Even before my wife and I started trying to have kids everyone around us was having kids. I didn’t think much of it, since most of them were older. I think at one time last fall I knew 8 couples who either just had a baby or were pregnant.

Since announcing our own pregnancy we’ve heard from at least 10 other couples who either just had babies or were pregnant (and I think the overlap in those two groups is only two). That’s a lot of babies!

But I think the coolest story comes from a former coworker. Him and his wife are trying to adopt two children from Russia. They even set up an adoption blog to share the experience, though it’s not updated frequently. What a cool story.

I’ve always thought adoption was a good idea and something more people should consider. For me it’s always had very little to do with whether or not you can have children, but much more with having compassion. There’s so many kids out there with no families who need a family. It just seems cruel to ignore them for some silly reason like you want a kid to carry on your DNA. Quite frankly, nobody’s lining up for my DNA.

Of course we’re having a baby the bloated and morning-sickness way, which may be another good argument for adoption. I think we’ve discussed adoption before to some extent, but never seriously considered it. I think part of it for me is fear. I’m worried about being a parent as it is, but raising someone else’s kid seems to require a higher notch of responsibility. I suppose it’s adoption, so they’re supposed to be your kid, and I think it would seem that way. But in the back of my mind I’d still feel the need to do better because I was entrusted with someone else’s kid.

Certainly there’s responsibility with your own flesh and blood. But it’s kind of like driving someone else’s car. I’m much more paranoid about causing damage to someone else’s car than my own car. That’s probably a stupid analogy, but it’s all I’ve got.

In short, I think adoption requires guts. Guts and money. Neither of which I have in excess. Which is a good reminder: the Swinbornes will need a lot of support, and I’m sure they’d appreciate your help.

My other reason for liking adoption goes back to a little tiff I had with Focus on the Family back in the day, which consquently led to me being blacklisted.

It basically came down to ‘go forth and multiply,’ God’s command to fill and populate the earth. I did some thinking and figured eventually the earth would be full and the command completed. Thus at some point we need to consider slowing down population growth. I wasn’t talking mandated abortions or one-child rules or anything crazy, I was just looking at the reality of it. The editor I spoke with at Focus on the Family disagreed. Apparently we had conflicting worldviews and so I couldn’t write for them. Silly.

But aside from that silly argument, it seemed like a very practical rationale for adoption. The world’s getting full, so rather than having your own baby, why not adopt one that needs the love. It’s very practical and pragmatic, and I like that.

Of course it’s not what we’ve done (yet), so I feel kind of dumb writing about it. But my hat goes off to the Swinbornes and anyone else who has adopted or is considering it.

I’ll shut up now.