Earlier today, I ran a guest post from Jennifer Grant. I also had the opportunity to interview Jennifer after reading her new book, Love You More: The Divine Surprise of Adopting My Daughter.
How did you and your husband decide you wanted to adopt?
In Love You More, I wrote: ". . . the idea of adopting a child lingered in me like a song you cannot get out of your head. I felt like someone was missing. After the miscarriage, I could not shake the feeling that my kids were meant to have another sibling. As the fourth and youngest child in my own family, I sometimes felt like I was waiting for our fourth to come home and complete our family picture."
And then I had an experience – a mystical one, really, that I describe in the book. It felt almost like God had sent me a certified letter announcing that we would adopt.
What were the greatest challenges you faced in adopting Mia?
Once we had accepted her referral and had a name, a picture – a specific daughter out there in the world – it was miserable to have to wait to bring her home. It was an emotionally draining time and one in which I learned – at least a little bit – to let go of control, live with uncertainty, and trust God in new ways.
In your book, you anticipate a question many people ask: Why did you decide to adopt internationally rather than domestically?
When my husband and I began the adoption process, I felt certain that God would nudge us toward the country, the agency, and the program that would lead us directly to our child, wherever she was. I believe if God had wanted us to adopt domestically – as several of my friends have done – we would have felt the pull to do so. But the daughter God had matched us with happens to have been born in another country.