Throughout the adoption process, when people heard that we were adopting they automatically looked at us like we were defective. They would ask if we had tried hormones, in-vitro, or if my husband was not able to make babies. There are no biological reasons why we went the adoption route. The choice to adopt was just that for us, a choice. We made a conscious choice to prevent ourselves from getting pregnant; we made the choice to adopt as a couple from the beginning of our marriage.
You would be surprised at how differently families that adopt are treated compared to those who have biological children. When a person is pregnant you see the excitement in your friends and families eyes. The anticipation that they have because soon you will be having this beautiful baby for them to awe over is not there when you tell them you are adopting.
The adoption process is a long, hard one. There is no guarantee that in nine months that you will have a child to call your own. Couples in the midst of adoption basically sit and wait for that phone to ring, for someone to tell them they have a potential match. The couple may get pictures of children they being considered for. If another family is chosen for that child, the family that did not get the child will experience something called “Adoption Loss”. In many ways it is similar to what a person will feel if they have a miscarriage. You think you are getting a child but someone decides that the child would be a better match for another family. The child whose picture you had stared at for hours on end, whose eyes and smile you memorized and can see if you close your eyes, is now someone else’s.
Although with “adoption loss” there is no physical aspect but the emotional loss is a very hard one. I cannot imagine the loss that a person that experiences when they have a miscarriage as I never had one. I can say that “adoption loss” hurts; I still have pictures in my head of the brother and sister that we were put in for. I will never forget what they looked like, for a long while we thought they would be our children. People don’t seem to understand the loss that we had, they wonder how we could regret losing a child we never met? The answer is an easy one, if you were pregnant and whether you loss the baby or it was born, did you love it before you held it? Same for me, I loved the children we were put in for and will always think of them and their big brown eyes.
See more of our process through other entries:
Becoming A Mom through adoption