November is National Adoption Month. However, adoption should be highlighted year round, not just one single month. According to government officials, there are more than 400,000 children in the United States awaiting adoption.
400,000 children.
Let that number set in.
These are children, ranging from newborns to 18-year-olds, are currently caught in a broken foster system. These children are ashamed of their past, which they had no control over, and are concerned for their futures. The uncertainty these children have had to endure so early in their lives is disheartening. These children are exactly that -- children. They should have few worries. But due to predicaments of their past, these children feel boxed into a system that allows them very little control.
Every child deserves to call a place home. Every child deserves a birthday party, a personalized stocking stuffed to the brim, a room decorated how they want it. Every child deserves someone to love them unconditionally. Every child deserves someone to fight for them and hold their hand when they're scared. Every child deserves to have the opportunity to be a child.
This is why someday I hope to adopt. Adoption has personally touched my family, and without it, I would not be here. It is a beautiful thing to take a child not of your genes and love them with the same unconditional love as one of your own. Because they are one of yours. That child was brought into this world to be loved and appreciated and not forgotten.
I plan to have an open mind and heart about what this child has been through. I plan to love them despite the hardships they have faced. I plan to push them to be their best despite them being told they will amount to nothing. I plan to fight for them when no one did. I plan to speak up for these children too scared to speak. I plan to cradle the child born to a mother that rejected them. I plan to thank that mother in my prayers for keeping that pregnancy so I could be blessed with a perfect child. I plan to praise God for each challenge we face. I plan to promise my child that I love them whether we have different eye colors, skin colors, and whether I brought them to this world or not.