Who are we to dispute Mother Teresa?
With happiness and some degree of trepidation, I am making the announcement that we have signed on the dotted line to adopt again. We are welcoming into our family another son, a five year old boy from Ethiopia who has lost both of his parents and is in need of the love of a family. Our family... whose members are anxious to love him back.
I expect I might lose some friends over this announcement. I know many think you can't have an ethical international adoption these days, to which I respectfully disagree. As parents who have been around the block a couple of times in the Ethiopian adoption neighborhood, we are aware of the pitfalls and know to proceed with caution. After thoughtful consideration, we believe this is right for this child. That is all that will be said on this topic.
Some friends will kindly point out our ages. Yep, we're old. I'm the oldest mom hanging out at the elementary school. I'll be an even older mom hanging out at the high school in a few years. But hey, did you know Halle Berry just had a baby? She's 47, which means when her child is five, she'll be 52... two years older than I am now. What does she have that I don't have? (Besides fabulous beauty, obviously.) I'm going to be old regardless, so I might as well be old and happy with what I'm doing. I might as well get even older without having to say "I wish I would have," or "I wonder what it would have been like?".
I know some friends think that anything over two is an excessive amount of children in a household. Well, see the graphic above. We couldn't disagree more. Yes, we now have a lot of children, soon to be even more. Yes. It's a LOT. We also have the financial resources to care for them through the college years, so I'm not sure why anyone should care. And we have lots of some other things too... Love. Laughter. Compassion. Hope. Faith.
And lets not forget pets. We have lots of pets. :)
Those things are worth a lot. Probably more than the parent-funded college education and the awesome vacations.
We have been richly blessed. We have room for one more.
