God's will and adopting again

I have mixed feelings about posting.  I know not many people read this blog.  I don't keep it up.  I like my privacy.  My husband likes his too.  But I want to post because I need an outlet and I think my husband's ears are worn out from the sound of my sighing.

We're adopting again.

We're adopting five years too late but we're doing it.  

Right after Dignitas Personae (DP) came out, a priest friend of ours came over to visit and asked us if we had heard the news.  He told us the way the document read, it seemed clear that the church had decided embryo adoption was not permissible.  Thousands of babies would have to exist in "an absurd state" of being frozen until they thawed and then died, forgotten like so many chicken breasts in my microwave.  

I'll never forget it.  Never, as long as I live.  I was standing in my kitchen with a baby (an adopted embryo) in a sling on my left hip and a black plastic spoon in my right hand, dripping Pasta e Fagoli soup back into the pot.  I fought so hard to hold back the tears because I am strong and I don't cry in front of people if I can help it.  

No more babies, I thought as my heart wrung out.  The baby on my hip had two more siblings we had promised to go back for.  We had intended to do it even though we "had our hands full" - until we read DP.

I was heartbroken at the thought of abandoning those babies.

I was heartbroken at the thought that my husband and I had done something that could give scandal. 

The situation was grave.  How to explain this to our children?  How to explain this to others?  How to erase the media we had done promoting embryo adoption?  (It wasn't much but still....)  Until this point I had been cautiously encouraging other Catholic couples to look into embryo adoption.  How did I undo that?

After DP was released in December 2008, my lips were sealed on the issue of embryo adoption.  I wouldn't give scandal and I was ashamed that perhaps I already had.  Three of our adoptions, three of our children, were ill gotten gain.  I was devastated.  

Months passed and comments trickled out.  Janet Smith said embryo adoption wasn't off the table.  Others began to pick up the drumbeat again.  How can those children be left to die?  How can they be consigned to an "absurd fate"?  The USCCB confirmed that DP did NOT close the debate over embryo adoption.  

So for us, the debate began anew but this time, I followed it less intently. I had decided that we were done.  Even if the debate wasn't over, the writing was on the wall.  It was clear from DP that the Church didn't take a kind view of embryo adoption.  The thought that I might do something that could possibly be a mortal sin, give scandal, put my marriage in jeopardy, no, there would be no more embryo adoptions for us.

Walking up the stairs to church three years later, I counted my children.  Four.  Where was the other one?  I looked around.  Four?  I felt like I had simultaneously slammed into a brick wall and had a lobotomy.  Duh!  I only have four children.  Four living children.  What a stupid mistake.  Who does that?  I've heard of forgetting children but not adding to the count.  

For whatever reason, I couldn't shake the feeling that we should have had more children with us that morning.   I wondered why that thought should strike me right as we walked up the stairs into mass.  Odd or maybe providential.  I don't take much stock in "God feelings" but sometimes He does speak that way to us... to me.  Not often, but sometimes.  

My hands trembled when I got home and gave serious thought to another embryo adoption.  The stress was overwhelming.  How could God possibly be calling us to embryo adoption?  But if He was, I knew I needed to listen.    Slowly, I started to test the water.  My husband and I discussed it.  He was all like, "Let's go for it!  Whoo hoo."  Which was completely uncharacteristic of him.  I was all like, "No, not yet."  

I talked to priests, good Catholics that I knew.  I talked to my mom.  I decided again, no.  The risk was too high.  I didn't want to do anything that wouldn't be in line with Church teaching.  I used to feel all high and mighty and proud that I had a Master's in theology but after DP, I was humbled.  I felt like I had gotten it wrong, that I hadn't discerned properly.  It was a stunning blow - as in, I was stunned - not so much that I made an error, I do that all the time.  But that it was so utterly nebulous and yet grave at the same time.  Maybe I was going to hell, maybe I was a hero.  How does one go about discerning something like that?!

Then, out of the blue, we received a phone call from a moral theologian who teaches at a well respected Catholic seminary.  He wanted to talk to us about embryo adoption.  I was dumbfounded.  We chatted for a while and then he casually asked us if we planned to adopt again.  My husband looked at me hopefully.  I cleared my throat and said, "No.  We don't plan to go back."

There was silence on the other end.

Then the man spoke up, his voice tinged with anger.  "It isn't because of DP is it?  Because let me tell you something...." And then he went on to explain the politics behind the document.  He explained that under no uncertain terms had the church ruled on embryo adoption.  He said that the document, as far as embryo adoption was concerned, had done the opposite of what documents are supposed to do.  Rather than clarifying the issue, it muddied it.

I know it sounds cheesy but I honestly felt like I had just talked on the phone with Jesus.  I hate myself for even writing that because it's so gaahhh, stupid sounding.  But it's true.  I felt like I had just talked to Jesus.  

When I got off the phone I wept.  I still cry to this day thinking about it (but only in private).  My babies.  My two precious babies!  It would be okay to go back for them.  I was convinced.  We would go back.  

But opposition persisted because not everyone gets to talk to experts on this issue, not everyone follows the embryo adoption debate very closely, not everyone gets phone calls from Jesus.  

For my part, I was so excited about this news, about the fact that we could go back, that I wanted to shout from the rooftops.  So, I told a few people I was getting to know in our new town.  They were experienced mothers with large families and had been a source of support since I had met them.  Both had read DP.  Both were horrified by our decision to adopt embryos.  I told my mom.  She was worried for us.  They all assumed that we were making an emotional, rebellious decision.  Nothing I could say would convince my two local friends.  My mom was only convinced after she called a priest at the National Catholic Bioethics Center and spoke to him.  

God bless them for caring.  They meant well.  I truly mean that.  But I can't tell you how much I was hurt.  Judgment, a little scorn, pushing to meet with more priests, not accepting or understanding that we now had put over six years of research into this.  And I was vulnerable to it, extremely vulnerable, because, at the corners of my mind I still doubt my ability to discern God's will.    

Time marched on and still, I dragged my heels.  The embryo adoption process is physically exhausting and the ups and downs of discerning what we should do, defending our decision to misinformed friends, had left me emotionally drained. 

Life just kept barreling forward at full speed.  At that time, I had four children, a little farm, was homeschooling and trying to start a school.  Then the school actually started and I was even busier.  And then, suddenly, at the beginning of this school year, I just collapsed under the weight of it all.  

Broken and confused and feeling every ounce of my own fallenness, I knelt for prayer one night and I gave it all to God.  "If this is your will, make it happen.  If it is not, shut it down.  I want to do what is right and only what it right."  And with that the baby steps began.

Our home study was completed.  During my physical, I had a routine mammogram.  It was abnormal.  I might have breast cancer.  My medication had to be stopped until the biopsy results.  I gave it over to God.  The results were negative for cancer.  I resumed the medication.  

When I went in to see the embryo adoption doctor, he discovered that I was post-menopausal.  Okay, maybe this would be the stopping point.  I gave it over to God.  Within two months, I was back on track.  

The mediations to prepare my body for the embryo transfer caused a severe panic attack (thanks to my friends who were on my SOS text that night - sorry for scaring you), weight loss, nausea, migraines, and general anxiety.  I nearly went off of them and quit.  But I gave it over to God and He helped me through.  (So did my husband - props to him!)  

Five years after we had planned to go back for our babies, we are now in the home stretch.  We have completed the adoption process and the babies are part of our family on paper.  Our transfer is scheduled for mid-May.  I will be pregnant one last time.  It's up to God how long that pregnancy will last, but I will get to hold them at least for a little while.  I love them already and I love them so much.

When I look into the blue eyes of their brother, prayers come quickly, for their safety, for their survival, for my own health and ability to carry them to term.  When I look into the brown eyes of their sister, I wonder if they will look like her.  Then I find myself wishing I could have fifty more of them, laughing, joking, fighting, climbing trees, stomping in puddles.   

But just as quickly, sobering thoughts come.  They have been waiting so long.  Their chances are so poor statistically.  We've already been so very, very blessed with four amazing, miraculous children.  Can I dare hope to heaven that God will save these last two?  

Yes.  I hope with all of my heart and soul and very fiber of my being. 

If you find yourself reading this, pray for my babies and the doctor and his staff.  And for me.

Dear God, your will be done.  Saints Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Mary, Joseph, Scholastica, Benedict, Ambrose, and Athanasius - Pray for us.