What Is Adoption?
We all have an innate desire to be raised in (and raising) a biological family. But that doesn’t happen for everyone. In that brokenness we found each other, and I am forever grateful for that. My job is to help them understand that these extreme feelings of loss and love can coexist, and it’s okay to feel both at the same time.
I had always wanted to be a mother. At 5 years old I played with plastic babies in our attic and dreamed of the day I would have one of my own. Carefully decorating the (white) nursery walls with crayon drawings, I imagined a happy space filled with color. Unfortunately those dreams got washed away with every stroke of a little hand gripping the warm, soapy sponge after my mother found out. Dip, scrub, dip, scrub. No matter how hard I tried, the vision lingered. A faint, colorful outline of the drawings remained.
As I continued to live and dream, children always seemed to be a part of my story. I much preferred the time I spent with them. They were less complicated. If given the choice, you would find me being willingly led by the small hand to another room to play while the adults talked. “Don’t feel like you have to,” they said as they watched me go. “Oh no, it’s no trouble.” If only they knew I preferred to spend my time that way.
Children of Our Own
Children hold a unique perspective of the world, and to spend time with them afforded me the opportunity to escape the complexity of life and return to the beautifully simple place of make-believe. The child’s mind is a place where anything can happen.
Paul and I had always wanted children. We yearned for them, planning our lives to the T so that we could support and raise a family. People we knew were popping out babies left and right, but we were waiting for the right time. We wanted to be financially stable. Our young neighbors were curious. When they asked, “Are you not able to have children?” we laughed. Infertility was not on our radar.
Of course, adoption always was. We would have one or two of “our own” kids and then adopt another one or two. There were children who needed families, we thought, and we were more than willing to provide that for them.
“Oh that’s just so wonderful that you would do that for a child!” was the usual response we got whenever we brought up the topic of adoption. Paul and I both felt a little awkward when people said this to us. We just wanted to be parents — we were not saints. And we both felt we could equally love a child that was either born or placed in our home.
When adoption slowly shifted to the primary way we would build our family, it was a pretty easy transition. Okay, adoption first and then one of “our own.”The order didn’t matter to us.
The Process of Building A Family
We worked our way through the foster/adoptive and infertility process at the same time. We just wanted kids. Social workers discouraged us from exploring both of these avenues simultaneously. They had families drop out of the adoption process when they finally got pregnant. That was them, not us. We felt like it wasn’t the county’s place to tell us how to build our family. Of course, we would never let them know that.
As it turned out, five years of failed infertility treatments later, it ended up being the only way we built our family. After another three years, we finalized our fourth, and final adoption, and breathed a sigh of relief as we signed on the dotted line. We had no idea the burden we had been carrying until then, as the stress of it all was lifted off of our shoulders the moment we exited the courtroom.
All of our children’s birth parents either relinquished their rights (birth moms) or eventually had them terminated due to inaction (birth dads). I cannot say this how things normally go, but this is how things progressed for us.
Every moment, every step of the adoption journey is exhausting. From wondering if you’ll get a child, to bringing the child home, bonding, wondering if you’ll get to keep the child, and finalizing the adoption (up to a year or more later). Every day we cared for our children as any parent does, wholeheartedly, selflessly, but never had full assurance they were ours until their adoption day. Until then, any bio family member could have fought for custody of them.
I have had people ask me if I would do it all over again, knowing what I know now. If you told me ahead of time that I would have to go through all of that (repeat) for eight years straight to build my family, I would gladly do it again. My children could not have come to me any other way. Does that mean I enjoyed the journey? Absolutely not. I hated it.
The adoption system relies on the fact that prospective parents are in a desperate place. I would do anything to get a child (outside of breaking the law). They want me to jump? How high?
Paul and I were subjected to such intimate scrutiny in order to secure our foster/adoptive license. We had to go to several counseling sessions, have social workers give us marital and parenting advice during four pre-placement home visits, allow the county to go through our finances with a fine-toothed comb, and safety-proof our home to a greater degree than anyone else we knew who already had children. In addition to that, we had to attend multiple hours of training and complete the same in homework. And at the end of all of it, we didn’t know if we’d be chosen, let alone allowed to keep the child.
Then we learned about open adoption. Okay, so we’re full-time babysitters? (cue confused/frustrated face). It was going to be our job to help the children navigate this world of loss and brokenness, the resulting physical and/or mental disability, feelings of abandonment and frustration, and discovering their identity as they have everyone asking us (and them) who their “real parents” are.
In our hearts, we were our children’s parents from day one, but having those thoughts of uncertainty and responsibility in our life was overwhelming. I love my kids more than I could have ever imagined. But I hate the brokenness that brought them to me, and the constant challenges that we have had to face on a daily basis.
We all have an innate desire to be raised in (and raising) a biological family. But that doesn’t happen for everyone. In that brokenness we found each other, and I am forever grateful for that. My job is to help them understand that these extreme feelings of loss and love can coexist, and it’s okay to feel both at the same time.
Believe me, there are times I’ve wanted to run, screaming, “This is more than we signed up for!” I thought I was just giving orphans a home. But then I remember — they call me Mama, and with everything I am, everyday I strive to be that.