Thursday, February 01, 2007

Adopting Again

One of my friends always says the following: When you are single, everyone wants to know when you are getting married. When you are married, everyone wants to know when you will have your first child. When you have your first child, everyone wants to know when you will have your second child. When you have a second child, everyone thinks you are crazy if you are going to have a third.

Yes, if you are wondering, J has three children. I am at the first child stage. Everyone wants to know if we’re going to adopt again.

If you read the other blog that I write for, you know that my husband and I went through a rather lengthy decision making process before deciding that we did want to adopt our second child. For quite some time, we couldn’t seem to be on the same page. Until my son turned two, I couldn’t even think of a second child without starting to shake. Learning to be a parent was taking up all of my brain power and I had to fight the urge to hyperventilate at the thought of a second child sliding into the mix.

Why do so many people assume that it is always an easy decision?

2 comments:

Hyacinth said...

Hello,
I just read your post here, and wonder to myself how it is possible for an intelligent human being to imagine that the choice to adopt, or to deliberately bear a child could be easy.

It's the most immense decision a person can make because it carries so much weight of reaponsibility. It's a whole other life being placed in the hands of a stranger.

A birth mother is a stranger. An adoptive mother/father is a stranger. Humans are an unknown quantity in the early years, until they evolve.

I can't fully explain to you why I relate so well to the shakes you'd had until the first child was two.

I didn't raise children, BUT I was a nanny of sorts to a family that heaped far too much responsibility onto my 16 years old shoulders, and I hear you loud and clear.

I am happy that you are an adoptive parent. There are so many little kids out there needing a family.

This is not an insulting remark: I never understand why people who profess to love animals, dogs specifically, will rarely adopt a poor creature waiting on death row at the municipal animal shelter, with minutes ticking by. They opt instead to buy a dog, a special brand(not a typo) that has a certain snob appeal.

Likewise, why not adopt a child, and save a life, because in many cases, that's what it amounts to.

Look, I would like to put a link from my place to yours, but you may not want me to.

Let me know. I'm available through my moderated comments, and also through e-mail via my profile.

My warm regards to you and family.

Cynthia said...

It's not an easy decision making process, but I think people tend to think the second (or third or fourth) time around is much easier. Not so, there is another person who has needs greater than your own. Will the first child make a good older sibling? Will s/he adjust well to not being the only child in the house? And where will the finances come from for another adoption? Adoption can also be a very long and emotional process, a pregnancy is emotional but you know when the baby is coming. I think for adoption, you kind of have to "gear yourself up" for the process, and that can take weeks, months, or years. There's so much that goes into building a family by adoption that people don't realize.