A Family Grown, a Family Broken

I wrote this post a couple of months ago. I am one of the contributors for a women's blog, and wrote this shortly after we signed our daughter's adoption paperwork. Her adoption will be finalized Tuesday (!), so I thought it'd be fitting to repost it on here.

A couple of days ago, we signed the adoption paperwork to finalize the adoption of our daughter. A moment that should have made me giddy with excitement, left me feeling sorrowful and heavy hearted. A great loss had to occur for us to add a member to our family. A mother and father had to lose their daughter in order for us to call her our own. I remember feeling the exact same emotions when we signed paperwork for our son just two years prior. I grieved for his mother and her poor choices that led to this moment. I was saddened that a family was broken resulting in a broken and hurt little boy. Foster care and adoption is different than private/ domestic adoption. These parents did not choose to give up their child, most of them desire to keep their children. The children are removed from the home due to drugs, abuse, or neglect. Foster care is messy, emotionally draining and heartbreaking.

Though we rejoice and celebrate that two of our four children arrived to us via foster care and adoption, I can’t help but worry. I worry that someday, the dreaded question, “why did I get taken away?” will happen. I worry that the details or lack of, and memories of bio family or lack of, will haunt them. I worry that the wound is so deep, my words of assurance and comfort won’t be able to stand a chance to their questions and disappointment. For my son, we celebrate a beautiful semi-open adoption with his biological family. I don’t have to worry that he will feel the need to seek out his bio family since we see them a handful of times a year. For my daughter, the story is quite different. There is no trace of her birth parents. Not even an option for a relationship. I grieve that for her. On the flip side, we received our daughter at just 4 days old. I have pictures and memory of her early baby stages. I don’t have to worry that she will have any missing pieces when it comes to her childhood. As for my son, I didn’t meet him until he was almost two. I missed out on his early years and have very few pictures of him as a baby. I grieve for him every time he asks me what he was like as a baby.

So while we prepare with excitement to celebrate the adoption with a huge party, part of me is sad. And I think that the sadness is okay. I am not numb to the loss. I am fully aware of the “depth of the tragedy and magnitude of the privilege”, and I am so thankful to be on this wild, crazy journey called foster care.

 “A child born to another woman calls me mom.

The depth of the tragedy and the magnitude

of the privilege are not lost on me”-

Jody Landers