Loss

Seems to me that while everyone focuses on the joys and miracle of adoption, the love we can pour into a child and the love we get back, there is a tremendous need to acknowledge a bunch of other feelings too! Not to be a downer, but EVERYONE in this experience loses, before we gain, right?! The child loses their birthparents often a few moments after coming into the world; the birthparents experience loss at the same time, or even before as they know what's going to happen from the moment they signed away parental rights; and the adoptive parents, well....most likely they had losses in order to get to adoption, and then they have to cope with losing their own experience of having a child that looks like them, thinks and reacts like them, losing their ability to carry a child and the feelings that go along with it...hey, I can go on! How 'bout dealing with so many people discussing whether or not this is your REAL child (even your child himself!)...WHEW. I just think it's important to be able to own ALL the feelings, to be open to true experience and that we must give the message to our children that this is all okay to discuss. By keeping the realities of adoption (ALL of them) out in the open, we foster pride and self-esteem, even in our differences. We model and teach our children how to cope with a wide array of emotions, not just easy ones. By making it clear that there are feelings and realities that are unspeakable, we foster shame and isolation, hiding and often, depression.

This is not easy. I believe this is when we need each other to help figure out how to say things...to compare experiences, to figure out what is the "normal" here; to share how to cope with issues that just don't happen in the same way in biological families; to help make understandable what seems totally baffling. It is my hope that readers of these postings will chime in to share and discuss...