Okay this is something that has been heavy on my heart lately. I have been suppressing the urge to post about it on my Facebook page for a bit. I've seen some very sad posts lately in my newsfeed about pregnancy, birth, adoptions and the such and I just want to share that there are always 2 sides to every story.
Many of you know that my boys are adopted. We tried for 7 years to get pregnant without a single ovulation- not a single chance that we would ever carry our genetically-linked child into this world. Did this make me sad? YES- sad is an understatement- I was devastated. It is the one most natural thing your body, as a woman, is meant to do, and when it doesn't do it, it's hard to understand and accept why. Until April 4, 2003 when I met my children for the first time. I knew in that first moment that THEY were who we had been waiting for all those years. <3
Now to some adoption my be an "easy way out" for a mom with an unplanned pregnancy, or they may see it as the birthmother "giving up" a child, but here's how I view adoption: The birthmother (or birthparents) are essentially giving the child that they are carrying the life that they know they wouldn't be able to provide for them. They are giving that child the opportunity to have 2 loving parents, siblings, love (more love than they may know what to do with), the opportunity to grow and flourish without struggle. Is this the case for all adoptions? I'm sure it's not- but in some cases the birthparents aren't ready to be parents and they couldn't bring themselves to have an abortion, so they carry the baby to term- they aren't ready to give up their life for the life of the child so they place them for adoption. This is an extremely hard choice for the birthmother/parents to make. But in making this decision they are helping a family who otherwise wouldn't have gotten the chance to become a family. I promise you that adoptive parents pray just as hard for these babies as those who pray for them to be kept. Sometimes adoptive parents wait years to be matched with a birth family, after being scrutinized by an adoption agency as to their fitness to be a family (while anyone who can get pregnant can have & keep a baby without a second thought). Sometimes there's a match made and the adoptive family prepares to welcome this baby into their home, fall in love with the unborn child only to have their dreams shattered when a birth mother decides at birth to keep the baby. Sometimes adoptive families bring the baby home only to be sued later by the birth family to take the child back. Failed adoptions happen- and are devastating to the family. Sometimes the children who are kept by the birth family end up in the state systems for various reasons, which can in turn have horrible effects on the child that may last in to adulthood.
While not everyone has the views of adoption that I do (I suppose you'd have to go through this to understand it?) A little bit of compassion should be given when you negatively speak of adoption. Without Adoption I would have never had the chance to be a mother. Without adoption my children would be wards of the state living in foster care. Without Adoption my husband would never have had the life he had. Without adoption many of my friends wouldn't have had children. Without adoption I wouldn't have a niece. Without adoption I may not have a nephew some day. Adoption may not be right for everyone or even "normal" but in our family it is more normal than pregnancy~ remember that the next time you want to think it's an awful thing. This is my Truth, and my life. <3
