Adoption: Love is all you Need

I remember so vividly the scene in 16 & Pregnant when Tyler and Caitlin told their parents they were giving their baby up for adoption.  When they listed all that they couldn't provide for their child.  And Tyler's father's response was "Love is all you need."  And I was dumbfounded when this 17 year old boy responded, "No, you need more than love.  You need diapers, you need food, you need a job!"  How telling that this kid realized that you need more than feelings (or Beatles' lyrics) to raise a child.

Some children are adopted because they come from poverty or young parents, like Tyler and Caitlin.  And some kids are adopted because someone intervened to protect them from abuse or neglect.  Either way, children who leave their birth parents experience a huge loss.  As I have traveled on this road of adoption as a foster mother and adoptive mother, I have learned more and more about the deep wound of separation and loss.

Hearing adopted people talk about their grief makes my heart constrict.  Partly it hurts me to watch people experience this level of trauma.  After all, it was the deep love and compassion in me that led me to fill out all the papers and make a place for this child in my home and in my family.  I don't want him to hurt, to grieve.  My greatest desire for all my children is wholeness.  But part of me is selfish.  Part of the pain I feel centers on my wish to be enough.  I want to be the only mom some days.  I want to fill all the empty places in my child's heart.  The reality is that I can't.  I can't be the cure.  I can't erase the past.  I can only love enough to fill one piece of my son's heart; that love can't fix everything.

As adoptive parents, we have two choices.  We can stick our fingers in our ears and hum "La La La" as loudly as necessary to drown out the voices telling us that adoption is painful, or we can surrender our pride and accept that our children need more than our love to come into adulthood with healthy, intact hearts.

Brother and Sister 2014

For me, this means doing all I can to maintain relationships with members of my son's first family.  We are not necessarily close or in daily contact, but we are able to get together once or twice a year and celebrate this boy that we all love.  It means letting another woman share the title of "Mom", of stepping aside so she can bond with our son.  It means sharing my weaknesses and frustrations and selfishness with my husband behind closed doors, and not making a child responsible for my happiness.  It means learning and researching adoption issues and preparing myself for future conversations.  It means pointing out people who have already walked this road, whether they are friends and neighbors or Buddy the Elf.  It means parenting without a map.  It means delving into the Beatles' catalog and choosing to quote from the song "Help!" when discussing parenting and adoption.  It means I need more than love; I need openness, grace, and support to keep going.

Two mommies