In my last post I wrote about "the wait" for adoptive parents in the adoption process. In this post, the letter "W" in my Transracial Adoption ABCs is for waiting children.

Waiting Children - I have written before about the overwhelming number of orphaned children in the world. While the exact number can certainly be disputed, it doesn't seem to matter a whole bunch if there are 15 million or 20 million orphaned children. There are millions upon millions.

Knowing this, it would seem that no adoptive parent would ever have to wait for a referral, because there are so many children that it seems every parent could just be matched with the child of their dreams as soon as their paperwork was ready. However in reality, there are often long lists of waiting adoptive parents who want young, healthy infants, and orphanages and foster homes full of older children waiting to be chosen by an adoptive family.

Most adoptive families want babies. And while there are large numbers of infants very much in need of adoptive families, each orphanage, adoption agency and adoption program can only take in so many at a time and can only process so many infant adoptions at one time. Most of the millions of orphaned children in the world however are not healthy babies. They are older children. They are sibling groups. They are kids with special needs. And they wait.

While Josh and I have waited in line for a young healthy baby, and while I know that those babies truly do need homes and I feel strongly that every family has to adopt the child that is right for them, I also feel that adoption has to be about finding homes for children. If adoption is truly about finding homes for children, then we must advocate for the children that are waiting. We must work to find homes for the older kids, the sibling groups, the special needs kids, and the kids that don't fit into the mold of "young healthy infant". Adoption is about babies, but it has to be about all of those other children, too.

I wish that every parent considering adoption could have the experience of spending some time in an orphanage with the older children that wait. To talk with them, and spend time with them and look into their eyes, is to love them and care about them and know that they need and deserve a family. When I carried Belane out of her orphanage for the last time in November, my heart literally hurt for all of the older children that were watching us walk away, and were wondering when it would be there turn, and if and when they would get to walk out of that orphanage in the arms of a mom and dad.

Adoption is about them.

Resources:

Until All Have Homes

Adoption.com Photolisting (kids in U.S. and in other countries)

Rainbowkids

Mixed Emotions: Excitement and Guilt