Families add children by adoption for a number of reasons. For some potiential adoptive parents it is due to infertility issues or health reasons. Many single people are deciding to adopt children. Other families have had biological children and have always entertained the idea of adopting. There are as many reasons why families adopt as there are families. Most of the time people adopt children because they want to be parents.
It is easy to stereotype adoptive parents into people who have certain motivations to adopt children and will do or pay whatever it takes to adopt a child. Or in the case of adopting children from Foster Care that the parents must have done so because they are Saints and wonderful people doing a great thing for the child. Both of these perceptions and attitudes hurt adoptive parents because the bottom line is more then any other reason we adopt because we really just want to be parents. Does there need to be a bigger reason or is that enough?
For our family it was a combination of reasons and issues that lead us to the decision of adding children by adoption. I had been married and had two biological children and my husband had not been married and had no children. We first entertained the ‘idea’ of trying Invito Fertilization because I had my tubes tied when I had my second child. At the same time we started investigating the options in adoption. We were not too encouraged with the whole scientific approach and both of us had issues and risk factors that made pregnancy and childbirth a little scary. We tried one round and on the same day I got fired for being a raging crazy hormonal woman at work we found out that all the drugs I was pumping into my system were not doing what they had hoped would happen. The doctor offered us the option of an donor egg. At that point along with the other issues we leaned more toward adoption.
Special Needs and Adoption-Related Terms:
A | B | C | D | E-F | G-H-I | J-K-L | M | N-O | P | Q-R | S | T-U-V-W-X-Y-Z
For more information about parenting special needs children you might want to visit the Families.com Special Needs Blog and the Mental Health Blog. Or visit my personal website.