I thought I knew why I wanted to adopt. But then when people ask me why I want to adopt, my response is always, “well why not.” Because I want to help a child? Because I have the financial resources to support a child in need of a home? Yes and yes, but are those right reasons for adoption? Perhaps. But I really needed to reflect more on why this is the right choice for me, and since I am part of a family (with a husband and children), is this the right choice for us.

I don’t know that the feeling of “just knowing” is the right way to describe it. It’s like asking someone why you fall in love with one person and not the other. Because, well, you just know. It feels natural. It’s something that just is, and feels right – always has. And perhaps it started out as a responsibility – to provide for a child who was just not so lucky, and somehow ended up in foster care or an orphanage. A responsibility to play a small part in setting the world right. But I think its much more than that now.

So why not?

I think my desire to adopt comes from how and where I was born and grew up. Being born in a refugee camp shapes you. And it did me. Because my father worked for an international organization, we moved to very poor countries – where he worked on development programs. And he didn’t hide the reality of these environments from us. We saw people in dire situations and poverty in places such as in Haiti, West Africa and Nepal. Children were always the most affected. Growing up with this is probably why I am in the field of humanitarian work. All of it. And adoption perhaps is an extension of that altruism, a representation of the compassion I feel towards the world and my idealist nature to better it — even in the form of providing for a child with a home and a family.

And a part of me feels that that my reasons for wanting to adopt are probably not good enough yet. But for now, it’s putting me in the right direction. And maybe with time, as we go through the whole adoption process — with all the time and effort it will take — I’ll be able to better articulate why adoption is right for us.

So, I want to adopt — and, as it turns out, it’s possible in Jordan! 😉