In the wake of all the recent horror stories about adoption in the news, several adoption advocacy groups have asked bloggers to share their stories, their truths. Here is mine.
The truth is that we talk about adoption a lot, but still often forget that our children were adopted. Note the "were"—past tense. Adoption just happens to be how they joined our family (as marriage was the route for me)—now they're just family. No modifier required.
The truth is that when things go wrong in the adoption community, the naysayers take it as an opportunity to paint everyone associated with adoption in broad strokes of bad—damaged kids, self-absorbed and unloving parents. Yet when biological parents abandon, abuse and kill their birth children—or the birth children grow up to become serial killers—we don't take that as an indictment of families.
The truth is that despite the innumerable hurdles and checks you have to go through to adopt a child, sometimes bad parents get through. (And I'm hoping I'm not counted in that number.)
The truth is that, in a perfect world, I wouldn't be a mom to these wonderful girls. And though it's like a knife through my heart to think of not ever knowing them, let alone getting to be their mother, sometimes I wish it was that perfect world for them.
The truth is that I get very tired of the stares and the comments because of my family isn't a "matched set." I am glad that people at least seem to have the good sense, now that my girls are bigger, to not say anything too obnoxious in front of them.
The truth is that people we never met gave us the most amazing opportunity—to be able to love and parent these two wonderful girls. And I am indebted to them for every kiss and hug, for every smile and moment of joy.
The truth is that it doesn't matter how you get to your family—all that matters is love. And we have that for each other—the bold, you-can-do-anything-and-we'll-still-love-you, rescue-you-from-a-burning-building kind of love. To all the people who think that blood is thicker than water, and birthfamily is stronger than adoptive family, I ask you if you love your husband or wife or life partner less than your kids—even though you didn't give birth to them, and you don't share genes with them. I rest my case.
