I have wanted to share for a while whats on my heart about the struggles and the beauty of adoption. A lot is my personal experiences but I hope you can take something from it.
1) Adoption isn't a "fix". Before we adopted I heard this a lot "You could always just adopt." When I heard this it always seemed like a second option. What I learned is adoption is a calling. It is something that God himself ordains and places a desire that you don't even know is there and then makes it grow. What surprised me was the pain of being barren didn't immediately go away. It lingers like a thorn in your side you're pretty sure you got rid of. Adoption doesn't fix the brokenness that was created by the years of believing the lies you tell yourself that you aren't good enough to be a parent.
2) She is "my own". I have read many stories from other blogs about the moment their adopted child finally felt like their own child. I went into this fully expecting that it would be a while before I "fell in love with her." What I didn't expect however was the very second I laid eyes on her I loved her. I knew she was mine. I knew this was the child God had created for me to raise. I can't explain it and it defies logic but it's true. So it really bothers me when people ask me when I am going to have "my own." Although in their defense I have probably uttered those very words but only meaning that I want to create and carry a child one day.
3) Grandparents adopt too! The moment we started talking about adoption I started to think about how my family would feel. Would they love her as much as me? Would the accept her if she was a different race? What happened in our case was unbelievable. Not only did they accept her but our parents are the glue that hold our house together. They babysit, provide daycare, and do things like put new tires on our vehicles because it's unacceptable that their grandchild ride around on tires that look like that. My father in law told me in a conversation about me being afraid of her not being accepted that "grandchildren are someone elses children whether blood or not."
4) Lawyers and DSS This is where adoption gets really hard. This is where I wonder if I am really cut out for this. Adoption is redemption. It is giving a child a better option. It is possibly changing the direction of a human life. There is always resistance when you take what was meant for evil and it turn around. There is no step by step guide on wikipedia that I can find on adopting the easy way. I learned about Adalie two months before she was born. I spent those two months calling everyone I could think of that could tell me the steps to take. What we knew was we needed a lawyer and DSS would probably be involved because of the mothers situation. (drug abuse other children in care) What we learned was lawyers are expensive and DSS operates on their own time. Adalie was just one hour away from going to foster care because DSS would not send a worker to our house to inspect it after 5 days of us, Adalie and the birth mom waiting at the hospital for this inspection. It was a long desperate day of phone calls pleading for them to send someone, anyone out.
5) Medical Care. The biggest challenge by far has been getting her the right coverage/care. The second you mention she is adopted they treat you like you stole her. They request paperwork from every court date we ever had and suddenly every receptionist is an expert at reading court orders. Ours was a special case. The birth mother is my second cousin in the beginning she requested visitations which the court granted her with the stipulation that she be in rehab for visitations. When we were granted legal custody of her we were told we couldn't add her to our insurance because the birth mother had visitation. Another day of desperate pleading.We eventually won that battle but trust me it was a battle.
6) Birth momma guilt. Who knew there was such a thing? What is it you ask? I feel guilty for taking her from her mother. Then I feel guilty that I feel guilty. In order for me to become a mother a mother and a child have to lose each other. I know that I am doing a good thing. The right thing. However a child that was born to another women will call me mother. Adoption is also loss. And loss has to be grieved. As we know grief is a funny thing. Grief sneaks up out of no where in happy moments like her first tooth, her first solid food and the first time she crawls. There is a tiny voice that says I should call her and tell her about this because a small piece still feels like she belongs to her. My prayer is that this voice doesn't speak to Adalie. That she feels complete in us and that she feels like she belongs here. This isn't something I expect others to understand because it's complex.
7) Racism. Racism is a real thing. It is alive. If you don't believe me just come to dinner with us. There is usually some older white couple in the corner that just will not stop staring at us, and not in the "she is so cute" kind of way or even in the curious "how did she come out that color?" kind of way but in the kind of way that their body language screams that they are disturbed by us. It is disgusting to me and its easy to say "just ignore them" however when you are trying to enjoy a meal and the table next to you is unapologeticaly staring even when you stare back it makes things uncomfortable.
8) Doesn't everyone have $10,000-$40,000 in the bank? I might have mentioned before that adoption is expensive and that it has been said to me and others that "just adopting" is an option. What is little known about adoption is just how expensive it truly is. We got out cheap because we didn't have to use an agency. We weren't even planning on adopting we just got a phone call from a family member with news of a child that was going to go into foster care otherwise. If you use an agency on the low end the cost is about $15,000. We just had to pay for a lawyer and DSS to interview and dissect our lives so that they could decide if we were the right parents for her. All this cost close to $10,000. A very serious amount of money for us that we had to produce in a short amount of time to even get a lawyer to talk to us.
9) We live under a microscope. When we learned of the steps of adoption it was terrifying. Basically someone at DSS pulled up every decision we ever made put it all on paper and then took it before a "adoption committee" who then approves or denies our adoption. It to me sounded like a score card where points were deducted for each bad decision made. That one time you had to have surgery with no insurance and it cost $30,000 so you didn't pay any on it? Deduct. That time you had to do rear-ended someone 10 years ago and they sued your insurance company without your knowledge so it appears there is a judgement against you? Deduct. High balance on your credit card? Deduct. Minor misdemeanor charge that you weren't convicted of? Deduct. We were eventually approved however there were many sleepless nights about this process.
10) We are not saints. It's hard to know what to say when someone says "You guys are amazing for doing this." It's hard to respond to that because I don't feel like a saint. I don't feel like I'm doing anything anyone with our means wouldn't do. We waited so long for the day we would be parents that it just felt natural like we somehow knew it would happen this way. We aren't doing anything special we are just doing what feels natural. That doesn't make us any different.
