Adopted & Considering Adoption

Hi Angela, Congratulations on your wonderful 29 month old son. We adopted the most amazing precious baby girl 13 months ago - the birth mom and dad chose us through the Independent Adoption Center - they gave her a stack of nearly 100 letters from families to choose from. We had several conversations with her (and with a couple of other birth moms) and after agreeing to adopt her baby, we met about a month before the birth. We were there for the birth - my husband cut the umbelicle cord - I was the first to hold her. At this moment, our daughter is racing through the house opening drawers and handing us things like toothbrushes and clean clothes and envelopes. I was adopted by my stepfather at age 10 and it was a disappointment - I worried about attachment, but I love this child more than I could ever imagine. The IAC has a monthly orientation - they are near LAXCd, are in several states and work with all 50 states. They have fantastic social workers - our experience was wonderful - and now we have friends we met through the agency and our daughter will have a sense of adoption being normal snce she will grow up knowing so many other children who were also adopted. Go to www.adoptionhelp.org Good luck and have fun with whatever you decide to do!

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Hi Angela,

I sent you a private message.

S.

Angela, I too am adopted and have not always had a positive experience as a result. I have 3 non-biologically-related siblings who are also adopted. I have not adopted children but have two biological sons, so from the point of view of parenting an adopted child I cannot comment.

I do believe strongly that you can love an adopted child as much as your own. On the other hand, depending on the age of the child, he/she may come to you with attachment issues. As a result of your own life experience, I would look at this as an opportunity for healing and help. This child will be adopted by somebody, why not somebody who truly understands the pain of being separated from his/her mother? You can not only understand the child from the same perspective, but you are uniquely qualified to perceive what that child needs in order to feel loved and nurtured.

My own mother chose to ignore the fact that we were adopted, and has never done a single thing to heal that rift within us. I probably have had the hardest time with it amongst my siblings. I wish so much my mother had been open to allowing me to discuss my feelings around it, and to understand that she loved me despite not being her biological child. It took me 4 decades of struggle to realize this on my own.

Good luck with your decision.
B.

We are adoptive parents of a now 4 year old. We spent much time, energy and money on fertility treatments until our ‘limit’ was reached (Our wise OB-Gyn had us set them, based upon realities fiscal, emotional, and my age!). Once we passed through a very real grieving stage - for the family that we could not make - we began the business of making our family by other means. I am so glad that we set limits upon a child-that-might-be and then pursued the child-already-born-who-needs-parents. It was good to try to conceive. It was equally good to say – “now for the NEXT set of actions”.

Bonding: my husband was worried sick, almost literally, that he wouldn't be able to bond with a child who wasn't "his", but this was absolutely NOT the case. As soon as our daughter-to-be wrapped her hand around his finger and looked into his eyes, she had his entire heart. And I do think that this was our daughter – meant to be and supposed to be and waiting for us to find her. She fits too perfectly into our entire universe to be anything but serendipitous and right.

There are many options with adoption, should you decide upon that path. You can seek a closed adoption – lots of overseas adoptions are closed. Friends with children born in China quote that as a guiding factor in their choice to adopt from there. Or you can trust that you and the agency counselors with whom you are working can craft a contact guide that will work for you and for your child.
Relationships with birth families: I am so sorry that your own experience was not all good. I have friends with similar stories, so we were primed and wary when it came time to deal with this issue. As it happens, we have regular contact with our daughter's biological, paternal grandmother, and that is fine. We set up very specific ground rules about contact (or the possibility of contact) with our birth parents. When and if any contact with either biological parent was to take place, it would be our decision, as the guardian or her emotional and psychological well being. This has been a superb guide and enabled us to have a loving and positive relationship with the grandmother, yet a feeling that we control what our daughter knows and doesn’t know (yet) about her story. Meanwhile, we wait and hope that her biological father will get his life together to the point where we feel willing and proud to introduce our daughter to him, and he, willing a proud to be introduced as such to her. Other than that, with the advice of our social worker, we pledged to give yearly photo and word updates by email or regular mail to either or both parents. It’s working quite well. I am sure that you could work out something that feels right for your situation as well.

I wish you calm (and a good sense of humor – it really really helps!) as you work on this huge set of decisions. I tried to compress my story, so if you want to ask more specific questions, please feel free to email me. I may have left our big information parts in my haste to simplify.