I know the title of this post just got your attention. :)
My real question is for all adoptive parents out there. Did you specify a gender for your child? For those of you that have adopted domestically or are in the process of adopting did you choose a sex that you wanted? Or did you leave it open for either a boy or a girl?
For those of you adopting internationally is it even possible to choose your gender in the country you adopted from? I don't know since I've never been down that road. IF you can, did you?
I have some dear friends who have to make this decision within the next few days. They have a daughter who is one and she desires another daughter. She his torn as to what to do.
Any help? What did you do? What do you recommend?
3 comments:
First, we adopted from China and chose gender... I just wanted to "know" gender so that I could give a name, decorate the nursery, shop... all the stuff expecting moms like to do. If I chose to have a biological child, I would find out the sex for the same reason... I like to be able to plan. We chose a daughter from China because we knew we would likely be matched with a girl anyway.
Now, we are adopting from Ethiopia and have chosen another girl. (The rule varies from agency to agency regarding whether or not gender can be chosen.) This time, we requested a girl because I want my first daughter to have a sister... and my husband feels like there are so many things that are "uncertain" in international adoption that he likes to be able to at least know one thing... like gender.
Here is the comment I left on Rachel's blog who originally asked this question .... remember this is only my opinion!
Okay about gender. We have been where you are in this decision and I will tell you not only is this one of the many hard decisions that comes along with adoption, it is also one that is completely personal.
My opinion is that - ONLY my opinion. We have always said that we would not specify a gender, that we would leave it up to God and go with that. I mean really God does know what is best for us and what our heart desires and what his will is for our family too.
On our adoption we left it completely open. In the depths of my heart I wanted a boy. I wanted C to have a baby brother. I wanted them to be best buddies. I had all boys clothes and since they were going to be so close I thought the same sex would work best for me!!! Ha Ha!
Here is where I contradict myself though. I have alway said that we would not specify gender and that we would be open to whatever God has for us. BUT I now have two boys. If we adopted or had a bio child again and it was a boy .... I would think very hard about requesting a girl for baby #4!!!!!!
So, like I said it is a personal decision. Pray about it ... seek God and then go with where your heart leads you and don't look back.
Love you girl and know you will make the best deicsions on this one!
If you think this is hard .....The hard decisions come when they ask you about physical problems, drug problems, mental illness, health concerns, AIDS, Hep B, etc. ...... What all are you open to. Those were SO HARD for us!
If we ever get to the point where we continue our adoption process we want to leave the gender open. We want the child to be God's choice totally. Not to say that God can't work within our choices. But then we are choosing domestic adoption, so it is likely to be a boy.
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