Decisions vs. Motivations

I was thinking about how different people's decisions to adopt are and I realized something I don't think about much and that's the motivation behind adoption.

Looking back, there were different motivations for different adoptions. And even more, there was more than one motivation for each adoption.

First and foremost, my motivation to adopt centered around wanting to be a mother--wanting to parent. I wanted that more than anything and looking back, it's what got me through the process. Is that need to parent, that literal ache in your arms for wanting to hold you child. Is that biological? Are we hardwired to feel it? Is it to insure the propigation of the species? Or is it more spiritual. Does the desire to mother (or father) a child come from God?

However, wanting to be a mother, while a good motivation, couldn't have been my only one, could it? If I wanted to be a mom I could have (maybe) had a birth child, married a man with children, become a foster parent, or big sister. I chose adoption, moveover, international adoption, as my method to form my family...and there were a couple of reasons.

I'm going to talk about then rest of them this week.