Adoption

My Views on Adoption

I really admire those young women who can give up something so much a part of themselves to someone else, knowing they no longer will have control over that life.  I know these things.  My daughter had a baby while still in high school.  She made the decision to keep her baby.  We encouraged her to consider adoption, remembering what her birthmother had done for us.  There were many people who have said to us “how can you even THINK of giving that precious life to someone else?’  I can think of it because that is how I received two of my children.  I can think of it, because I believe It is best for children to have a two-parent home.  I can think of it, because there are couples out there wanting a baby of their very own We were one of those couples.  I love my grandson; I love to have him in my house.  I loved him enough to know he and his mother needed to live with us, because both needed a stable home. I loved him enough that if my daughter had decided to choose adoption, I would have let him go. 

I hope we too, have made the experience a good one for my our oldest two with their birth family.  The openness of letters and pictures must help, as they can see how they change as they grow.  I’ve never felt threatened that my kids grew up knowing who that “other family” is.  All kids at some time or other are going to express the wish that we weren’t their parents, or that we never had been.  That happens to most parents, adoptive or not.  We had our first two children since they were a few days old and what we have given them, no one else can take away.

One thing we didn’t do and I wish we had known to is to get counselling.   Parents and children should have counselling with a good adoption counselor before they are teenagers or just beginning to be. AND, if you are a book reader, 

read books!

Family is family, no matter how it forms.