Recently, one of the parents in an Adoptive Parent s Support Group I lead shared a blog that an acquaintance of hers had written about the reality of the adoption process. I wanted to share some of the excerpts from that blog here. They are powerful words . . .
“Adoption Is not a happy ending or a finish line or a nice bow to wrap up a story. It is agreeing to enter into a beautiful and brutal commitment to try and get a wounded stranger to become family.
Adoption is trauma. It can be healing. But it is for sure trauma. It is the full acceptance that some of the pieces of a person’s past couldn’t or wouldn’t or shouldn’t fit the way they were meant to. Sometimes those pieces are completely missing. Sometimes those pieces are broken. Sometimes those pieces are unsafe.
And the adoptee is working through those pieces all the while trying to navigate how the new pieces could, would, or should fit and wondering why or how they will fit any better or any different than the pieces that couldn’t or wouldn’t or shouldn’t from their past.
Adoption is hard. It can be redemptive. It can rewrite stories. But it is hard. It is hard on the adoptee. Hard on the adoptive parents. Hard on the birth parents. Hard on the adoptee’s new and biological siblings.
Adoption is necessary and good and lovely ad life-changing. Don’t get me wrong. But it is a knock-down, drag-out, soul-crushing fight. If you know an adoptive family, no matter how put-together and hopeful and connected they seem to find ways to join them in the fight.
Adoption is not the finish line. It’s a starting point.
Adoption is not a happy ending. It’s a new beginning.
Adoption is right as heaven and hard as hell.”