Sometimes we as adoptive parents like to see adoption as a clean and perfect thing. We want a child. A child needs a family. Put the two together and you have a perfect solution. It's all good, right?

If you've read me more than a few days, you know how pro-adoption I am. Adoption is indeed a great solution for families who want children and children who need parents. I believe that there was a divine plan that brought these future daughters of ours to our attention after their mother died.

However, I get a lot less comfy with the words 'meant to be' when I think about the tragedy that brought them to us. If I say that our girls were meant to come to us, am I also saying that our girls' birth mom was meant to die--that they were meant to watch her die-- just so I could have a couple more children?

Because of the lack of a few dollars a month, my girls' first mom not only lost her children, but she also lost her life. And because of the presence of a few dollars -- dollars that my family happens to have -- we get her children. Fair? Heck, no.

My husband says he wishes we'd known that our girls' first mother was sick. We were there in Ethiopia in 2004. We were there in 2005. What if we'd known of her need, and paid for her drugs so that she could still be alive, raising her children? Wouldn't that have been a much better solution for these precious children?

We weren't given that opportunity then. We didn't know about them until it was too late. So we are here, addressing their need now. Within the next couple months, Lord-willing, they will become our children by Ethiopian law.

They will gain masses of family and much love and more clothes than they've ever owned in their lives. They'll be given the opportunity to grow up and be educated in America, the land of opportunity-- something most Ethiopians can only dream about. And of course they will once again have parents to love them and fuss over them and guide them and pray for them. They are indeed gaining much.

But I cannot and will not forget what they have also lost. All for the lack of a few dollars a month.

Related blog posts (mine and others):

Adoption loss
Blogs by adoptees
New children and grief
How to Empathize
More on Adoption and Poverty
My Two Mothers