Please Teach Your Biological Kids About Adoption.

My friend and fellow adoptive mother, Heidi, recently shared an article about why it is important that your child be taught about adoption. (Teach Your Children About Adoption Before Releasing Them on the Playground by Rachel Quinn Egan)  Not my adopted child.  Your biological child.  The artical tells of an experience where the author's young daughter was bombarded with questions on a playground regarding her adoption:  "Is that your mom? (Pointing at me) Why is she white and you are brown? Are you adopted? Where is your real mom? Why isn't she here? Where is she? Why didn't she want you? You didn't come out of that mom's tummy over there, but your sister did. Right?"  

It made me realize that my six year old is well educated in what adoption is and how he came into our family.  But your child most likely has no understanding of it, and it maybe be much more important for him or her to understand than you or I might have considered.

Surprisingly, as someone who started researching adoption ten years ago and has experienced so many of it's facets, this is something I had never really thought about.  My child has not experienced the same thing (yet) as the girls in this article .  And it often is the case that we don't think to champion a cause until we have been touched by it.  But my eyes have been opened, and I am now championing this cause in hopes of preventing an incident like this from happening to my sweet boys.


So, in honor of November being National Adoption Month and even more so in honor of my boys and other adoptive families and birth parents.  I'm asking all of parents of children of any age, so begin in some way to also include a little adoption education when you are discussing other issues, such as differences in race, beliefs, familial makeup, gender, etc.  Do you ever wonder what to say?  Or perhaps what not to say?  Here are a few of my thoughts of points to consider (many of which are covered in the article mentioned above).  Not all of these will be appropriate to share with a child, so choose wisely and age appropriately and always out of love for all children.

1.  Adoption is normal.  It might not be as common as a biological family, but it is normal.

2. "Real" is not a word we use to describe biological or adoptive parents.  I am my son's mother.  Period.  He also has a birth mother, or his first mommy as we refer to her.  She is also real and she was also a mother to him.

3. Children are not given up for adoption because they are not wanted.  In most cases, there are circumstances preventing a birth parent from being able to keep a child.  It could be anything from mental illness, to financial problems, to drugs, to age and a number of other reasons.  We must educate our children to not think a parent (mother or father) gave a child up because they did not want the baby.  Yes, there may be rare instances where that is the case, although I still say the reason they do not want to keep the baby are based somewhere other than desire.

4.  The reasons for #3 are personal and private and nobody's business.  It has no bearing on the value of my child as a beautiful, loved son or daughter.  If I or my child chooses to share the reasons at some point, then I hope you will listen with an open heart.  Otherwise, we need to educate our children that they may not understand all the reasons, and that's okay.  What matters is that they were able to be matched up with parents of love them.

5.  There is always some degree of loss.  A child adopted at birth still experiences sadness at some point in his or her life.  There is still loss.  Some process and cope with it better than others.  But most likely, every adopted child will experience some degree of loss, and that is perfectly normal.  And they also will always feel a love for their birth family, and that is perfectly normal and it is a very good thing.

6.  Adoption shouldn't be a secret we whisper about behind closed doors.  Secrets imply something is wrong, and there is nothing wrong with it.  If your child asks you a question about adoption in front of my child, please answer truthfully, cheerfully and with love and compassion, just as you would if they asked you "what's wrong with that man?" in front of a man in a wheelchair.  Or "why is his skin so dark?" in front of a woman of color.  Don't whisper as if there is shame.  You can say "yes, D is adopted and isn't that wonderful?  Do you have any questions about what that means?"  Or maybe "D, can you explain what adoption is?" Because my child can, and he's not ashamed of it.  It's all he knows.

7.  Please, oh please do not tell my child, or yours, that my child should be grateful we adopted him.  First of all, he's not grateful yet because he doesn't realize he should be.  And he doesn't realize that life could have been worse for him.  And second of all, I will always need to be more grateful that I was given these sweet boys than they ever need to be for me.  It is not a requirement for him to recognize every minute of his life that he was rescued and should be indebted to us for that.  That may not really be the case.  And I can promise you there were many many people in line for these sweet babies.  I wasn't his last resort.  Please just let him be a kid who can be frustrated with his parents like every other kid out there.  He doesn't need to bow in gratitude for a decision in which he had no choice.

8.  And please, oh please, do not tell me how wonderful I am for taking him in, especially in front of him!  I'm not his saviour.  I am his mother.

9.  Adopted children often have different physical features than their adoptive parents.  We don't face this as much in our family, but remember that those traits did come from someone...from other parents.  And we celebrate them and love them.  And there are many biological families, especially those of mixed race, in which there are differences in skin tones and eye color and sizes.  It's part of what makes us unique.  It's not a flaw or a shameful characteristic.  It's unique.  I have one black haired, brown-eyed son and one blue-eyed blondie.  I always say D's eyes are the color of chocolate and S's eyes or the color of the sky (both things I love).  And when D sadly says I have black hair and none of my friends have black hair I always get excited and say "isn't that amazing??  Your hair is so special and not many people have hair as black as yours."  And truly, it is beautiful hair.

10.  Please, please remember that we don't discuss adoption every day.  We talk about school and funny things that happened and Wild Kratts and the planets and how to make homemade clay.  We don't NOT talk about adoption, but it's not an every day topic, just as you don't discuss your child's birth every day.  How often do you remind your child he or she was conceived by you and your spouse and show them footage of the birth?  It's part of their story for sure, but it just doesn't generally come up at the dinner table.  So while education on the subject is so important for all of us, remember that we are a normal family, just like you.  We aren't always "and adoptive family" or an "adopted son".  We are just a family.  He is just my son.  It's not derogatory to say those things.  It's just not necessary to clarify all the time.  It's just who we are.  It would be like saying "my African-American friend" or "my friend in the wheelchair".  Yes, those may be accurate descriptions, but they aren't necessary because those aren't the reasons you are friends.  They are side notes.  Minor details.  They aren't shameful side notes or details, just not pertinent in most cases.

Remember that adoption is part of this thing we call diversity.  When discussing diversity, please include this large segment of our population. I will be forever grateful if my child is understood and accepted "as is" than made to feel like he was unloved and unwanted and rescued.  Perhaps the questions are just curious, but they still hurt.  And when a child is bombarded with the questions  on a playground or at school or wherever he or she may be, it can be a truly traumatic experience.  And my child should really just be like your child, living his or her normal, but always special, and hopefully still magical childhood.

It Has Only Taken Seven Years

Celebrating the completion of Ninja
Camp with an ice cream cone.

Something happened last week that hasn't happened to me in six years.  July 7th came and went without me realizing it.  it came and went and I forgot to be sad.  7/7/7 was supposed to be a lucky day, and as one that has always read a little to much into signs, I thought that it was an extra big sign that we would be given a child with that birth date.  I don't know what happened.  Maybe it was the craziness of returning from a twelve day vacation with family in Texas.  Maybe it was Summertime or sleep deprivation or loads of work to do.  Maybe it was my recent obsession with Brendan Coyle, leading me to Google/Youtube/Hulu/Netflix everything he has ever acted in so I could watch for hours as I worked in my shop into the wee hours of the morning.  Or maybe the recent finalization of S's adoption....miracle #2....has finally settled my heart.  Whatever it was, it took four days for me to realize Isaac's birthday had come and gone, tearfree and without the longing I often feel for our first son.  It's amazing how someone can be with you for only five months and losing them can cause years and years of grief.

My little guys share a birthday, in a crazy twist of fate.  I have two little left-handed boys born on the same day four years apart.  Maybe I got my sign after all.  They are the best.  They both have their own adoption story full of joys and sorrows.  D is five now and we have already had discussions about his adoption. S is one year old and oblivious to the  miracle of how he came to us.  But, someday we will start talking about it.  Someday soon.  It's a good thing.  Not without it's challenges, but nothing worth anything comes without a challenge.

My first ice cream cone

I tackled a fear this morning.  I did on ocean swim in preparation for a triathlon.  I love the ocean but I'm afraid of sharks, especially swimming out past the breakers.  I did it though, and I felt great for so many reasons.  I'm 43 and I'm running Ragnar and doing an open ocean swim.  I live in a beautiful place with two little boys that I wasn't sure were ever going to be a part of my life.  I will always miss my Isaac, but I am learning to see the joy and to keep moving forward, tackling life's challenges and relishing its opportunities.   I am learning to accept the pain of losing my baby and the fact that it will always be there, but it is a reminder that I have the capacity to feel love, and I don't regret that.  And this year, as his birthday came and went without a thought, I am learning that time really does heal us.  Or maybe its my two beautiful boys that are healing me.  Or my three beautiful boys teaching me, even if one is teaching me from a long way away.  It's only taken seven years.  Another number seven.....maybe it's a sign.   Happy belated birthday, sweet baby Isaac.

I don't mean to be greedy, but I want another one.

One of two photos I have of D in the hospital.
(A dog only gestates for 60 days.  A monkey varies.  The little
guy in the middle??  Well, for us it was just over 900 days)

It’s been exactly one year since we got back on the list to adopt again.  We had to wait one year to even get on the list to begin with.  It took three months to get our physicals and paperwork done and another seven months to finally get our interviews, and then two more months of processing before receiving the call that we were officially waiting.  They tell you to consider yourself pregnant when you are on the list because a child could come any time.  Well, it’s the longest gestational period I’ve ever heard of.  I was looking at a list of animals with the longest gestational periods (yes, I’m random like that) and with D we were only beat out by the Black Alpine Salamander which gestates for two to three years and some sharks which can gestate up to three and half years.  Well, technically we might have tied with the salamander since it was two and half years of waiting before we got D.  And, really, if you count the extra fourteen months of waiting for the adoption to finalize, then really we win!  Sorry sharks!  So I guess, right now at twelve months, we are only up to the Bottlenose Dolphin, and it didn’t even make the top ten list.  Perhaps maybe I just need to cool my jets.  Oh, but the waiting can be so hard.  

D is growing like a weed, and I so want him to have a sibling or two and I want to have more children.  Sometimes after a hard day with him, I wonder what the heck I’m thinking in wanting more.  But most days, he is my funny little companion who keeps me on my toes and makes me see life in a whole new way.  He reminds me that there is still purity and innocence in this world.  He reminds me to stop and look at bugs and leaves and funny cloud shapes.  He reminds me that no job I hold down right now would be as important as these experiences with him.  He reminds me why I wanted to be a mother.  And he reminds me that even though I hold fear that we might have another heart-wrenching experience like losing our little Isaac, we could also have another experience like keeping our precious D.  And so we wait.  Next month, we’ll pass up the Manatee, and by the time D turns four in May, we will have shot right past the camel, velvet worm, rhinoceros and walrus and we will be neck and neck with the giraffe.  I hope we don’t catch up with the elephant.  And I sure as heck don't want to catch up with those extra-long-gestating sharks.  I hope it's soon. I hope we have more kids in our home before the 2013 holiday season sets in.  I hope we get to keep those kids forever. I hope.

(side note...the last part of this post was inspired by the last few things Red says in Shawshank Redemption, lest anyone think I was stealing the idea....which I was, but at least I'm giving credit.  His last paragraph or so has stuck with me lately, and describes in a way how I feel about this whole process)

The Perfect Family. It Ain't Happening. And It's a Good Thing.

The perfect family.  What a terrible goal.  And yet, it just seems like that’s what we all are trying so hard to attain and the thing at which we are failing so miserably.  I don’t mean that to sound so depressing and negative, but, let’s face it, it’s an unattainable goal.  One thing I’ve learned in my two-decade quest to have a child is that so many of things we thought we would have when we were older just don’t happen for one reason or another.  And it’s not a bad thing.  We think it is for some reason.  We think that we should have reached all those goals we set for ourselves at eight or fifteen or twenty-two.  Why is that?  Since when does an eight or fifteen or twenty-two-year-old have such amazing prophetic insight to know what we will want or what will benefit us most twenty or thirty years down the road?  Heck, I don’t even have that kind of insight for the next six weeks!

I have posted several times about this “Attachment Parenting” class that we have been taking, and will continue to post because there have been so many amazing insights and bits of information that are worth sharing in this six-session course.  This notion of having the ideal family is one of them.  As often goes with this class, there was an activity to illustrate the point.  They gave us each a sheet of paper with an outline of a child on it.  We were directed to list inside the outline all the qualities we had ever dreamed of having in our child.  What did we wish for?  What did we think our child might be like when we were younger?  Outside the outline, we were told to write all the qualities that we thought we would have as parents.  What did we want to be like as a parent?  How did we envision ourselves in that role?   What things would we do differently, because we just knew that our parents were wrong about certain things and we couldn’t wait to show them the correct way to parent.  Trying to be one step ahead of where this game was headed, I tried to make sure I was well-rounded in my wish list.  I didn’t just want a “good” kid.  I wanted him or her to be independent and creative and have a good work ethic.  And I wanted to look like a great parent and say that I wanted to be involved and affectionate and disciplined.  And there is nothing wrong with any of these things.  In fact, I thought I had a pretty good list.  But, I was surprised with what happened next.  One of the other teachers picked up a trash can and walked over to our tables and said “now throw it away”.  And she made each of us crinkle up that paper with our well-thought out descriptions and throw it towards her as she caught it in the trash can.  They told us to go ahead and mourn the loss of that ideal, get over it and move on.  It was a light bulb moment.

The thing is, how can we know how life is going to turn out?  How can we have even a ten percent chance of being accurate with what twists and turns our lives will take?  Now, some people know what they want to be when they grow up and they go out and they do it.  But it’s rare.  Most of us have goals and dreams, but the tides and swells take us this way and that and we adjust and shift our focus and move on to other things.  And that’s amazing.  Human beings are so flexible and can go with the flow in so many ways.  So why do we look back on it and wonder what happened to those dreams?  I’ll tell you what happened to them.  Life.  That’s what happened.  And it’s a good thing.  Go with it.  Because more often than not, we get more interesting and incredible opportunities than we even knew existed at eight or fifteen or twenty-two.  And often, we are faced with things we never would have chosen, and after fighting through those battles, we realize that we are better people because of it and never would have become who we are without those challenges.  And that is the point with raising kids, and especially adopting kids.  Our family may not look like or act like the family we thought we would have.  We may have gotten kids through a completely different channel than we had planned.  And they come with relationships and baggage and all kinds of things we never expected.  But we need to see that our life has a greater purpose than making a beautiful Christmas card  photo.  We have work to do.  We have children to help and love and raise.  We have so many ways that we can make a difference in this world and in the lives of others and that is fulfilling and life-changing.  It will bring happiness if we can throw away that dusty image in our minds that we created decades ago and that is pinned in our brains as the ideal life.  We are going to have bad days.  We are going to have days where we feel that we are the worst parents in the world.  Our kids are going to pitch fits and embarrass us in public.  Our kids will have mental and physical challenges.  They might have birth defects or ADD or be painfully shy.  They might struggle with self-confidence, or go through difficult phases of biting or hitting or spitting or all of the above.  They might tell us they hate us or that we aren’t their real parents.  We might have days where we aren’t feeling so much love for them.  We might have days where we aren’t feeling so much love for ourselves.  We will get sick, sometimes with long-term, debilitating illnesses.  We will get frustrated and lonely and depressed.  And that’s okay, because we will have many more wonderful moments and even entire days.  And we will mercifully catch glimpses of perfection when our children look into our eyes and we know for a fact that we’ve made a connection and we know that they know that we love them and that we are in it for the long haul.  Even forever. 

The thing is, we aren’t here to have a perfect family.  We are here to give our children the best opportunity at perfecting themselves that we can offer.  And I don’t mean that they need to be perfect, but that they have the best chance of being their best self.  So crinkle up that ideal list in your mind and throw it away.  Burn it if you have to, so you can’t possibly dig it out of the trash.   And then grab your kids and go to the zoo.  Do some craft project with them and don’t worry if it makes a mess or if they don’t follow your directions to a tee.  Just revel in the fact that you are spending time with them and that there is love there.  Hug them, laugh with them, accept them and nurture them.  And relax and know that that is what family is all about.

Plan B. It's a Good Thing.

My Sweet Adopted Plan B Child--Running Free

I heard an adult adoptee say once “let’s face it, nobody comes into adoption because that was their first choice”.  I don’t know about “nobody” but I think that’s probably generally true for the majority of adoptive parents.  We are here because this was Plan B, and Plan A failed.  Heck, it might have even been Plan C or D!  This particular quote came from a girl who was a little bit bitter about all she had been through, and even though she had great adoptive parents, there was something in knowing that she was Plan B that bothered her.  I’ve pondered on that statement many times, and wondered how to keep D from feeling that way.  But, as I have thought more about it, I have wondered how many times our Plan A didn’t work out and that whatever came as a result of having to rethink our plans was actually better than our Plan A would have ever  been.  Let’s think about high school crushes we just knew we wanted to marry, or how many times we changed majors in college, or how many jobs we had before we found something we liked, or how often you spent way too much money on something you just had to have, only to find it was not nearly as fulfilling as anticipated.  I’ve heard so many stories of people who suffered some great difficulty, only to find that it was the very thing that propelled them to greatness.  My father wound up with a combination of horrible dehydration and a double kidney infection this summer that left him practically passed out on his bedroom floor in the middle of the night, after having vomited everywhere.  And yet, in diagnosing his kidney infections, the doctor found a cancerous mass in his lung.  He just had surgery in which everything was successfully removed and no signs of spreading because it was caught so early.  We are thanking God right now for that horrible round of infections.  I remember seeing an interview with Richard Dreyfuss about how he was afraid this stupid movie he was in was going to end his career.  It was Jaws.  Lance Armstrong became even more competitive after his bout with cancer.  His body experienced changes that ultimately made him a better athlete.  And perhaps mentally, he was so much tougher having fought that battle.  Whatever it was, the combination paid off in a way that had not happened before the cancer.  There is story after story of incidences in which the thing we so desperately wanted faded off into the sunset and surprisingly left an opportunity for something better.

I won’t say that adoption is better than birthing a child.  I would still jump at the chance to be pregnant and have that wonderful experience.  But I don’t pine away for it like I used to do.  Age has blessed me with the ability to look back on my life and acknowledge that I have learned some fabulous lessons from experiences I would never have wished upon myself.  I have come to know amazing people because I was forced to.  I have had my eyes opened to new possibilities, and also just to the idea of having them open.  I have learned to pay attention to the people and things and opportunities that grace my pathway, and just assume that I have something to gain by taking a closer look.  Years of fertility treatment brought grief and many tear-filled nights.  But it also brought knowledge and compassion I have been able to share with others going through the same thing.  Adoption has caused me to ponder what it is that really makes a family, and what I’m willing to go through to have my own, Plan B or otherwise.  Maybe the “B” stands for blessing, or better, or beneficial or brave.  Or maybe it just stands for best, because that’s what it’s been for us.

It’s a Marriage, Not a Birth: Get Over It. Love It. Embrace it.

I’ve been told that adoption is more of a marriage than a birth.  I think that is pretty accurate and the older the child is at the time of adoption, the more of a marriage it is.  At first I thought that because we got D when he was so young, that this wouldn’t really be as true for us, but it is.  Think about the differences between a birth and a marriage.  A birth is when a human life enters the world not ever having known anything else but his mother and father.  I add father because even though he hasn’t physically touched his father until birth, he is still made up of DNA and other physical things that came directly from his father—things that physically touched him.  This child has known no other life besides his own and in some degree, that of his parents.  An adopted child has a history before you—family, friends, DNA, culture, and so many other things—and that’s okay.  It’s even good, so embrace it.

As I’ve sat in numerous adoption and foster parent classes, I have been privy to many, many discussions, some which included me, and some to which I not-so-subtly eavesdropped.  It has been interesting to hear how many prospective adoptive parents would like to erase their potential child’s past and “move on”.  Things like drug and alcohol abuse, neglect, mental illness and so many more issues that have plagued various birth parents lives, become the reasons for criticism.  And keep in mind that many adoptions happen as the result of very coherent, deliberate choices by wonderful birth parents to place their children with families because they just don’t feel that they can give those children good lives.  Those choices are made out of a great love for their child and extreme unselfishness.  But, as one who has adopted out of our local foster care, I can say that most adoptions aren’t the result of a choice like that.  I believe that adoptive parents really need to face this fact:  adoption is not the same as a biological birth.  Accept it.  Mourn the loss of it, if that bothers you, and get over it.  It’s not the same and it never will be and that’s not a bad thing.  It’s just a different thing.

I remember sitting through a wonderful class that was all about how we need to not cut off all ties from a child’s birth family or the life they had before adoption.  The instructors taught about how continued visits with biological family long after adoption can be most beneficial to the child.  They taught us to not throw away clothes or blankets or anything from the child’s life before adoption because no matter how tattered and dirty those things might seem to us, they are one of the few connections that child has with their biological family and with a former life that is becoming more and more distant in his memory.  They talked about not changing their names (especially in older children) because it may be the only thing their mother ever gave them.  They talked about the difficulty in still having contact with the biological family, but that in many cases, that contact was very healing for a child.  They discussed how many adoptive parents don’t want the hassle of more extended family, or regular visits, or dealing with people that aren’t their own family.  They said often adoptive parents are insecure that a child might perhaps love someone else more than them, and maybe want to return to live with that family, but that on the contrary, usually what happens is that the adopted child realizes this was the better choice for him and is happier to have discovered that for himself.  Ironically, right after the bulk of this class was taught, I heard an adoptive father turn to someone else during a break and say “Well, I’m severing those ties as soon as possible.  I know what’s best for my child and they aren’t it.”  I was totally surprised that he had missed every single principle taught in that class, and I felt sadness at how his child may feel, not only with his parents’ attitude towards where he came from, but also without that connection that might have helped him to heal more quickly and more completely.  Adopted children need to sort through all these things at their own pace, not at a pace that is more convenient for us.  A marriage is two people entering in to a contract, with risks on both sides.  Don’t forget it’s a risk for the child to take you, too, and he never asks for you to leave your past behind.

Adoption is a wonderful thing.  If you have read any of my blog entries, then you already know how I feel about it.  But it is the marrying of two worlds.  It is two or more people that aren’t blood-related coming together just like in a marriage.  As you willingly step into that union, remember that you are taking that child to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish until…well, I know the traditional vows ends with “til death do us part”, but I believe in the eternal nature of families, so I will replace that with “forever and ever”.   

Open letter to friends and family of someone dealing with infertility, and perhaps looking at adoption as the next step: 7 THINGS NOT TO SAY, in no particular order:

1.   “Take my kids for a weekend and see if you still want any.”  It’s not the same thing.  I don’t care how much you love a niece or the son of a friend, having them for a weekend would not soothe the desire for a child nor would it eliminate it.  Anyone who has felt the great blessing of being given the opportunity to raise their own child should know this.  I don’t want a weekend baby.  I’m not looking to babysit.  I want a son or a daughter.  This comment only pours salt in the wound that not only do I not have a child, but you aren’t enjoying the ones you have.  I remember Madonna making a comment once about how money was over-rated, and I thought, then why doesn’t she just give it all away?  It’s easy to say money is over-rated when you're loaded.  But when there is $10 in your bank account and you have a child to take care of, it doesn’t seem so over-rated.  A comment like this from someone who already has the one great thing you would love to have just hurts.  It isn’t funny.

2.  “Adopted kids are just different/difficult.”  Well, thank you for raining on my parade!  I have one option to have kids—adoption.  So, for you, with your three kids, to tell me that my only path is subpar is insensitive.  I am not an ignorant girl who thinks kids are about people at the park telling me how cute my child is.  I know it will be hard.  But, frankly, there are no guarantees with a biological child.  There is disease and mental illness and hard-headedness and rebelliousness.  None of us are given a free pass.  I know plenty of adopted kids that have thrived in a loving home.  There may be issues.  Or their might not be that many.  But, I am thrilled at the chance to adopt, so although I appreciate your concerns, I’m not going into it blindly.  To me, having children is not about the picture-perfect Christmas card, although I love that as much as the next person.  Having children is about providing a child with a chance to learn and grow and thrive and be a better person, and that is as true for an infant as it is for a 10-year-old kid who’s been in foster care a good part of his life.  Maybe he will have more struggles, but the point is that he has a family, and someone to spend time with him and help him sort through the things that have happened to him and help him to be a better person.

3.  “Maybe if you adopt a child you will get pregnant.”  This is quite possibly the absolute worst reason to adopt a child.  We, as adoptive parents, need to be 110% on board with adopting a child because we want that child.  Not because we are hoping it will have some magical effect on our bodies and we will suddenly be able to conceive the child we really want.  An adopted child has already been through a lot, and older children have been through so, so much.  It is so unfair to expect that child to now be the sacrifice for something supposedly greater.  Most of us who adopt don’t feel this way.  And you, as family and friends, need to not think that way, either.  And if it does happen, and we get pregnant after we adopt, you need to know that to us, those kids are the same.  They are both ours and we love them both equally, so please don’t treat them differently.  Please don’t think because your family’s DNA runs in the veins of one and not the other, that that child should be the one to inherit the special family heirloom, or get the family name, or any other special treatment.  To us, these kids are our flesh and blood.  We don’t see them differently, so you shouldn’t either.

4.  RE: any fertility treatment:  “I just know this is going to work!”  I don’t know how many times I heard this.  The thing is, I know you mean well and are trying to be a cheerleader, but you CAN’T know it’s going to work.  You aren’t God.  None of us KNOW what is going to work.  And believe me, once you’re on your 6^th or 7^th or 10^th fertility procedure, no one wants it to work more than you do.  It’s better to say things like “I sure hope this works!  I am keeping you guys in my prayers” or “You have been through so much, you sure deserve this” or “we love you and are there for you no matter what.  Please let me know what I can do to help.”

5.  (While in the middle of a difficult moment with your child) “Are you sure you want kids?”  It’s similar to the “Take my kids for the weekend….” comment.  I know parenthood isn’t easy.  But I do know it’s worth it.  I know that I desperately want a child, and if yours is acting up at the moment and you are frustrated, I also know that that will pass.  I don’t want your screaming child.  I want my own screaming child.  And I say that because I know my child will scream sometimes.  In fact, as I’m writing this, I’m in the middle of a battle of wills with my 2 ½ year old wonderful son, and he is screaming because he doesn’t want to pick up a handful of raisins he has thrown on the floor for the third time.  And though I'm frustrated, I am secretly smiling, because hearing him scream is a reminder that I have a son.  I know you are frustrated in that moment, and I know that sometimes, we say things out of frustration.  But, it is more salt in the wound. 

6.  “Just have faith.”  If everyone who wanted something in life was able to get it by just having faith, none of us would want for anything.  I believe faith is about believing that God will direct you in the path that is best for you, and often that means accepting a different path than you thought you were destined for.  And that’s not a bad thing.  I hear stories all the time of people who thought they wanted to follow one road, and an accident or tragedy or just a chance happening (if you believe in chance), led them somewhere else and it turned out to be a wonderful thing—better than the original plan.  I have faith that if I try to do what’s right, and pray to know what I need to be doing, then I will be led to the thing(s) that is right for me.  Infertility and chance meetings with different people led me down the road to adoption, and it has been the greatest blessing in my life.  I wouldn’t wish the disappointments we suffered on anyone, but I wouldn’t change it for us.  When you tell someone they could just have something if they just had enough faith, it is a backwards criticism.  In other words, you are saying you had enough faith because you have a child, but I must not because I don’t.  And I hope we all know that is not true. 

7.  “You are so great to give that child a better life.”  This is another comment that seems like a compliment, but it’s not a good thing to say, especially in front of the child.  I didn’t go into adoption to be benevolent or charitable.  And I know it may be a fine line, but it’s not a service project.  It is a human life.  And that human life needs a family, not a benefactor.  We want our family and friends to know that we want a child, period.  It is %100 selfish.  It is not to do a good deed, or at least it shouldn’t be.  A child deserves to be wanted.  Every child deserves that.

I'm sure there are more, and I know that we need to not be overly sensitive to everything people say.  But sometimes, in the middle of such an emotional, hormone-involved situation, hearing these comments for the 10th time can lead to a complete meltdown.  My biggest advice is to just be supportive and positive and don't avoid eye contact with us or avoid inviting us to baby showers because you don't want to upset us.  We don't want to feel alone because nobody knows what to say.  Just express love, support, and let's have conversations about other things, too.  We are going to cry, and that's okay.  Just cry with us, or buy us ice cream.  And when we get the call that we are getting a child, whether straight from the hospital or 10 years old, be super excited for us.  And love our kids as unconditionally as you would if you had been present at a live birth.  We will love you forever for it.

When should I be allowed to feel this child is mine?

I'm still not sure I'm ready to talk about the failed adoption we endured four years ago, but something I read a couple of days ago got me thinking about the whole event again (not that I ever stop thinking about it, but it made me want to express a thought).  To condense a long, painful story into a few sentences, we were in the process of adopting a baby boy in 2007, and due to a number of lies the birthmother told, the supposedly "unknown" father found out about his son, and got him back after five months.  We were devastated, to say the least.  And even though we are thrilled with our son, now, and even though we knew the birth father was not at fault and had every right to have his son, it was the most painful experience I've ever endured.  We cried every day for months, and that's not an exaggeration--not all day, but at some point every day, I broke down.  I read a post on an adoption-related site on Facebook a couple of days ago that referred to adoptive parents as sometimes feeling "entitled" to a child that isn't officially theirs yet, and there was some discussion in comments following about how it's such a difficult decision for the birth parents and that we need to respect their right to take some time to make that decision.  And although I completely agree that it must be an extremely difficult decision, I have to say that I think it is unfair to think that adoptive parents should just care for a baby until the birthparents make up their minds as to what they want to do.  It think it's unfair to the adoptive parents and also to the child.  I hold no animosity towards our first son's mother.  And I have absolute compassion for our current son's birthmother (who actually passed away from a drug overdose before we even finalized our adoption).  But I think there are sides to consider all around.  In California, where we are, I believe the system weighs too heavily in favor of reunification, to the point where many children are dragged through the process for years until they reach an age where they are much less likely of being adopted.  I know of a girl who has been in foster care her entire fourteen years of life and is now struggling to be placed in a family, desperate to have parents and somewhere to call home.  During the first twelve month's of D's process, there were still chances for his birthmother to change her mind and fight to get him back.  It would have been difficult but not impossible.  Such painful decisions all around.  I think after a child has been with you for twelve months and the birth mother has made little or no effort to get him back, that perhaps you should be able to feel a little entitlement.  And I don't mean that in an arrogant way.  I have love for everyone involved, but at some point, enough is enough.  When is that point??

Post your adoption stories!

So many thoughts have been in my head about this whole process. It's been a week since we finalized, and I've written 10 poems, all just a little different. So many people are sharing their experiences with me. It's one of those things that you don't realize has affected so many people around you until you start talking abou it. I have one poem that's about glass, so am looking for a glass artist to create something to go with it.

Been thinking about the baby we lost a lot lately. We had him 5 months and the "unknown" father, who wasn't really unknown, got him back. It's been 3 years and as I thought about the day he took him away, I started to tear up again. So I thought about something else. Haven't really let myself go there yet. Don't know how long it will take before I can revisit that day, but I know it's not yet. I'm thrilled we have D, but he's not a replacement. He's his own child, and little Isaac will always hold a special place in our hearts. I haven't written anything about that experience yet---maybe that's next....we'll see.

Forever Family Print

I was up for hours one night while all these poems just came to me. Now, I'm up for hours putting the images with the words. At first this was going to be the beginning of a longer poem, but I really liked the way it sounded short and sweet. One of the things you have come to terms with when you finally reach the point that you're ready to adopt, is that your child or children is probably not going to look like a combination of you and your spouse. And although that may sound a little superficial that you would want that, it's something you've often thought about since you were a kid--what will my kids look like? You have to mourn each loss, no matter what that loss is. Then, when you're filling out paperwork, you have to fill out the laundry list of things you will and won't take in a child, and part of that is physical--what ethnic groups will you accept? What if there are birth defects? It's a long exhausting list, and the emotions of making all those decisions you don't have to make with pregnancy can be daunting. But, when you get the phone call to come see your baby, if you've properly mourned all those losses step by step, you just don't care any more. And it becomes exciting to hear what they look like! Oddly enough, our baby wound up looking a lot like us afterall! So funny how that happens sometimes. But, even if he hadn't, we couldn't love him more if he was flesh and blood.