Why Adoption?

Believe it or not it’s easier to tell this story by exploring briefly the reasons not to adopt. Because each one of us is different and has different situations, I’d like to explore the reasons I’ve seen that make adoption a poor decision.

I was standing on the soccer field watching my boys play, when a woman I’ve never met came up to me and said, clearly your boys are adopted. Since they are Korean and my husband or not, it’s pretty easy to figure out. She said “I can tell just by looking at you and them that you’re very close to your boys,” I said that I was.

She said that she was struggling because she could not get over her grief of not being a birth mother. This is an issue in the adoption community for those women who do not resolve this issue. They see adoption as second best, which never occurred to me.

She said she knew that her boys had figured out something wasn’t right, and we’re very fearful and anxious, even at eight and nine years old. I told her I would send her the name of my therapist as soon as I got home. I was fortunate enough to find a therapist who herself was adopted, what a gift!

Please be sure that you do not see adoption as second-best, rather something that fits you and your partner, your sense of yourself and your love of children.