by wendybancroft on April 23, 2009
This question was recently posed by one of the growing community of people on Twitter with an interest in adoption and I find it a fascinating and important question. In our family, the answer seems to have been a definite “yes.” Our daughter did not start coming to terms with some of the demons in her life until she began to understand the source of her unhappiness and fears. But I know that not all people who are adopted share this experience/need and yet a conversation I had with a young man who had recently been reunited with his birthmom and while he said he had little curiosity or need to find this person when he was younger, when he did meet her and other half siblings, he felt an unexpectedly strong emotional stirring. So this has made me wonder whether the need is always there, whether admitted or not. And whether some level of grief for what was not, might be necessary in order to move on in at least some areas of your life.
by wendybancroft on April 18, 2009
Yesterday, Judy on Twitter Adoption Moms, posed the question: “Have you or others you’ve known followed a “leap of faith” to adopt?” Made me think–was my decision a “leap of faith”? Here’s what I wrote: I guess so. I’ve never thought of it that way. I’d had several miscarriages, been taking the gamut of fertility tests, finally decided not to keep trying to get pregnant. I had a biological son by my first marriage and although my husband had no children, he had heart disease and was worried about passing this on.
But, we lived in Singapore then and my son had gone home to live with his father. I missed my son terribly. Then I had another miscarriage. I was devastated. After that, I KNEW I still wanted to mother a baby. A few days later I was having my hair done and the woman in the chair next to me was talking to her stylist about adopting her second baby from the Philippines. I perked up. Started asking questions, and within days we began our process to adopt from the Philippines. Yes, I guess it was a leap of faith. Little did I realize just how huge that leap would be.