I remember when I was younger and adults were talking about babies and the kids they already had. I chimed in with “I never want to have kids. Ever,” and of course they told me that feeling would change when I got a little older. But the thing is, it hasn’t because I didn’t mean I never wanted a child of my own. I meant I didn’t want to have a baby. And this still stands true. Being older, I’m watching the people around me have babies and getting crazy baby fever. But I don’t want to conceive and birth a baby. I want to adopt one.

I don’t imagine myself carrying a child inside me. But I picture someone handing me a child and saying “She/he’s yours.” I think about how much I will sob tears of joy when I am given a child. I imagine it being like given the chance to give that child a chance that someone else did not want to give it. I want to show a baby love they were unable to experience before. And it doesn’t have to necessarily be a baby. I wouldn’t care if the kid was eleven years old. The one I adopt will be the one that I feel an instant connection with. Whether it’s a baby, four-year-old or ten-year-old.

I don’t see any problem with adopting an older child. I could hold them in my arms and cry with them about their experiences until they can cry no more. And then we start working on building the life they have dreamed of. They will be given the opportunities that privileged children get. I live to see the trouble in their eyes turn to happiness. I live to watch a child grow and conquer their problems. I live solely to give life to another who truly needs it.

I have thought about adopting an international child as well. According to adoptivefamilies.com “The most recent State Department figures show that the number of foreign children adopted by United States parents declined by nine percent in 2014, bringing the number to its lowest in thirty-three years – only 692 adoptions from the record low of 1982.” If that isn’t a motivator for me than I don’t know what is. When I think about myself with a baby, I want them to be the one that wants me as much as I want it whether they’re in the United States or somewhere around the globe, patiently waiting for me to come into their life.

If I were to be asked what I thought my purpose on this Earth was, I would have to say it’s extending my life out to another person. All I want is to wrap my wing around the one who needs me the most and tell them that it will be okay from that moment on. I want to promise them that the dreams they have at night will officially be there when they open their eyes under my roof. I want to look a child in the eyes and tell them they don’t have to dream anymore.