KID PREPPING

Do you know that show, Doomsday Preppers? It’s all about these people who are planning for the end of the world. They are always prepared to drop what they are doing, at a moment’s notice, and carry a survival backpack into the wilderness to live off the land and shoot anyone who tries to steal their dehydrated food. Well, I’m kind of like them, except I don’t prep for the end of the world, I prep for a variety of big life events. 

For instance, Matthew and I agreed a while back that we would have our ONE KID in middle to late 2015. Just like everything else in life–my novels, my home, my wedding, etc., I have been putting things in place to make this particular project happen. Matt and I have been organizing our finances, our will’s, our health insurance, our home, and our lives, so that come mid-to-late 2015, we will be all set to have this one kid. I read an article that says if you take Folic Acid for a full year before you get pregnant, it has all these longterm benefits for your future child, so I’ve been taking it since December 2013. I read another article that said you should hit your ideal weight before you get knocked up, so you have a better chance of losing the weight post-delivery. This is my process. I research, absorb and prepare.

However…..Matt and I have still not made up our mind that we are definitely going to do this. 

All this preparation is “just in case”. 

Lately, I’ve been feeling very torn, however, about this road. Why not adopt? If we want to have the ONE kid, why do we have to make it ourselves? What about the thousands of kids in the world who need a home? (This is the kind of stuff that keeps me up at night).

My breeder friends have expressed countless times to me, that they think married people who don’t have babies are selfish. How could you not have a baby, with whom to share your home, your money and your lives? How can you consider NOT passing along your genetic material? That’s just selfish! Right? But here’s the thing, I think having a child is the ultimate in Selfish Behavior. Look at the facts: the world’s population is growing excessively, because people keep living longer and other people insist on (at least) replacing themselves on the planet. Children are being born in third world countries, and given up for adoption, but nobody is adopting them, and they live out their first 18 years in the custody of their state, usually to go onto to lead a life of crime. Then you ask these breeders if they ever considered adoption and they screw up their face. “Don’t you want a baby who looks like you and your spouse?”

No–not really. I mean, I’m a white girl and he’s a mostly Indian-looking dude. There’s plenty of orphans in the world that could look like us.

So, here I am, in a bit of a moral dilemma. Adoption or not? Adoption or not?

I’ve been looking into adoption lately, and I decided to begin with Syria. True, I am Lebanese in origin, but Syria has been getting so much news coverage, of late, that I can’t help but think of them. What is going to happen to all those kids whose parents have been killed? Surely they need a home. I’m different from other people, in that, I do not require a newborn. I will take a kid–or siblings. Unfortunately, my research has told me that Syria is governed by Sharia law, that does not permit adoption. I even read this testimonial about a couple in the US that tried to adopt their nephew, and the Syrian government told them that if they wanted to live with their nephew, they would have to move to Syria. 

It doesn’t look good for me and my quest for a Syrian child.

So, then I thought, well, let me look at Lebanon. Surely, “my own people” would let me adopt. That’s a little more confusing, because apparently, Lebanon recognizes 19 religions, and only the Christian orphanages allow adoption. Sometimes. It depends. The only way to know is to fly to Lebanon, find this orphanage, and see what happens. 

I should also mention, at this point, that Matthew and I are not rich. We are not poor–in that, we own our two-bedroom apartment, but we are not rolling in it. Do you know how much it costs to get two grown people to Lebanon, with no guarantee about adopting a baby? A lot.  

And stop right there–I know what you are thinking: why don’t you just adopt a Jamaican baby? I have a friend who went through the “Jamaican adoption channels”, and it took her nearly a decade to get a baby, after they repeatedly lost her paperwork. By the time she finally got a baby, she was married (she was single when she first applied), and they had to start the paperwork all over again. Then the birth mother had some ridiculous amount of time to change her mind–like 6 months–so even when she had her kid, she was still worried every day that someone would come and take the kid back.

No thanks, Jamaica.

So, now I’m just as confused as before. It looks like it is easier to have a kid, than to adopt a kid, but still, morally, I cannot swallow this fact. 

What do you think? You know anything about adoption vs. breeding? Looking forward to hearing your stories in the comments.

 

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