What we did with our weekend.

On Saturday, Olivia and I participated in our local area's Buddy Walk, which is a walk to support services to people with Downs Syndrome. We were recruited to walk by the parents of Mary, who is the sweetest 3-month-old baby you will ever meet.

Mary has something in common with Olivia...she's also adopted. Which probably won't make much difference to either of them, but it means something to me. Because without the support and example of Mary's parents, our adoption journey would have been much different. See, J & E (Mary's parents) adopted their first child, Cecilia, a little more than six months before Olivia was born. Their story was SO similar to ours...unexpected referral, whirlwind homestudy, becoming parents in a matter of months. Their first daughter is also biracial, like Olivia, and they never questioned whether they were the "right" parents for their daughter. They just had faith that God had handed them this wonderful gift, and He would give them the tools to raise her if they accepted the challenge of becoming her parents.

I assume that same faith motivated them to accept the gift of their second child. And what a gift she is! Sarah Palin was right when she said that special needs children inspire a special kind of love. And Mary already inspires that love in her family and all those who know her family.

I've been thinking a lot about our second adoption lately. As with our first homestudy, we'll have to specify what "kind" of child we would accept. I hate that question because it makes me feel like we are picking out a puppy. I understand what motivates social workers to caution adoptive parents to consider whether they are prepared to become an interracial family through adoption, but it looks so awful on paper. With our first homestudy, we indicated that we would accept a child of any race, but we already knew with some certainty (because of our referral-before-homestudy situation) exactly what type of child we would have. I don't know how we will answer that question on our next homestudy, but I have a feeling that our best bet is to open all doors and let God send us the child He wants us to have. After all, it worked out pretty well for all of us the first time around.