term, my cousin.

And that cousin, to have struggled with her kidneys and still fought to give those babies life. She would at times get so upset about her life and her struggle that she would talk about killing herself to stop playing the waiting game, but for those boys she lived.

My little bout with ttc may be fixable, I don’t know, but these two strong women in my life gave everything for the love of a child, and they have inspired me immensely.

Had my aunt never gone the route of adoption, I wouldn’t know the awesome, supportive cousin she brought into our lives. And with my other cousin passing away, it has been that adopted daughter who has become our rock. And without any of this, we wouldn’t have those two amazing boys, now would we?

This thing could be so much bigger than me….

I’m going to have to pray more and see just who this battle is about. Or at least what position I’m to play in it.