Answered prayers

I am so happy to announce that Clara's baptism is one month from today!

We are incredibly excited. There has been a lot of drama surrounding her baptism and for some reason I haven't posted a lot about it. It's safe to say it upset me. A lot. 

In the weeks after we brought Clara home, I knew there was absolutely nothing about having a biological child that could trump our experience. I couldn't love her more, there was nothing we were missing out on, nothing I envied about biological families. Well, nothing except one thing - if I had given birth to her, she could be baptized in the Catholic Church.

It just didn't seem right or fair. If we waited until the adoption was final (which we heard our diocese required), she'd be a year-and-a-half. Baby #2 would be baptized before her. 

I tried not to let it anger me and I tried to respect the decision of those in our diocese. Yes, I had quite a different interpretation of Canon Law, but I'm no Canon lawyer. Yes, all of my friends who had adopted and lived in other dioceses were given permission to baptize their babies, but our priest had to follow the rules of his diocese.

It broke my heart for Clara. I wanted her to have everything, to not be left out of anything, let alone a sacrament, due to something she had no choice in. I wanted her to become a member of a church I prayed she would grow to love more and more every day of her life.

I wanted her to be safe, God forbid anything happened to her. 

We made one mistake - despite our passion about this, for some reason we put off making the actual call to our diocese (which our priest had instructed us to do). We knew the stance our diocese had taken in the very recent past and we figured it was a foregone conclusion that they'd rule against us as well. In the meantime, we prayed about whether we should take her to another diocese for her baptism (my parents' diocese), asked our priest for tentative permission and my mom asked the priest in her parish if we could do it there. We could. Ryan, who originally wasn't on board with it, agreed it was best. 

The next step was getting the inevitable "no" from our diocese. So Ryan called, explained our situation to the deacon our priest had told us to contact, and he said he'd get back to us. The next day he did and, just like we expected, we were denied permission (it has to do with us not having her birth certificate until the adoption is finalized, and the lack of names of "legal" parents on the baptismal certificate).

At the end of the call, the deacon asked, seemingly out of his own curiosity, why we wanted to get her baptized before it was finalized. Ryan answered, simply, because we saw the importance of infant baptism and wanted our baby to receive the sacrament. After he hung up we just couldn't get over that rather odd question.

To our surprise, the deacon called back. He said that it wasn't over, that he was still asking around, and he'd see what he could do. Had that one little question sparked something in him? After all, it was that simple - we were parents (maybe not yet legal, but we're all she had) who wanted our baby baptized in the Church. Why wouldn't we? The Church herself had taught us of its importance.

We got the good news the next day. They had changed their minds. 

I find it hard to believe that this issue hadn't been resolved before now. How many other Catholic adoptive parents had previously plead their case? I know of one for sure, and there just had to be others. 

I have to believe that, by the grace of God, something clicked with that deacon this time. The Holy Spirit must have whispered in his ear because, with all due respect to my husband's powers of persuasion, we definitely didn't fight very hard whatsoever.

So the baptism up north is off, and Clara will be baptized in her parish next month. I ran out and bought her a gown (which baby boy will wear too, despite the nine-month size), and our family and her godparents are graciously traveling here for it.

I am so humbled by God's goodness in this situation. It didn't look likely, but He answered our many, many prayers that our baby would be baptized. Thank you, Lord!