So, why didn’t we just adopt?

Thank you for this post. We are actually in our THIRD YEAR of TRYING TO ADOPT. Its been the most traumatizing 3 years of my life, and has only further negatively affected my health. I have had 8 children (at different time, not all at once ) they SWORE I could adopt (through foster care) living in my home believing they were my future child only to have such a deep loss my soul is truly broken. We changed agencies about three months ago to work on adopting legally free children only through foster care. Countless interviews to be rejected over and over. Maybe eventually we will get chosen, but I am concerned for my own mental health and the health of my marriage in the meantime. Nothing about childlessness is simple. Nothing about the choice we make in which direction to go is simple. Its been thought over in every angle a person could look at something, and probably second guessed a few times through the years. But respectfully its only OUR choice to make and we need the support of those around us. Not their ideas of what we could or should do. we keep hearing “I know your kids out there!” & “just don’t give up hope”. They dont know that hope is the most dangerous thing of all. <3 Thanks for being so transparent in sharing your story!

Brandi, thank you for your very wise words and excellent writing. Im an old guy with a daughter who is working to embrace her childlessness after three invitro attempts. As she said to me, I’ve put my life on ‘hold’ long enough, and i’m ready to live again. Your blog helps, and she referred you to me, and others. Your writing helps so many! So please, keep on doing this. Now, the reason I’m commenting here is that, so far, I’ve read nothing about the potentiality of emerging destructive behavior arising in adopted children. This is something that concerns me more and more. I’m a pastor, mainline denomination, approaching retirement in a few years, and over the years I have encountered a number of families/couples who have adopted and embraced their children with amazing love and support. Only to then experience a world of pain, even horror, when these same children begin exploding with amazingly destructive behavior. Most often it begins with the onset of puberty and racing hormones. Something is triggered, something that controls/affects behavior. Research scientists in the field of Behavior Genetics have yielded more and more studies that show our personalities and behaviors are tied far more to our genetics than we ever thought. The bottom line is that in adopting , now thanks to mandated confidentiality issues, potential parents face great difficulty in discovering the background and behavior of the child’s parents. This is scary. Because the dark truth here is that this baby/toddler/child, who is so sweet and innocent now, has a high probability of, starting in puberty, duplicating the destructive behavior of that child’s parents/grandparents, etc. What makes this so scary is that no matter how much we love, support, change the home environment, there is a high probability that this will make little difference in that child exploding in destructive behavior as puberty develops. Please understand: all adolescents engage in struggling for independence, for exerting their will, some more, some less. All of us do that. What I’m talking about is behavior that goes beyond what would be labeled ‘normal’ adolescent rebellion into something much, much darker. This seems to be the hidden, not-talked-about, almost secret info connected to adoption. I think it is so because when the adopted teenager begins to behave anti-social ways, we all tend to believe that this is what all teens do. But for so many families who have adopted children, their much loved adopted child gets more destructive, gets more rebellious. I have yet to find a study that deals with this. Hopefully, some good research team will eventually do so. In the meantime, I caution all couples who are seriously (and I mean, like you–and you write about this so very, very well, and wisely) considering adoption, find out what you can about the background/family of origin of the child and any trauma anyone in that family may have experienced (for trauma–war, abuse, physical deprivation,etc–affects generations, most often the grandchildren and great-great grandchildren). They need to discover what they can about the parents behavior, with the understanding that such just may begin to emerge from the child as well. Will this stop most couples from adopting? Probably. But it won’t stop all. And that’s precisely what encourages me, for those who DO then proceed will be those very special couples who just might be able to break whole generational cycles of destruction by being willing to deal with this in informed, effective, loving ways.

YES! This sounds almost exactly like my story. What hurts the most is that only one person in my life has confirmed my decision. My decision was that I chose my husband. When we said our vows, I didn’t commit to him only if we could have children together, or only if he would agree to adopt if we were infertile. Yet with the exception of that one friend, everyone else seems to think that I would be better off to force my husband into adopting – when he doesn’t have the heart for it. Or it would be better to kick my husband to the curb and go and adopt on my own. But I don’t want to trade in my husband for a child. Does it hurt that I don’t have a child? Yes. For sure! But I do have the love of my life!!!!!

As an adoptee, I say thank you. I’ve seen someone with special needs adopted into a family that probably should not have adopted. I’m not sure they were both on the same page. However, when the woman could not have children, they jumped to adoption. Then divorce within 2 years.