There are situations when it is abundantly clear that an adoption took place.  The parents may have needed to take a lot of time off work for travel, or a group of people see the mother on a regular basis and go from seeing her slim one day and with a baby the next, or the parents look nothing like their adopted child.  But what if there’s a scenario where there really is no obvious opportunity when disclosing the adoption is necessary?  Who really ought to know?

For one thing, if a close relative may not be fully supportive of the adoption, and it’s possible to avoid telling that person, it may be a good idea to consider this option.  Perhaps the relationship can thrive without this information while the child is young.  Once the child is old enough to choose whom to tell, it can be up to her or him to make that decision.  Hopefully, by then, the relationship with the relative in question had already solidified and this information won’t negatively affect it.

If a person is known not to keep things private, then it is as good as done to tell everyone by telling this person.  If there is anyone parents want to keep the information from, it may be necessary to keep the information from this motor-mouth as well.

Finally, parents may simply not want to have adoption qualify every single conversation they have about parenting.  Perhaps it’s not so much that they don’t want to tell, but that they want to regain some level of normalcy in life, especially if they adopted after long-term infertility.  Mothers especially may simply want to fit into a mom’s group without being “the adoptive mom”.  Those pursuing adoptive breastfeeding may want to avoid ignorant comments.  Or parents may simply want to dodge the often rude comments from people who seem surprised at how “normal” the parent-child relationship is between them and their adopted child.

I think it is possible, depending on a family’s unique circumstances, to be fully open about the adoption with the child from the beginning, while at the same time being judicious with who knows outside the immediate family.  Ultimately, the child has the right to tell whomever she or he wants to know.  Until then, I don’t see why adoptive parents can’t simply fail to mention this detail of how their child joined their family.  Just like a cesarian birth may not come up automatically except when the topic warrants it, so too, I believe it can be with adoption.  If it comes up, great.  If not, don’t force it.

What are your thoughts on this?

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What exactly does it mean when we say that we adopted embryos? We “adopted” one batch of embryos directly from the genetic parents back in 2011. We transferred two of them into my uterus at a time, but both attempts failed. I mourned the loss of those little ones as though they had lived in my home before passing on. I made a special tribute for them, named them, and collected little mementos to remember them by. At the time, I remember thinking that they may have been as close as I’ll ever get to being a mother, so it was important for me to have something tangible to remind me of this fact.

Then at the start of this year we were ready to try again. This time, we “adopted” a batch of embryos from the clinic who already had full legal rights to them. The arrangement is completely anonymous, and while I never thought I’d feel comfortable with such an arrangement, I do. However, with the memory of loss, however early on it was, I was unable to go through this transfer with the same level of hope and enthusiasm.

Guarding my heart yielded to disbelief as each new step revealed that we had a strong little baby growing inside of me. Once the dreaded nausea set in last week, I’ve been so mentally and physically exhausted that I haven’t been able to think lucidly or reasonably. I started doubting if we made the right decision. I started worrying about how we would explain embryo adoption to the baby. I started questioning if I could possibly handle the idea of having 5 children in heaven now that we were going to hopefully have one on Earth.

And then it hit me; I am grieving the genetic loss to my child. I never once thought this was something that mattered to me. Sure, it would’ve been neat to have this or that feature to compare, but it was nothing worth losing sleep over. Until now. Now, I worry that I’m not bonding with my baby because we are not genetically related to each other.

I’ve thought of all the other things we get to share by virtue of me carrying and giving birth to this baby, not to mention the ongoing parenting relationship we will develop after birth. Yet right now, I feel like a surrogate. Even though I know that no one else in the world can claim this baby – something I worried about in the back of my mind with open adoption – I still cannot deny the fact that there’s a family out there with three children who are this baby’s full genetic siblings.

I’m upset that I won’t be able to provide for the baby that genetic link. I’m concerned that the baby will have identity issues or concerns over the way she or he came to our family via an anonymous donation and 8 years in the freezer!

I suppose like any adoptive mother, I’m worried about all the ways I might fall short in the eyes of my child, all the things I am unable to provide for her or him because of the adoption factor. I’m worried about proudly proclaiming having adopted this baby only to have to try to explain to people how it was that I also carried and birthed her or him.

I worry about having to hear the phrase “real parents”, either from my child or from others. Perhaps I can get away with it if a person assumes the biological mother to be the “real” mother, since that I am. But what about my husband?

One of the reasons we chose to adopt rather than use a single gamete donor is to have an equal relationship to our child. Yet now I realize that the pregnancy will give me an advantage no matter what. My husband gets to live and love the birth mother of his child without having to worry about her changing her mind and him losing the chance to parent this baby. But he remains an adoptive dad. Perhaps once the baby is born, it won’t matter anyway.

For now, though, I’m questioning what I’ve been told about embryo adoption. It has been called the best of both worlds, yet I see it more like the worst of both worlds. On one hand, I have to deal with all the negative symptoms of pregnancy and later the labor pains, while at the same time I have to deal with the fact that neither I nor my husband are genetically linked to our child. It just doesn’t seem fair to have to go through both.

The only thing I have to cling to is that we went into this transfer, this embryo adoption, having discerned God’s will. We prayed not for our desire to be fulfilled, but for His will to be done. Granted, I don’t know what I’d be doing with my life if I weren’t en route to motherhood, but in the end, this is unfolding precisely as the Lord would have it. I just need to trust that something life-affirming will come out of these conflicting emotions I’m having.

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Other times, the crowd gasps when Maury announces, “You are NOT the father!”  Here, the woman generally begins to cry, maybe even runs off stage, realizing that someone else, someone she had hoped was not her baby’s father, actually is.  Other times, it’s even worse.  Sometimes several men are tested, and when none are proven to be the father, her public humiliation is even greater.  Of course, what never ceases to amaze me is how these men don’t run out of insults to describe their x-girlfriends, when in fact it always takes two to tango.

At any rate, the Maury Povich show makes it seem so simple.  A little swab and a quick DNA test and voila! Paternity is established.  The baby officially has a father.  Now the woman can file for child support, the man can insist on visitation, and everyone knows who both the parents are.

When I think about having a child not genetically related to me, I sometimes ponder what may seem like a far-fetched fear; what if someone challenges my right to my child someday?  What if I don’t have access to all the pertinent paperwork that establishes my husband and me as our child’s parent, or the person in question presumes that only a DNA test will do?  Yes, I actually worry that someone might take my child away from me because only a paper trail connects us officially.

Perhaps I worry about this because I’ve had children who were or would’ve been in my care removed.  We parented our foster daughter for 10 months before we lost her and we were specifically prohibited from seeing her.  We’ve watched as her mom jumped through all the hoops to regain custody of her, only to continue a life of partying even after having a second child.

We planned for the arrival of our would-be son for 3 months before his birth mother texted us that she changed her mind.  Over the years, we’ve had to watch the little guy be shimmied back and forth as his parents try to figure out how to establish a stable family unit for him now that they are no longer together.

Children are assumed to belong with their genetic parents even when these parents do not live up to the responsibilities that come with the title.  To become an adoptive parent, on the other hand, we have to jump through so many hoops to try to prove that we will be good enough, and even then, a simple change of heart by a blood relative at the opportune moment sends all of our efforts down the drain.

Ignorance really is bliss.  Without these experiences, I would assume that once I’m a mother, all would be well with the world again, and no one would ever question the parent-child relationship between my daughter or son and me, because our connection would just be so evident.  But alas, we do not live in a world of common sense or even justice, for that matter.  Some people will always question if I am the “real” mother.

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In general, when people hear adoption, they imagine a baby or perhaps an older child who has been orphaned, and they imagine one or more adult strangers taking it upon themselves to make the child a part of their family.  Newborn domestic adoption as well as international adoption and foster care adoption all fall into this category.

However, there are a couple of slightly different scenarios that also involve adults taking on the rights and responsibilities of parenting a child to whom they are not genetically related.  In these scenarios, while the adopted children will not have all of the same experiences common to traditional adoptees, they will nonetheless experience at least some of them.  It would be doing these children and their parents a disservice to presume that they cannot consider theirs an adoptive family.

In kinship adoption, where the child and adoptive parents generally already know and love each other before the adoption takes place, the child doesn’t leave her or his original family but rather moves within in, often to the grandparents’ home, or an aunt or uncle’s, or even an older sibling’s. Oftentimes, such arrangements are not legally finalized in court, which results in an informal adoption.  The child lives with the new parental figures, who are responsible for the child in all aspects of life, but no formal court adoption decree is issued.

In step-parent adoption, a child remains with one of their biological parents whose new spouse then adopts their step-son or step-daughter.  This effectively establishes a legal parental relationship between the new parent and child which takes the place of the previous parent. While it is true that a stranger becomes the child’s parent, The other parent remains a constant in his or her life.

Finally, the newest variation on an old theme is embryo adoption.  Because the parents – especially the mother – get to experience pregnancy and birth, and because the child never experiences a conscious loss of an original parent, some question whether the term “adoption” is appropriate.  Again, while certainly not comparable to a traditional adoption in many ways, the fact remains that newly conceived human beings grow, develop, and are raised by a family that is not genetically related to them.  Therefore, there is an aspect of adoption for the family built by embryo adoption, just like there is an aspect of adoption for the family built by kinship adoption or step-parent adoption.

In the end, what matters is that the family members love one another and do not let circumstances dictate who can and cannot be a mother- or father-figure for the affected children.  The terminology may differ, as can the extent of the loss for the various members of the triad, but all fall under the umbrella term of adoption.

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Yet by adopting us as His own, God in no way denies us our earthly parents. In fact, we are commanded to honor and respect them: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and your mother (which is the first commandment with a promise), So that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the Earth” (Ephesians 6:1-3).

God is not threatened by our relationship with our parents, so why do so many of us feel threatened by our children’s relationships (or potential relationships) with their birth parents? Of course, we are not perfect, and so we are prone to human weaknesses such as jealousy, self-consciousness, and pride. But we do have a divine example for how to be adoptive parents, don’t we?

And when we do feel threatened by derogatory terminology such as “real parents” being tossed around, why not reflect on 1 John 3:1, which states: “the people who belong to this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children because they don’t know him.” If people won’t recognize our claim to the inheritance we have in the Lord, then how can we expect more when it comes to our claim to human relationships formed via adoption?

While not everyone is called to adopt, some are. If you feel a pulling on your heart, spend some time on the following verse and see what the Holy Spirit wants to tell you through it. “Whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me”, says Jesus in Matthew 18:5. Think about that for a second. If you welcome a child into your home, in God’s eyes, it is one and the same as though you were opening your home to Christ Himself.

Furthermore, in James 1:27, it says that “pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans.” Now, again, not everyone is called to adopt, but we are all called to care for orphans in some capacity. For some of us, this does indeed mean adopting them into our families and making them our own children.

What’s more, don’t let naysayers discourage you if you’re considering international or transracial adoption. Look at what the Lord has to say in John 11. In verse 51, Caiaphas the high priest prophesied that Jesus would die, but not only for the nation of Israel. Verse 52 continues: “not only for that nation, but to bring together and unite all the children of God scattered around the world.” Remember, we are all God’s children, all siblings to each other. There are no relevant distinctions between believers, for we are all “one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).

According to Romans 8:15-16, we “received God’s Spirit when he adopted [us] as his own children. Now we call him, ‘Abba, Father.’ For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children.” In the same way, once adopted, our children affirm that they are our children through and through when they call us mom and dad. What more do we need to know that we are a family?

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For years, my husband and I were big proponents of openness in adoption.  From the first attempt at adopting, we sought out situations where the birth family was interested in maintaining contact over the years, so that the child would have a sense of continuity, get their questions answered straight from the source, and we’d avoid “the search”.

When all doors to traditional adoption closed and we turned to embryo adoption, we carried the same mentality with us.  We got to know a donor family who ended up choosing us for their embryos.  We met several times, and we started to settle into having an “extended family” type relationship.  Granted, the genetic mother’s and my personalities weren’t very compatible.  Had it not been for the embryos, we probably never would have become friends.  That’s not at all to say there was anything I didn’t like about her; I’m just an introvert, and not everyone knows what to do with me!

When our attempts at parenthood with these embryos failed, I had conflicting emotions.  I was of course devastated that we were going back to the drawing board.  Yet at the same time, I was grateful for the opportunity to reconsider openness for the next go-round.  I learned something about myself through the experience of adopting and transferring those four embryos.  I went through the naming-as-claiming process of first naming the sibling group, then each pair (we transferred them two at a time), and finally, after all was said and done, I gave them my favorite human names. I named them, so I claimed them.  And yet, as it turned out, I was still very insecure about my role in their tiny, short-lived lives.

I blogged about my conflicting emotions because they were real, and I think it’s important to be honest with oneself as well as with others, if one is trying to help people making similar decisions down the road.  What I didn’t anticipate was that our donors would read this blog, or that they would be hurt by what I wrote.

Of course, I never intended to hurt our donors, to whom we continue to be very grateful.  Yet I couldn’t help the way I felt, either.  Now, it’s a moot point.  But it reaffirms for me that something I struggled so hard against for 5 years, namely lack of access to our adopted child’s genetic family, was actually the only arrangement that I would be comfortable with.

I am now ready to proceed again, this time through an anonymous situation, and I am confident in my abilities as a mother.  I’m not concerned about trying to get the genetic family’s approval for the multitude of decisions that come with child rearing.  I am free to give my best to my child.

Do I wish that things had turned out differently?  Sure.  I wish the reality of an open adoption would’ve turned out to be what I had expected, and that I would be a mother by now.  I wish that I hadn’t hurt our donors’ feelings in the process of dealing with my own conflicting emotions.  But in the larger scheme of things, I know that everything I’ve gone through in life has gotten me one step closer to my forever child.  In that regard, I cannot regret even the heartaches.

But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to notice things and reminisce and develop a whole new appreciation for my family.  Recently, I had passport photos taken.  When I looked at the finished product, I realized that I recognized my mother, aunt, grandmother in the woman looking back at me.  It wasn’t necessarily anything specific about my features that I could pinpoint.  The face just looked familiar, but not in the way that my reflection looks familiar in the mirror.

And then I sighed at the thought that the buck stops here.  Whatever resemblances I may be picking up on in myself will not get passed on to my children.  It’s not that the features are so great; it’s that they’re familiar.  There’s a history there, and positive associations.

If a given feature is foreign to us, give it time.  Once we establish positive associations with the new feature by spending time with people who look a certain way, it will become second nature to us, as if the new feature had always been a part of our family history.

I spent the first 20 years of my life with no particular affinity to Latinos.  Then I met my husband.  Now, even though I may not be able to relate to all of their cultural nuances, I am fond of the physical features people share with him because they are familiar to me. I look into my husband’s face and I see the bone structure of a Central American Indian.  I look into his eyes and I’m reminded of Mediterraneans. All of a sudden, through my positive associations with my husband, my fondness has grown for several segments of the population, even though they look nothing like me.

I think the same thing will be true of our children.  While their features may not be similar to mine or my husband’s, they will nonetheless become endearing precisely because they will be the features of my children.  I don’t love my relatives because of their features; I love their features because they belong to people who are important to me.  And that’s all that is important anyway.

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For starters, grandparents have no rights to their grandchildren. Right away, people defend the parents’ right to make all decisions regarding their children, without their parents’ input. Why the defensiveness? Generally speaking, each parent already has to share their rights and responsibilities with their co-parent. Only in custody cases or situations where both parents have not been fully involved do parents get offended at the thought of having to “share” their child.

I understand that there are families where the relationship between grandparents and parents is strained, but why make broad generalizations based on negative exceptions? For instance, when it comes to adoption, grandparents may actually know better than the parents what is in the best interest of their grandchild.

When my husband and I were pursuing independent adoption, we worked with two grandmothers who were very committed to the adoption plans for their grandkids. Of course, they had no legal right to make such decisions, and we were aware of this. One of the young ladies ended up parenting, for better or for worse. The other young lady stalled on taking the decision into her own hands. The result was that the child was removed from her care and has since been adopted by his foster parents.

Neither grandmother was interested in adopting her grandchild herself. I suppose it’s a matter of opinion whether they should have had more rights and/or responsibilities towards their grandchildren. In other situations, the grandparents may very well long to keep their grandchild in their family, stepping up to adopt themselves if necessary, yet cannot legally prevent their son or daughter from placing the child with strangers who may not even keep the family of origin in the child’s life. I don’t even have children yet, but this is one of the things I worry about – the idea that my child might want to place their child with an adoptive family, and that I would be unable to take my own grandchild in.

I have to wonder, what comes first? The grandparents not wanting to take on parenting roles for their grandchildren? Or the grandparents not being afforded any legal claims to the grandkids?

When we were fostering, we met both of our foster daughter’s grandmothers. They were both offered the opportunity to take little “VV” home as her parents worked their plan. Somehow, both managed to find excuses for not doing so. One of the grandmothers repeatedly claimed to want to take her granddaughter, but she was simply unwilling to jump through the hoops required by social services.

Perhaps this is a symptom of a larger phenomenon – the cult of youth and a general lack of respect for one’s elders. Maybe it’s that streak of independence that is deemed even more important than keeping families together, because the good of the individual is greater than the good of the group. I don’t know. I just hope that my husband and I are able to raise our children in such a way that they would feel comfortable including us in their life decisions, including the ability to watch our grandchildren grow up.

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Adoption is a calling, and just because it is a good thing, it is not something that every believer is called to do. The adoption process, and even more so adoptive parenting, takes certain skills and strengths.  It is not enough to have “the right values” of compassion, patience, open-mindedness.  Adoption is not just another way to serve God by doing good deeds.

God calls each of His children to different tasks in this life.  Our job is not to superimpose what we think would be a good way to serve God onto Him.  Our job is to discern His will for our lives.  God does not call each of His children to adopt, just like He doesn’t call each of us to go into the medical field, or into teaching, or any number of honorable professions through which we can be Christ’s hands and feet in the world.

In 1 Corinthians 12:4-7, we are reminded to work together to build up Christ’s body here on Earth: ^“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord. There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all persons. But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”  Note that not everyone is called to the same ministry.

When we began our adoption journey, I was a believer only on paper.  My faith didn’t go beyond church on Sunday and an occasional prayer.  And when I did pray, it was as if I were a child making a wish list for Santa Clause.  Sometimes I promised to be good if I got what I wanted; other times, I actually insisted that I already deserved what I was asking for.  Neither options is a good way to approach the Almighty!

I have come a long way since beginning my journey.  My faith, as well as that of my husband, has grown exponentially. I have learned to pray to God in a way that always qualifies whatever request I have with a surrender to His will.  I have refocused on pleasing God and not myself, and on trusting that He knows better than I do what will truly make me fulfilled in life.  (Hint: it may not necessarily be motherhood!)

Furthermore, as we’ve gone from one type of adoption to another, and as we’ve experienced heartache after heartache, finally culminating in a very unexpected and heart-breaking door to traditional adoption slamming shut, I’ve had to face the reality that God is in control.  He is the one Who will guide me to where He wants me to be, as long as I let Him lead.

Do I still want to raise a child?  Of course.  Do I still think I will be afforded the opportunity?  I hope.  Do I still insist on pursuing parenthood at all costs, ignoring all other aspects of my life in the process?  Not anymore.  I am already complete in the Lord.  Motherhood will not give me what only the Lord can provide.

Maybe God used the last 5 years of our lives, years spent pursuing every imaginable type of adoption, not so that I could get what I want, but so that I could get what I need: a deep faith in His providence, and a focus on the eternal.

I caution you to jump too quickly into adoption, or into one type of adoption over another.  Take the time to discern what exactly is God’s will for you.  Don’t presume to know better than Him.  With an eye on God’s will, you will undoubtedly be blessed.

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I made a list of pros and cons for both newborn and older child adoption.  I thought of the loss of sleep and regular crying that naturally comes with parenting a newborn baby.  As much as I loved cuddling wee-babies and getting a whiff of their new-baby-scent, my patience runs thin in the face of noise, especially when sleep-deprived.  I managed to get through the Army’s basic training on irregular and minimal sleep and incessant order-barking, but did I really want to recapture that aspect of my past when it came to parenting?

Plus, what I really looked forward to when I thought of parenting was the conversations, the shared experiences, the imparting of wisdom.  I didn’t need to adopt the child at birth for this.

In my ignorance, I romanticized the idea of older-child adoption.  I pictured a child of my same temperament – shy, polite, quiet.  My husband and I started frequenting online photolistings of children in foster care who were awaiting adoption.

I wanted to adopt a sibling set of Hispanic kids.  My husband is Latino, and we both speak Spanish, so I thought we’d be able to provide a smooth transition to these kids.  I didn’t take into consideration that many Latino kids live with non-Spanish speaking foster parents, or that they may actually associate the language with their birth parents, which may not conjure up a warm-and-fuzzy feeling at all.

I think the only factor that I nailed was that siblings should stay together whenever possible.  Otherwise, I was completely clueless regarding the unique needs of children who have experienced neglect or abuse, who have been shuffled from foster home to foster home, or who have simply lived long enough to have already developed a personality strong enough to not be so easily molded by adoptive parents.

All these practical points aside, I still remember the first set of brothers we found on a photolisting.  They were 3 and 5 years old.  We nicknamed them the “M & Ms”.  I visualized what their room would look like, based on the information in their profile.  There would be fire-trucks, car-beds, bright red and blue decorations… I let my imagination run wild as we waited to hear back from their social worker.  When we finally did, we were disappointed to learn that, in spite of there being no mention of this in their profile, they wanted to place the boys in their own state.

We also attended a couple of Heart Gallery events.   We walked around a building whose hallways were covered with large photos of older children awaiting adoption, next to which there were tiny blurbs about them.  We noted the kids that caught our attention, and we followed up at home.

The oldest child we inquired about was a 14 year old girl, yet after speaking at length with her social worker, we just couldn’t bring ourselves to take the leap of faith.  There were things that were brought up regarding her behavior that, on the one hand, could be a simple description of normal teenaged behavior, but on the other hand, could be signs of serious issues such as an attachment disorder.  We wanted to meet her, because we were sure that was the only way to gauge appropriately if we may be a good match, but we were not allowed to do so prior to committing to the adoption.

In spite of the option of so-called match-parties organized by social services where older children and potential adoptive parents mingle, specifically with the intention of there being a spark between a given child and parents, it seems that this is not nearly as popular a networking tool as I’d expect.  Instead, older child adoption operates very much like an arranged marriage, decided on by someone who really doesn’t completely know the parents or the children.

The inability to meet them may have been what ended up keeping us from adopting an older child.  Perhaps this worked out for the best, as I now see the specialized skills and personality traits that go into parenting a child adopted at an older age.  Yet I still wonder if maybe we shouldn’t have taken a leap of faith with one of the kids.  I didn’t have this kind of faith before, but now I know that God wouldn’t let us adopt a child we couldn’t handle.

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