This is my adoption story as an infant adoptee from a voluntary adoption agency. I preface with that sentence as I believe it explains why I feel the way I do about my adoption. I consider myself one of the lucky ones. Adoption is traumatic no matter what age you are placed, but there are different levels of trauma and those levels effect how you cope in life. Not only how you cope with your adoption, but how you cope with outside factors as well. Even though I was placed at the ideal time for ME, there is still a stigma in society about adoption. The question I always get is: why didn’t your “real” family love or choose to keep you? Below is how I answer that.
I have a large, loud family that while growing up felt overwhelming at times, but now is so fun. I grew up going to great schools and having a wonderful group of friends that are still with me to this day. I had the ideal childhood with my mom as my chauffer, home chef, and confidant and having my dad at the dinner table every night and hauling chairs and suntan lotion to the beach every weekend. My parents were there to help me with my homework or rub my back when I was sick. They made it to every tennis match, soccer game and dance recital. I had the ability to try everything even though my parents knew there was a 50% chance I would not follow through with it. There was a lot of instruments, soccer cleats, tennis skirts, and ballet shoes bought that would never see the light of day. I grew up with 5 siblings who all had their own lives and interests as well. With 6 children in one family there are bound to be attention seeking behaviors, but my parents always made us all a priority and made us feel important. Of course, no family is perfect, we have dealt with our own crises over the years. The teenage/early adult years were especially rough. However, when I look back on my life as an adult one theme is ever-present. Love and a sense of belonging.
I know for a fact my parents thought about my adoption more than I did. I mean let’s be real they were there and I really wasn’t. I was only concerned with my next bottle and being held. And growing up I was mainly concerned with my next trip to Limited Too or when I would get to play with my friends next. Every once in a while it would come up due to doctor appointments or when I started learning about the birds and the bee’s. I think this has a lot to do with how open my parents where with my adoption story. I never felt like I couldn’t go to them if I was curious. I know this feeling of connection also has to do with the fact that I had a biological sibling in the form of a twin sister with me. If I felt I needed a biological connection I would just look to her. This is not to say that it did not affect me, of course it did, but again I consider myself one of the lucky ones. Of course I was curious about my first families hobbies and what kind of personality traits they could have passed down to me. Curious if they had the same hair and eye color or if they had the same hobbies as me. Curious if they ever had other children or if they accomplished the goals they hoped for when they were young. But I never felt the need to have that one on one meeting or connection. I never felt like there was something missing from my story. Of course as an adult who is starting to decide how and when to grow my own family, I am starting to understand what my first family had to of gone through to make this decision and I respect and thank them whole heartedly for making it.
My first family made the hardest decision of their lives and chose my well-being over their own wishes and my forever family chose me to be their child and to love and care for me for the rest of my life. So to that earlier question I answer “how could I have been any more loved or chosen than for two separate families to choose me?”
*The sentiments expressed in this blog represent Cradle of Life Staff and/or Clients and do not necessarily reflect the sentiments or policies of all adoption agencies.