“Why wouldn’t you just want another one of your own?” This came from a well-meaning individual who, a few minutes before, had asked me if we were working on baby number three. After glancing down at my abdomen to see if I looked eight-and-a-half months pregnant (because you wouldn’t ask that question under any other circumstances, right?), I responded that we were! I then told her that we were in the process of adopting internationally. She scowled and said, “Oh. Why wouldn’t you just want another one of your own?”

I’m learning that there are several different ways to answer these kinds of well-intentioned but ignorant questions. I tend to error on the side of overwhelming the individual with information so that they’re a little sorry they even asked. Like what I told the individual in the aforementioned conversation: “Well, we can’t have kids on our own, and we’ve spent many thousands of dollars on the biological miracle kids that we have through IVF, but we felt God leading us to adopt this time. And I am thrilled to not be shooting myself up with hormones five or more times a day and not be crazy and sick from all the artificial hormones. We are so excited about our next child. And it will be just as much a miracle and one of our own as Austin and Elizabeth.”

Another question that has come up is whether or not we will tell our Number Three that he or she is adopted. Read and I have developed a little bit of a warped sense of humor where our ability to procreate and add to our family is concerned. I blame it on years of infertility and answering awkward questions from others. Humor is another way we have found to handle some of those awkward questions. When asked about keeping the adoption a secret from Kid Number Three, I am tempted to tell people that it’s going to be tough because we’re adopting from Taiwan, but we’ll cover all the mirrors and hope they don’t notice that their skin is a different color from the rest of the family. In reality, I can’t wait to tell Number Three how special they are the way God made them, and how wanted and longed for they were, and how we prayed for them before we knew them.

I am also preparing for questions once we bring Number Three home, like, “Is that one yours?” or “Whose kid is that?” My first thought in responding to those questions is, “Oh, the kid that looks different? It’s ours. You know we can only have kids through in vitro fertilization, and we think they might have gotten the embryos mixed up, but he/she was so cute, we just decided to keep him/her.”

I’ve also been asked why we wouldn’t consider just fostering to adopt right here in our hometown because there are lots of kids right here that need a good home, and it’s a lot cheaper. That’s all true, and I don’t have a great informative or humorous answer to this question. I just tell them the truth: “Because this is what God told us to do right now.” And if I feel like taking it a step further at that moment I might add, “Are you considering fostering to adopt a needy child? It seems like you really have a heart for those kids.”

While information and humor can help to discourage some of those awkward questions from going any further, I want it to be clear to anyone asking that we are taking this one step at a time as God leads, and we do not have all the answers.

A huge thank you to all the friends and family who have reached out to encourage, pray, ask appropriate questions, and support our adoption journey. It is so exciting to see God open doors and push us through as we work to bring home OUR OWN Number Three.