Why did you adopt?
Hello everyone,
I hope that when you read this post, you are healthy and safe from this virus. Remember to wash your hands and do not touch your face.
I wanted to dabble into the famous question: Why did you adopt? So many ask out of curiosity while others ask, almost, with disgust or unable to comprehend how one could do such a thing.
Regardless of how the question is asked, it should be answered in a truthful and educational manner. It is too easy to want to reply in anger when asked in a negative way. So, remember to always use a question about adoption into an educational moment.
Because I can't answer why others adopted, I will answer why we adopted. I have approached this in a previous blog post, this post will go more in detail about the "why" and how we, ultimately chose adoption to grow our family.
In high school, I had to write an essay in my English class - typical essay in your Senior class: "Where do you see yourself in the future?" I probably wrote that I wanted to be a ob-gyn or lawyer (I became the latter) and that I wanted to be married and have children. It was a typical essay but there is something unusual about my essay - I speak of adoption. I remember writing that if I was not married, that I would adopt a child to give them the love and life that they could not get due to circumstances that they could not have controlled.
This was unusual, not because I wanted to adopt. What was unusual is that it is the ONLY thing that I remember writing - if I close my eyes, I can see myself writing those lines. Therefore, it seems like adoption was clearly something that was already in my heart.
Years later and after being married for a couple of years, we suffered a miscarriage. Earth shattering, pure anger, total sadness, disbelief are but a few of the ways that I would use to describe that dark period in our marriage. It happened seven years ago. Time has healed many wounds, but it would be a lie to say that it still does not affect me.
After trying for several years, it seemed pretty clear that something was not right. I was tracking my cycles. I knew when I was fertile and I knew when the best days were to try to conceive. Yet, each month, it was always a failed attempt at conceiving.
Skip to a few years later, I am undergoing surgery and am told that I had Stage IV endometriosis and it was widespread. The damage was extensive, but my surgeon was able to remove it all. We were then told that I was at my healthiest and that I had six months to one year to ever conceive. We never did.
Adoption was already something that we had discussed quite early in our marriage. But as infertility became more and more a part of our marriage, the conversation went quiet. It went quiet until we were six months after surgery.
We were in the process of obtaining our Green Card and once we did...it was GO time! We started all the paperwork - and yes, there was a lot and we began our adoption journey.
Adoption was not a second best for us. It was just another way of growing our family because that was our ultimate goal. We knew we wanted to be parents, we just knew that our bodies would not help us achieve our goal.
Adoption was not a solution to our infertility, because guess what? we are STILL infertile!! What adoption did solve was our childlessness in our marriage. It also solved our issue of becoming parents. I need to make sure that this is understood because people often assume that once you adopt, BOOM - your infertility pain disappears. Yeah, it does not work that way. In addition, our children should not have to carry the burden of having cured our infertility. This burden was never their issue to solve.
We adopted because we wanted to be a Mom and a Dad. We wanted to travel with our kids. We wanted to bake cookies at Christmas. We wanted to watch silly movies and have crazy dance parties - which we already do. We wanted to snuggle them before bed and read to them. We wanted to teach them different languages and introduce them to new cultures. We wanted to play and be silly with them - which we do all the time. This and so many other reasons are why we adopted.
We did not adopt to feel like we would be part of the parent club. We did not adopt because we felt pressured to have children. We did not adopt because my spouse knew that I felt guilty and blamed myself for not being able to conceive or maintain a pregnancy. We did not adopt because he felt that after the surgery, it may have been his fault all along. We did not adopt because we wanted to be less bored. We did not adopt because we had bought a house and figured that we might as well fill it with all these kids. We did not adopt because we were envious that our siblings had children and we didn't. We did not adopt to obtain a different status. We did not adopt to have companionship.
We adopted because we wanted to be parents...and that is what we are to our three beautiful children.
Why did you adopt? please share your story and let's build our community.
Remember to keep safe and help prevent the spread of Covid-19.
SM
I hope that when you read this post, you are healthy and safe from this virus. Remember to wash your hands and do not touch your face.
I wanted to dabble into the famous question: Why did you adopt? So many ask out of curiosity while others ask, almost, with disgust or unable to comprehend how one could do such a thing.
Regardless of how the question is asked, it should be answered in a truthful and educational manner. It is too easy to want to reply in anger when asked in a negative way. So, remember to always use a question about adoption into an educational moment.
Because I can't answer why others adopted, I will answer why we adopted. I have approached this in a previous blog post, this post will go more in detail about the "why" and how we, ultimately chose adoption to grow our family.
In high school, I had to write an essay in my English class - typical essay in your Senior class: "Where do you see yourself in the future?" I probably wrote that I wanted to be a ob-gyn or lawyer (I became the latter) and that I wanted to be married and have children. It was a typical essay but there is something unusual about my essay - I speak of adoption. I remember writing that if I was not married, that I would adopt a child to give them the love and life that they could not get due to circumstances that they could not have controlled.
This was unusual, not because I wanted to adopt. What was unusual is that it is the ONLY thing that I remember writing - if I close my eyes, I can see myself writing those lines. Therefore, it seems like adoption was clearly something that was already in my heart.
Years later and after being married for a couple of years, we suffered a miscarriage. Earth shattering, pure anger, total sadness, disbelief are but a few of the ways that I would use to describe that dark period in our marriage. It happened seven years ago. Time has healed many wounds, but it would be a lie to say that it still does not affect me.
After trying for several years, it seemed pretty clear that something was not right. I was tracking my cycles. I knew when I was fertile and I knew when the best days were to try to conceive. Yet, each month, it was always a failed attempt at conceiving.
Skip to a few years later, I am undergoing surgery and am told that I had Stage IV endometriosis and it was widespread. The damage was extensive, but my surgeon was able to remove it all. We were then told that I was at my healthiest and that I had six months to one year to ever conceive. We never did.
Adoption was already something that we had discussed quite early in our marriage. But as infertility became more and more a part of our marriage, the conversation went quiet. It went quiet until we were six months after surgery.
We were in the process of obtaining our Green Card and once we did...it was GO time! We started all the paperwork - and yes, there was a lot and we began our adoption journey.
Adoption was not a second best for us. It was just another way of growing our family because that was our ultimate goal. We knew we wanted to be parents, we just knew that our bodies would not help us achieve our goal.
Adoption was not a solution to our infertility, because guess what? we are STILL infertile!! What adoption did solve was our childlessness in our marriage. It also solved our issue of becoming parents. I need to make sure that this is understood because people often assume that once you adopt, BOOM - your infertility pain disappears. Yeah, it does not work that way. In addition, our children should not have to carry the burden of having cured our infertility. This burden was never their issue to solve.
We adopted because we wanted to be a Mom and a Dad. We wanted to travel with our kids. We wanted to bake cookies at Christmas. We wanted to watch silly movies and have crazy dance parties - which we already do. We wanted to snuggle them before bed and read to them. We wanted to teach them different languages and introduce them to new cultures. We wanted to play and be silly with them - which we do all the time. This and so many other reasons are why we adopted.
We did not adopt to feel like we would be part of the parent club. We did not adopt because we felt pressured to have children. We did not adopt because my spouse knew that I felt guilty and blamed myself for not being able to conceive or maintain a pregnancy. We did not adopt because he felt that after the surgery, it may have been his fault all along. We did not adopt because we wanted to be less bored. We did not adopt because we had bought a house and figured that we might as well fill it with all these kids. We did not adopt because we were envious that our siblings had children and we didn't. We did not adopt to obtain a different status. We did not adopt to have companionship.
We adopted because we wanted to be parents...and that is what we are to our three beautiful children.
Why did you adopt? please share your story and let's build our community.
Remember to keep safe and help prevent the spread of Covid-19.
SM
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